Heba Amin: ‘We wanted to undermine the seriousness of the show’ Homeland

BY FARAH ABDELKADER @farahkhaledak
AND NADINE SHAWKI @NadineIsmail94
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Heba Amin, an assistant professor at AUC and one of three artists to ‘hack’ the award winning show Homeland by drawing scathing graffiti on the set, told The Caravan that she used this opportunity to undermine the seriousness of the show.

“We wanted to show that [the producers and directors] care about so many little details [on the set] but the language doesn’t matter and they’ve proven this over and over again in the past seasons,” said Amin Thursday.

Amin and fellow artists Caram Kapp and Don Stone were approached by a production company in June to scrawl Arabic graffiti on a number of walls on the set of Homeland, which was shooting the latest season in Germany.

The graffiti was meant to recreate an authentic feel to a Syrian refugee camp in Lebanon in the latest episode of the fifth season.

Realizing that the Arabic language graffiti wasn’t reviewed by the production staff, Amin and her crew decided to carry out artistic subterfuge of a show they criticized for being racist.

Amin told The Caravan that even though she boycotts the show, she used the opportunity of being hired by the production crew to shed light on the stereotypes the show perpetuates.

Amin said that viewers do not recognize that the way some characters or situations are depicted on the show are merely stereotypes; as a result, the audience tends to believe them by default.

Homeland has misleading and often negative portrayals of the Arab world and the Middle East; it also presents false information about Southwest Asian countries.

“Even if you like the plot, even if it’s well-produced and well-acted, there are dangers underlined,” Amin said of the negative images depicted in the show, which could cement audience perceptions of other people and other countries.

According to ABCNews, there has been a strong rebuke from Pakistani officials over the misrepresentation of the country and other South Asian nations shown to be in support of terrorist groups.

So rather than draw and write graffiti and slogans that one may find at a refugee camp, the artists chose instead to draw satirical comments of the series itself, like “Homeland is racist”, and “#BlackLivesMatter” in Arabic.

“The idea behind this is that we wanted to address the danger in which [a] series like this – especially [a] Western series – depicts the Middle East or the Islamic world in a particular way. There are repercussions that have an actual [effect] on foreign policy,” she said.

“I want people to go back and watch the episode again but keep in mind what it was that we wanted to highlight. The hope is that the people start seeing these things,” said Amin.