On "Homeland" @_Juliet_K

Juliet Kleber assesses the popular series Homeland, now in its sixth season, for The New Republic. Noting that the show has moved away from its explicitly anti-Muslim and pro-national security focus to a much more culturally accepting view of Islam and the U.S.'s Islamic citizins beginning in late 2015. Ms. Kleber traces the changes to the Paris attacks and to the rise of Donald Trump, opining that while the show's counter-terrorism narrative is popular, it is also dangerous. 

In reality, Muslims live in our country. They endure prejudice and violence. Most are not terrorists. But as most Americans rarely or never encounter a Muslim person in their actual lives, they are routinely subject to television’s views of them. On just the night it aired, the season six premiere of Homeland garnered two and a half million viewers. Season five, which focused on Islamic terrorism in Europe, had an average weekly viewership of six million. That is almost twice the size of the entire Muslim population of the United States.  

The “conundrum” is, as Gordon himself noted, that “the show is about counterterrorism.” Does Homeland make entertaining television? Sometimes. Has it been harmful? Very probably.

 Read the entire article here.