It’s pilot season. Networks are scrambling to find and approve new programming for the coming year, even though the age of network — and even cable TV — may be coming to a close.
ABC Family picked up a few teen dramas: one about addiction, one about a sibling tennis team, and one where a sassy teenager gets kidnapped by Saudi Arabians.
This particular gem is called “Alice in Arabia.” Alice is a young, white, presumably American girl whose parents befall a thus-far unnamed tragedy. After that, she gets kidnapped by her royal Saudi relatives.
Predictably, “Alice in Arabia” is drawing a lot of criticism. The title alone — which compares the Middle East to the illogical, frightening and arbitrary world of “Alice in Wonderland” — seems to suggest this show will be riddled with characters and situations that will perpetuate the idea that everyone who lives in this part of the world is an America-hating religious fanatic who oppresses women.
A large part of the show’s issues is that it was written by Brooke Eikmeier. Until September, she was an Army crypto linguist specializing in Arabic. During her career, she worked for National Security Agency operations in the Middle East. It’s an impressive resume, if you agree with everything the government and military have been up to lately. The summary for the pilot contains the line “Life behind the veil.” It’s going to be a rough ride for everyone involved.
Criticism of the show takes two forms: There are those who are skeptical of the show’s intentions and portrayals of Arabs — and by extension, Muslims — because a great deal of Americans don’t know these are two different groups. And then there is the wing of criticism that acknowledges the very real and serious issues in the Middle East, especially misogyny. Critics are upset that “Alice in Arabia” shows viewers these things from the perspective of an American rather than one of thousands of people who have to live in those conditions.
But is it wrong to hope for the slim possibility that “Alice in Arabia” may be a positive thing?
Obviously it would be nice if a show about a real Saudi woman would get airtime, but “Alice in Arabia” is as close as we’re going to get. If anything is clear about our society, it’s that we refuse to care about anything unless it affects us directly. The only way we can be bothered to learn, much less care, about other people’s struggles is if those struggles are happening to someone we can relate to.
And though the background information suggests it has incredible potential to be cheap propaganda from a former NSA specialist, there remains the distinct possibility that this may not be the case.
The same summary that had the line about life behind the veil also tells us that Alice — and we’re talking about Saudi Arabia here — is “intrigued by its offerings and people, whom she finds surprisingly diverse in their views about the world and her situation.”
If the show happens to be on that side of the “Arabs are evil terrorist kidnappers — actually human beings existing in a complex society” duality, what we’ll have is something that will expose people to a view of the Middle East that isn’t overly simplified and self-serving.
It can do that as well as bring up the issues of sexism and women’s rights problems, not only in Saudi Arabia but our own precious Western civilization.
In that case, “Alice in Arabia” could be used as a looking glass — pun intended — to reflect our own culture’s gender problem in Eikmeier’s fictional Saudi Arabia.
[Alec Carver is a UF journalism freshman. His columns appear on Fridays. A version of this column ran on page 6 on 3/21/2014 under the headline "‘Alice in Arabia’ show could be problematic"]
