Praise Canada, Blame Canada

The only thing more unlikely than a sitcom about a community of Muslims in a small Canadian prairie town is said comedy becoming a hit and being sold to a French TV channel.

Soon Parisians, the Swiss and French-speaking Africans will be able to see the dubbed antics of the residents of Mercy, Saskatchewan. The show itself is amusing and genteel, lightly poking fun at the misunderstanding between the locals and a congregation of Muslims who set up a mosque in a church basement. It is not an edgy comedy like some hoped and feared, but an easy-going look at how we’re basically all the same. Aw shucks.

But it is that message that appealed to French broadcaster Canal Plus, who saw the positive message as something that the French ought to hear. "They really feel that, given all of the difficulties that France has had in the past year with diversity issues, that they want as many people to see the show as possible," said Mary Darling of Westwind Pictures, the Toronto-based company that produces Little Mosque, to the Canadian Press.

I don’t know if the show can create the kind of understanding they are hoping for, but it certainly can’t hurt. Racial tolerance is easy, comedy is hard.

Speaking of Canadian imports, not everyone is pleased with the cultural exports of my fellow citizens. Canada is a hotbed of movie piracy, according to Hollywood studios and Warner Bros. is having no more of it – canceling all advance screenings of its films.

Warner prez Dan Fellman says about 70 per cent of its films over the past 18 months have been camcorded illegally while showing in Canada. "If we do previews and promotional screenings and radio promotions, we're going to have a pirated copy around the world before the movie opens in many countries," said Fellman.

I‘m shocked to hear that people were recording at preview screenings as the last few I attended were truly onerous affairs. Your bags were searched before entering the theatre and multiple security guards starred at you with night vision goggles throughout the movie. Of course canceling the screenings will just delay the inevitable by two or three days. Perhaps it is just an admission that these word of mouth campaigns have little value as most people have already heard about new films though online sites. The internet giveth and the internet taketh away.

Everybody Loves Ramadan

The frenzy around Little Mosque on the Prairie (of which I have indulged) has been fascinating to watch. Even before the first episode made it to air it faced criticism for poking too much fun at Muslims, for not poking enough fun at Muslims, for not being edgy and for trying to push social mores on a gullible public. Talk about not pleasing all the people all the time.

For those who haven’t heard about this tempest in a sitcom, the show is about a group of Muslims in small-town Saskatchewan and the reaction of the locals when they start up a mosque with a new imam from Toronto. Hilarity ensues.

Canadian Press reports that Tarek Fatah, founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress, had "reservations about the depiction of Muslims as essentially a people whose lives revolve around a mosque. This is patently untrue," he said, adding that he fears the show will only serve to "pigeonhole Muslims as not more than a group that prays and preaches."

Meanwhile the Globe and Mail’s Margaret Wente, who says Prairie “painfully correct,” calls it part of the CBC’s mandate to instruct and uplift, complaining that no sacred cows get gored. She then goes on to detail the hyper-realistic depiction of Muslims in Canada that she’d like to watch – which read remarkably like a newscast.

What I find amazing is that there is so much weight on Little Mosque’s shoulders – and all over a sitcom. "To me, this is not a political show, this is not about the Iraq war, it's not about 9/11," say the show's creator, Zarqa Nawaz. "First and foremost, it's entertainment.” And that’s where Little Mosque succeeds. Sure, it’s not breaking any new ground – the fish-out-of-water is a comedy standard – and some of the characters are caricatures, but it was the premiere of a sitcom and should almost be expected. It had some good laughs and has some time to grow and I hope it makes it. Maybe next time there is a comedy about Muslims the only thing people will ask is: is it funny?

Update: I knew somebody was bound to post the first episode on YouTube and here it is, in four parts, for anyone who wants to check it out. Seems that more than two million Canadians did just that, making it the highest rated show of the night.

Allah in the Family

“Muslims around the world are known for their sense of humour.” This statement may come as a surprise to many as some Muslims have been a touch, um, sensitive to any portrayals of their faith: Salman Rushdie, Danish cartoons, German operas, to name a few. So, when the CBC announced it was going to air a new comedy called Little Mosque on the Prairie, a “halal-arious” comedy about being Muslim in a small Prairie town, I wasn’t the only one who thought this could be trouble.

But so far, no fatwa. Of course the show doesn’t air until this coming Tuesday, though not having seen the content has never stopped a death threat before. The premise has people buzzing – luminaries such as Associated Press and the New York Times have sat up and taken notice, and for you non-Canadians out there, people here rarely talk about our homegrown TV, let alone the international media. More importantly (at least as far as ratings are concerned) I’m interested in checking it out, as is Gill and even my father-in-law said he was intrigued. Did I mention people usually don’t talk or watch much Canadian TV?

The top-rated Canadian show, that isn’t hockey, is Corner Gas, a show about some genial Canuck hosers set in a small Prairie town. Hmm, seems familiar – I suppose success does breed imitators. It’s funny that we like to see ourselves reflected as living the quiet, rural life when the truth is more of us live in large cities, but so be it. With Little Mosque at least we’ll be seeing some of the increasingly multicultural nature of our nation as well.

Will it be controversial or will the edges been worn down so as not to offend anyone’s sensibilities? So far the promos, featuring a Muslim lawyer who is moving west to run a small-town mosque, have been good for a laugh. See for yourself: