Infidel #1

[history79]

"In a nutshell, INFIDEL follows an American Muslim woman and her multi-racial neighbors who find themselves living in a building haunted by strange creatures that seem to feed on xenophobia. It’s our attempt to update the haunted house story as aggressively as possible, partly by having the world of the book reflect the world we see outside our window. It tackles themes like xenophobia, Islamophobia and racism – these seemingly omnipresent forces in our society while questioning if we understand them well enough to fight them."

- Pornsak Pichetshote




Written by Pornsak Pichetshote, Art by Aaron Campbell and José Villarubia

10.33 pages of 31

Comments

[cyberghostface]

Always nice to see legitimate issues being framed via strawmen.

[sadoeuphemist]

Who are the strawmen?

[cyberghostface]

The women referring to Charlie Hebdo and women being stoned.

[sadoeuphemist]

The grandma? How is she a strawman? No one argues with her there and defeats her with the power of logic or whatever. It's a character moment, showing that she used to be openly bigoted.

[cyberghostface]

Then maybe strawmen isn’t the correct term but they took legitimate issues such as people being killed for drawing cartoons and women being persecuted and/or killed and gave them to a blatantly antagonistic character as apposed to, say, an ex-Muslim atheist.

[locuatico]

Except those ARE arguments used by islamophobes to justify islamophobia. The same way Anti-semites use Israel to justify their anti-semitism.

Yes, they are legitimate issues. That was also an accurate representation of the sort of things an islamophobe would say to justify their bigotry.

They are not mutually exclusive things.

[cyberghostface]

So how do you differentiate 'islamophobia' and 'legitimate issues' then?

[locuatico]

That's the tricky part, there is no easy way. the best you can do is to try to keep yourself informed and using critical thinking.

[sadoeuphemist]

Okay, one, the grandma is obviously not 'a blatantly antagonistic character', the first pages are of her baking a cake for a little girl, and Aisha is on good terms with her and defends her at every turn.

Two, how do you propose to depict a person who is being a bigot? If there's a scene where a bigot is screaming at a random Muslim about 9/11, are you going to say, 'oh, this is a strawman, why not instead have an ex-Muslim atheist speak about the very legitimate issues of Islamic terrorism'? This is a ridiculous standard to hold.

[cyberghostface]

The same grandmother who we are told is manipulative and not to be trusted juxtaposed with an ominous shot of her looking out a window, yes.

As for the other, there are plenty of racist things the writer could have used.

[sadoeuphemist]

No, no, I want to hear a specific example. What are things you can have a racist say that do not refer to 'legitimate issues'?

Because here's the thing: what does a young American girl trying on a hijab have to do with the Charlie Hebdo attack, or stoning women? Nothing! It's a non-sequitur. They're not at all 'legitimate issues' in this context, they're just arbitrary attacks thrown out by a bigot who's indiscriminately demonizing all Muslims. By your standards, practically every racist attack could refer to a 'legitimate issue,' by bringing up something that happened somewhere, sometime, involving the same insanely broad demographic of people.

[cyberghostface]

“No, no, I want to hear a specific example. What are things you can have a racist say that do not refer to 'legitimate issues'?”

You want me to write examples of racist terminology here?

[sadoeuphemist]

So, what, your solution is to have bigots speak entirely in terms of slurs, and not talk about anything that happens in the real world? How do you make an actual character, a racist character, intended to interact with the rest of the cast, without exploring their viewpoint at all? Because under your standards, an anti-Muslim bigot could not even refer to a Muslim as a terrorist, since Islamic terrorism is a "legitimate issue."

My point is, your gripe is as dumb as hell and an example of some weird bizarro-PC sensitivity, where if a bigot refers to something that you also happen to believe, that's somehow offensive.

[cyberghostface]

The only time said viewpoint is explored period is her acting in an over the top hysterical fashion.

If for example the only time a “free Palestine” supporter appears in a story is as a raving antisemite Hamas member — even though such exist in large numbers — I imagine there’d be people upset.

[sadoeuphemist]

No, that's stupid as hell, because stories do not work on some weird fairness doctrine. Let's say it's a story about antisemitism instead, and our Jewish American protagonist is harassed by some hysterical bigot who blames them for Israel and hopes they get killed by Hamas. The writer is not then obligated to throw in a rational anti-Israel pro-Hamas argument, just so that they can 'balance it out.'

Your logic is: every time you include a bigot in a story, you should also include someone who explores the bigot's viewpoint in a rational manner. This is a nonsense idea.

[captainbellman]

This all rather reminds me of being on the old Newsarama boards, where Paul Cornell - just launching "Captain Britain and the MI:13" - was sincerely told by one commenter that he couldn't have Faiza Hussein as the viewpoint character unless he 'balanced it out' by creating for her a brother who had joined the Taliban and wanted to destroy England.

The argument in both cases is "bigoted points-of-view deserve to be heard and considered", which is, you know, not true.

[cyberghostface]

Calling out the persecution of women or criticizing a culture that leads to people being killed for cartoons isn’t bigoted.

[sadoeuphemist]

Because here's the thing: what does a young American girl trying on a hijab have to do with the Charlie Hebdo attack, or stoning women? Nothing! It's a non-sequitur. They're not at all 'legitimate issues' in this context, they're just arbitrary attacks thrown out by a bigot who's indiscriminately demonizing all Muslims.

[cyberghostface]

That was one of my issues with the scene, yes.

[sadoeuphemist]

Your 'issue' is that a bigot is being portrayed as a bigot instead of as a rational person. This is not an issue at all.

[locuatico]

Okay. Word of advice: drop this. The more you speak the more you are showing a fundamental misunderstanding of islamophobia and racism.

[cyberghostface]

Tell me what ‘islamophobia’ covers then.

[locuatico]

I am not your teacher.

I am under not obligation to explain to you the precise explanation of islamophobia or the ways in which it manifests, compared to other forms of xenophobia and racism. There are people far more qualified to explain this topic to you put there

I am just warning you: you are showcasing a fundamental misunderstanding of racism.

[cyberghostface]

Just asking because I don't think there's a direct answer as to how far the rabbit hole goes. Like, I've heard that the Boko Haram scene in Black Panther was deemed 'islamophobic' even though no religion was mentioned. Just that a real-life terrorist group was depicted was enough. *shrugs*

[locuatico]

the thing is: I am not Muslim. And whatever I have to say about Islamophobia, an actual Muslim can do a much better job.

On the black panther thing (setting aside that some people have been trying to use ABSOLUTELY EVERY LITTLE FLAW they can find to crap on the movie. Which is why there seemed to be a rise of "Monarchy is BAD!" discourse for like two seconds...), I will defer to the opinion of an actual muslim woman:
http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/why-i-think-black-panther-not-islamophobic-1609125391

But like I said, This is the kind of things you need to go to actual activists to get better informed.

[mastermahan]

I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes. Plus, Pornsak Pichetshote is an amazing name.

[thanekos]

I love how the caricature talking heads on the TV are, visually, blatant Frank Miller riffs.

[lilacsigil]

I noticed that too!

[squarepole]

Sarlacc pit bundt cake? I know what I’m making this weekend.

Interesting art on the monster/creature at the end.