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AAI in the News

'Sleeper Cell' is a tough sell

By Suzanne C. Ryan
The Boston Globe
Posted on Thursday December 1, 2005

When TV producers Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris pitched their idea for a drama series about a Muslim terrorist cell in Los Angeles, ABC executives squirmed in their seats.

‘’You could see their faces begin to fill with dread and horror as I described the show,” says Reiff, referring to a meeting two years ago. ‘’Every villain in the show is a Muslim. It’s too politically incorrect, too controversial. . . . The idea of spending an entire season on the inner workings of a terrorist cell was absolutely impossible to them.”

But not for cable television.

On Sunday, Showtime will debut ‘’Sleeper Cell,” a suspenseful 10-part series starring Michael Ealy as an African-American Muslim FBI agent who successfully infiltrates an Islamic terrorist group. Actor Oded Fehr, who was born in Israel, portrays the cell’s extremist leader, Faris Al-Farik. An Arab Muslim who is living in disguise as a devout Jew, Al-Farik spends his afternoons coaching a Little League team and his nights plotting to blow up targets such as Los Angeles International Airport.

Other terrorists in the cell include a blue-eyed, blond American who manages a bowling alley and a French skinhead-turned-Muslim who works as an LA tour guide.

The message behind this casting is pointed: America doesn’t know its enemies, who are as diverse as its own population and clearly not all Arab.

‘’When we see other versions of the war on terrorism on TV, the bad guys are always disgruntled former government agents, or a cabal of oil executives who want to raise the price of oil or generic Euro-trash assassins for hire,” says Reiff. ‘’In real life, there are some human beings on this planet who would very much like to set off a nuclear device in a major American city. For once, couldn’t we do a show that dealt with who these guys are?”

Voris agrees. ‘’There’s a war going on in Islam now, moderates versus extremists. . . . We thought it was time to do something in popular culture that dealt with that issue rather than the usual stereotypes—heroic white guy against evil Arab guy.”

Showtime plans to air the first eight episodes back-to-back Sunday through Wednesday at 10 p.m. for two weeks, beginning Dec. 4. The final two episodes will air consecutively Dec. 18 at 8 p.m.

Despite taking pains not to cast all the terrorists as Arabs, Voris and Reiff have already been hit with criticism. James Lileks, a syndicated columnist for the Newhouse News Service, blasted the show for being too politically correct in July. ‘’It’s come to this: Hollywood confronts jihad and gives us ‘’Tommy,” a ‘’Caucasian, all-American rich kid who reinvents himself as a Muslim extremist,” he said in a commentary. ‘’Casting ‘The Sleeper Cell’ as a [multicultural] group is like making a World War II movie in which all the Yanks have German names and the Nazis are redheaded Irishmen. You can only conclude that the producers are afraid . . . of the backlash.”

James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit focused on political and social empowerment, is also unhappy with the program’s portrayals for different reasons.

‘’Where’s the story of Arab-American FBI agents? Or Arab-American military officers serving in Afghanistan?” he asks. ‘’Hollywood has never shown any interest in us . . . so it’s hard to go from invisible to evil with no opportunity over the last four or five decades to have any other image portrayed.

‘’When there are no compelling portraits on television of everyday, hard-working, honest Arab-Americans contributing to society, the result is that this kind of caricature ends up defining the whole. That is most unfair.”

Showtime certainly faces some hurdles. The cable network FX recently canceled its realistic Iraq war drama ‘’Over There” because viewers, it seemed, prefer escapist dramas such as ‘’Desperate Housewives.”

Ealy is hoping viewers give the project a chance. ‘’If we continue to stay aloof and absent-minded about what is going on in the rest of the world, we will continue to be a target,” he says.

Raised in Maryland in the Baptist faith, the 32-year-old was ignorant about Islam before he got his lead role. Working with a Muslim writer on the set and some consultants, he says, ‘’I have learned that Islam is a very peace-loving religion . . . and that the holy book the Koran does not permit terrorism.”

Robert Greenblatt, the president of Showtime, says the idea of an Arab-American lead character was rejected because of fears that he would not be ‘’accessible” to the audience.

‘’The Muslim faith and Arab characters are not only foreign to this audience but post 9/11, they bring baggage unfortunately,” Greenblatt says. ‘’If we featured four or five Arab guys, who look Middle Eastern, the first thing that would happen would be that people would be looking over at them. . . . If you really want [fictional terrorist characters] to blend into our society and not be completely noticed, the best way is to have a mix of different types.”

Greenblatt, who has set in motion several destined-to-provoke series since taking over as Showtime president, stands his ground on the challenging nature of ‘’Sleeper Cell.”

‘’This is a topic that is not being covered in television,” he says. ‘’This is a show that is at least trying to be of the world we live in.”