As I anxiously waited for Aziz Ansari’s Master of None season two to air on Netflix I anticipated many laughs and a comedic approach to various reflections on life just as was demonstrated in season one. When I reached episode 3 of the latest season, I felt very much intrigued seeing that the episode was titled “Religion”. Although Aziz Ansari is known to abstain from religious practice, as he has publicly claimed to not be religious on numerous occasions, his Muslim background is what drew me in. Religion is very much a personal aspect of one’s individual development and upbringing just as it is also seen as a means of salvation and spiritual intuition. Just as I suspected, the episode did in fact explore Islam, its values, the appreciation his family held for it and ultimately its role in their lives. In many regards, the episode addressed vital questions regarding the role that Islam plays in one’s life, what it means to them, and how to balance living a westernized lifestyle all while maintaining an appreciation for one’s religious background and cultural upbringing. What I found quite staggering is how Aziz, through his witty and comedic approach, tackled the complexities of religion and the stigma of doubting its validity.
Many second-generation Muslim youth tend to struggle with grappling these issues especially when it comes to communicating with their parents so as not to upset them or diminish the value of one’s religious or cultural practices. What Aziz Ansari elegantly does in this episode is demonstrate the reality of how difficult it sometimes can be for the children of immigrants who grow up in the United States to embrace what their parents have raised them with while simultaneously cultivating their own identities as westerners. This can potentially act as a double-edged sword in the sense that it can be used as a means to revive Islamic values into Muslim youth living in non-Muslim societies or it can lead to redefining Islam through a toxic anti-orthodox manner.
Although nuanced complexities such as the wine-drinking, pork-eating, LGBTQ affirming Muslims most definitely do exist, the extreme left exemplars in no way shape or form are representative of what most Muslims, including Muslim youth living in the west, would deem to be normative Islam. The intent perhaps may have been to show Muslims in a positive manner in order to demonstrate to the rest of American society that we are normal human beings just like everyone else; just as there are non-practicing Jews and Christians, so to does the unorthodox Muslim exist. Yet the undertones of what the liberal Muslim may look like to some may hinder a correct understanding of the faith and open an avenue for yet another wave of misinformation.
Violent extremism has continuously been the constant portrayal of Muslims in the media and in western society ever since the tragic events of the September 11th attacks. The byproduct of such stereotypes has been an attempt to discontinue and clarify many of the misconceptions of an Islamic monolith by not only exemplifying a redefined Islam, but by also undefining it. This leaves unlimited room for whoever to reconstruct Islam as they see fit despite fourteen centuries of Islamic scholarship and theological tradition. This has resulted in combating one extreme image of Islam with another extreme. Just like violent extremist vilification of Islam and Muslims, the liberal approach also has the potential to do much harm as well.
While I appreciate the attempts of many outlets, including social media, to dispel inaccuracies about Islam and Muslims, a new platform has been orchestrated to deconstruct and recreate a new modern Islam that does not speak on behalf of all average Muslims either. This has only exacerbated an on-going social stigma of being Muslim in a post-9/11 era and continues to reinforce the idea of a binary analysis of Islam and religion in its totality. In an attempt to celebrate diversity within Islam and to step out of the monolith that has been attached to Muslims by western orientalists and modern right wing media, Master of None’s “Religion” episode only detaches self-identified Muslims from the faith itself. The attempt to “humanize” Muslims seeks to make Islam appeasing and palatable to western audiences by portraying Muslims as partaking in liberal societal norms that run contrary to the religious teachings and doctrines of Islam. In a way, it analyzes the so-called “good and bad” aspects of religion through a liberal lens that vilifies religious conservatism and subtly reduces it to narrow minded and intolerant while championing the detachment and removal of any sense of religious adherence. This only leads to further marginalizing conservative practicing Muslims and reinforcing the vilification that has been constantly attached to them.
By the end of the episode, Dev, played by Aziz Ansari, makes amends with his parents and seeks their forgiveness for his dismissive behavior of the religion that his parents raised him with all the while upholding his liberal way of thinking. He finally reads a copy of the Quran his mother gave to him as a child and begins to reflect upon its meanings yet still holds onto his unorthodox mindset as if to say his logic prevails over any sense of religiosity. People may be complex and everyone has their level of comfort in regards to religious practice, and although this is definitely indicative of the struggles of Muslim youth in America, its imagery through the art of film and in broader media will only result in more confusion rather than clarification. While Master of None has done an excellent job of elegantly narrating the struggles of a young brown guy living in New York city in the most quirky yet clever way, the pseudo-liberal Muslim image it has projected only continues to detach Muslims from anything Islamic rather than positively affirming a theological tradition so near and dear to the hearts of nearly 2 billion of its practitioners across the globe.