Believe it or not: CW Network to air “Aliens in America”

Malena Amusa

Believe it or not: CW Network to air “Aliens in America”

Universe, I’m just at a loss of words about what I’m about to talk about.

Watch the video below, and together, we’ll discuss what’s troubling but also intriguing about this new sitcom “Aliens in America” that starts this fall on the CW Network.

The CW website describes the show as a look at one white Wisconsin family and its 16-year-old son. Here’s the rap:

The son suffers in school because he’s not as popular as his sister and of course, because high school is hell for skinny, pubescent, socially awkward white boys. So to change his life around, the family orders an exchange student at the nudging of a counselor who tells the family they’ll be getting a Nordic stud who’s athletic and charming…you know, someone who can make the American boy look popular by association. But instead—and get this—instead of getting a “cool” exchange student, the site says, the boy gets a Muslim from Pakistan. But eventually, and it better had been this way— the boy and the Muslim form an “unlikely friendship” that becomes the basis of the sitcom.

(Oh, Allah!)

Here, watch the extended trailer:

Is this show wise in our political climate? Because it’s tricky. The sitcom is not full-frontal racism. In fact, and you’ll see, the show mocks Midwestern whites who think Pakistanis executed 9/11; and also the sitcom captures how this white boy—a symbol of white America—derives strength from forming alliances with Brown people. After all, like the Muslim boy said in the movie, “if we brush our teeth together, you’ll see, we both do it the same.”

So yes, the show runs long on stereotypes and the stuff that makes racial justice progressives shift and turn in our seats, but it establishes a pretty clear social critique that asks: aren’t we all aliens in some spaces?

Posted at 7:47 AM, Jul 17, 2007 in Media Analysis | Permalink | View Comments

Comments

The sickest thing of all? If this sitcom is a success, someday today's youth will one day be as nostalgic for its ridiculously racist premise as my generation is for Different Strokes and Webster.

I think CW is trying to walk a really fine line here, and how the show comes across in execution will be the biggest determining factor in it's success.

Sure, the central conflicts of the show are racist, but I think the writers are very aware of that, and make it the central to the show, unlike other shows that simply take various racist beliefs as assumptions.

However, in my opinion, how they portray the Pakinstani student will make or break them. Trying to walk the balance between character and charicature is extremely difficult, with plenty of pitfalls along the way. Hopefully they'll be able to strike a good balance.

But we won't know any of that until the show airs. So until then, we wait.

For me with the recent immigration bill
and the insistence that brown people
especially brown men are so dangerous
its more than a little bit of a problem
for the show to be considered "Aliens in America"
not to mention
the apparent assumption that the "other"
is always exotic
the expectation that the company of a person of color
can change someone's social status is old and ugly
and here again we have a new with no new ideas
no insistence on its political stance or value
and worst of all no new outlooks in race
just what we all expected from our television sets--

I'm getting the feeling that Raja is just a prop for the other kid, not a character in his own right. At least from the trailer.

I hope that the CW will be able to pull it off (I have my doubts, but I'm something of an optimist). It's a fine line to walk, and who knows if they'll be able to manage? But to do that, they have to treat Raja like a person and an actual character, not just a friend/confidant for the other kid who's around when convenient to create humerous situations. He's an exchange student, not a pet or a journal.

I'm sure the writers are aware of the racial implications, at least one would hope so.

The preview, however, implies that the idea of a brown-skinned, Muslim Arab living amongst a normal white family is so outrageously funny that an entire sitcom series can be based on it.

The writers will be so cautious in trying not to be offensive that the plot/jokes won't be funny. Meanwhile, others won't even watch the show because the marketing and subsequent media coverage (Paula Zahn, anyone?) will make the show appear racist and offensive. It's this worst of both worlds scenario that led to the downfall of "God, the Devil, and Bob."

This show won't last more than a couple months. =)