UK broadcaster BBC is facing an investigation after launching a controversial sitcom about a Muslim family. The show sparked outrage over its treatment of ethnic and religious issues.
Citizen Khan is a comedy show from BBC1 about the Muslim community in Birmingham and began its run on Monday August 27. The network has received over 700 complaints saying the programme caused offence and insulted Muslims and Islam according to metro.co.uk.
Media critics complained the show strengthens stereotypes about the Muslims. The Independent writer Arifa Akbar labeled it "not just outdated, but lazy and offensive."
The UK media regulator Ofcom is considering a formal investigation to see if any broadcasting rules have been broken after receiving 20 complaints about the show.
BBC sitcom Citizen Khan accused of being disrespectful to Muslims and Islam to face investigation (Image from www.bbc.co.uk)
The sitcom mocks the head of the Khan family, who overestimates his own importance and place in the community and business world.
According to BBC synopsis "Mr Khan is a loveable larger than life character, with strong opinions and big dreams… Things would be so much easier if everyone just listened to him and followed his lead, but his obsessively house-proud wife and two feisty daughters usually have other ideas."
Defending the show the BBC said that a new comedy always provoked "differing reactions".
"Citizen Khan has made a very positive start, launching successfully with 3.6million viewers,” a BBC spokesman is quoted by The Daily Mail as saying. “New comedy always provokes differing reactions from the audience. The characters are comic creations and not meant to be representative of the community as a whole.”
British Muslim Adil Ray, is the man behind the show and plays the leading role of Mr Khan told This Is Staffordshire:"The biggest, most important, thing you can do is laugh at yourself… If you can laugh at yourself, it doesn't matter what anybody says to you as you're laughing already."
“My own cultural outsider's view is that Citizen Khan pays British Muslims perhaps the highest compliment television can bestow, which is treating them like any other creed and people by subjecting them to a gentle domestic sitcom in the tradition of My Family,” Mark Lawson of the Guardian wrote in defense of the series.
The show also prompted debate among Twitter users; opinions are split.
31 Aug, 2012 | source here >>
