Forbidden Tales
 

Forbidden Tales, is a documentary TV program, interviewing Arab Americans about their views of the media portrayal of them and their views of themselves. The program is festooned with a mosaic of the Arab Americans culture.

In the new work of Hammam Shafie “Forbidden Tales”, the subject of the Arab Americans and the “Media” is explored in a manner almost tragic in its poignancy. These are people which society and the media would view as “Not Really Sure”. They all appear to have maintained specific manners which are contrary to the media dress and makeup of them, perhaps one that did not “work” for them in the past. But now that is passed, and what is left, Hammam question if it is a naive dignity skirting the precipice of self-delusion.

Surely, we think, these characters all portrayed, in their usual and casual manner, by Hammam himself on the TV screen, must know that the “Country” in which they were proscribes will not eluded them for long. What was once permissible and overlooked through consumer products and media is not gone, leaving these men and women almost clownlike in their continuation of the same struggle especially after September 11.

A superficial read of these might be to question Hammam’s sincerity: perhaps the point here is ridicule. But a stronger Arab American subtext surfaces: the dignity that these men and  women carry in their arrived-upon confidence might actually reflect a self-satisfaction that does not betrays Arab Americans notions of loyalty to this country. There may be defiance here, an embracement of maintaining their “Loyalty” in conscious concert to what society ordains as attractive. These men and women then become potent icons of American society, as political as they are poetic.

This vibrant and engaging TV exhibit of the Arab Americans “Forbidden Tales” brings the viewer to pause over one consideration; after a lackluster 200 years of negative stereotyping view of the Arabs in America, medium may not be the only one who needs a critical reassessment. Perhaps the Arab Americans themselves were more responsible for all the predictability of that misrepresentation. But the past is the past, if this TV program and the seal of approval it provided was the impetus for a better representation of the Arab Americans, then it is just a case in point for the Media and the community at large and one step backwards preparing for two steps forward. Except here, Hammam Shafie is taken about a hundred steps—and all ahead of the pack!

For further information contact Hammam at:

Tel: 818-884-0605 Cell: 818-929-9097

Email: hammam@universalcasting.com