
- 214 pages
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
In the West, Islam and Muslim life have been imagined as existing in an opposing state to popular cultureāa frozen faith unable to engage with the dynamic way popular culture shifts over time, its followers reduced to tropes of terrorism and enemies of the state.
Pop Islam: Seeing American Muslims in Popular Media traces narratives found in contemporary American comic books, scripted and reality television, fashion magazines, comedy routines, and movies to understand how they reveal nuanced Muslim identities to American audiences, even as their accessibility obscures their diversity. Rosemary Pennington argues that even as American Muslims have become more visible in popular media and created space for themselves in everything from magazines to prime-time television to social media, this move toward "being seen" can reinforce fixed ideas of what it means to be Muslim.
Pennington reveals how portrayals of Muslims in American popular media fall into a "trap of visibility," where moving beyond negative tropes can cause creators and audiences to unintentionally amplify those same stereotypes. To truly understand where American narratives of who Muslims are come from, we must engage with popular media while also considering who is allowed to be seen thereāand why.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: Americaās Imagined Muslims
- 1. Ms. Marvel and the āEmbiggeningā of Muslims in America
- 2. The Scripted Lives of TV Muslims
- 3. Big Screen, Small Stage: Negotiating Identity through Comedy
- 4. Identity and Religion in Reality TV
- 5. A Glossy Islam: Muslim Lives in Fashion Magazines
- Conclusion: The Complications of Visibility
- Bibliography
- Index
- About the Author