Re: Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World
Aljazeera.net, the Web site of the satellite news channel, ran a Reuters story reporting that "Looking for Comedy" "received mixed reviews from audiences in Dubai," but quoted only one filmgoer. "Zeinab, 18, from the United Arab Emirates, said: 'It was different from the usual movies we see from America. It's good to show other cultures of the world.'"
Brooks, though, perceived a more enthusiastic reaction: "There's that scene where they call me to Washington, and they explain that Pakistan is all Muslim and I say, 'But I thought India was primarily Hindu.' Somebody at the table says, 'There's almost 150 million Muslims in India alone and is the second largest country with Muslim population (after Indonesia),' and Fred Thompson says, 'Is that enough for you?' They went crazy! I thought, I passed the test, it's OK! The sheik is laughing; he's talking to the guy next to him in Arabic and pointing at the screen. And no one walked out!"
Some of the Arab press, Brooks says, questioned his decision to set the film in India and Pakistan rather than an Arab country. "I said, 'Well, if you can get me permission to shoot in Saudi Arabia, let me know,' " he says.
"Because it was not happening when I was making calls. That was shut down within five 5 minutes, with 'What, are you insane?' They're not going to let a Jewish man, much less a filmmaker, in there. That's just not going to happen.
"But I wanted the conflict between the two countries. I knew in writing this that I wanted to take two existing powers that are always suspicious of each other, and that was the one place you could do that. The idea was always that I go to do a peace mission, and I almost start World War III."
Azhar Usman, a Muslim comedian who organized "Allah Made Me Funny," a touring show of Muslim comics that began in Toronto in May and stopped in Dearborn this past summer, says Brooks "has a point."
Comedy in the Muslim world (Arab or otherwise) can indeed be hard to find. "Today, stand-up comedians just don't really exist," Usman says. "But they did once. I have albums from the '70s. The big, towering guy from Pakistan is called Moin Akhtar, and another guy, who was his contemporary, was Umar Sharif. And there was a guy in India who was really famous, who used the name Johnny Lever. They basically did one-man shows, with a lot of improv and sketch comedy, but with a small portion of what we would call stand-up."
Their style of comedy, Usman says, would not be unfamiliar to viewers of "Seinfeld." "There's a lot of family humor, things about the difference between men and women, jabs at politicians daily life, situational stuff.
"The notion that a Muslim audience wouldn't have the vaguest notion of what stand-up comedy or improvisation was is utterly false."