Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is considered one of the most expensive video games ever made. According to The Escapist, an American video game website, the video game's development cost was nearly $40-$50 million, and its marketing and launch budget was $200 million. DC Comics is among the biggest and oldest companies in the world. At the end of 2015, the company released Superman/Wonder Woman Annual #2. What do these two properties have in common? The makers behind them forgot to do a simple Google search.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has a mission that takes place in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city. The board signs in Karachi are in Arabic. In Karachi, the most commonly spoken language is Urdu, and the signs are either in Urdu or English. Neither part of Pakistan has Arabic as its official or regional language. This was also mentioned by Pakistani-American comedian and actor Kumail Nanjiani in one of his stand-ups.
You have to give credit to Modern Warfare 2 where it is due; at least Arabic is an actual language. Superman/Wonder Woman Annual #2 takes place in Shimshal, a village in the Hunza district of Pakistan's Gilgit-Baltistan region. However, I'm unsure if the makers were aware that such a place actually existed. The language spoke in that area, according to the comic, is Pakistanian. In this region, many regional languages like Wakhi, Burushaski, and many others along with Urdu.
In Zero Dark Thirty, a film based on the U.S operation of hunting Osama Bin Laden, the leader of the terrorist group Al-Qaeda makes a similar mistake. It is odd to see that for a film that depicts a real-life event, the Pakistani characters speak in Arabic instead of Urdu or any of their regional languages. The film was even nominated for multiple categories at the 85th Academy Awards.
The usage of incorrect language is just one piece of the puzzle here. It is not just about how Hollywood or other forms of mass media portray Pakistan but also how they view the world through their own lens. The US mass media, specifically Hollywood, is known for its inaccurate portrayals of countries like Mexico, Colombia, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and many others. In the case of Bangladesh, the Netflix film Extraction is a perfect example of this.
The question here is how much research is done to portray events, areas, or people as accurately as possible? We live in an era where diversity and representation have become notable topics in Hollywood with examples such as Black-ish, Grown-ish, All American, Fresh Off The Boat, Mayans M.C, and many more. It makes it even more essential to present cultures and regions outside of the West as accurately as possible. The burden definitely lies on the makers and researchers. They have a responsibility.
A good example of this could be how American police procedurals are presented. In the wake of the killing of an African-American man George Floyd brutally by the U.S police, there has been a discussion on how U.S based cop shows are simply propaganda or "Copaganda" which favors public opinion of law enforcement not just in the United States but internationally as well, even if it is a diverse show like Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Brooklyn Nine-Nine also happens to be a popular show in Pakistan, often appearing in the top ten Netflix lists when a new season is released. This is not a modern phenomenon; this is a practice that dates back decades which at times involved law enforcement in assisting Hollywood too in how they shall be portrayed.
The ignorance of Hollywood or US media is not just limited to what one perceives as negative portrayals, but positive portrayals too—or at least how it is intended. CBS's new comedy United States of Al is about an Afghan interpreter Awalmir (Adhir Kalyan), who moves in with a U.S Marine veteran Riley (Parker Young), whom he helped saved in Afghanistan. It's too early to judge what the sitcom's actual intentions are; is it supposed to educate people on how many locals who helped the US and NATO forces helped in Afghanistan and their problems and how troubling life in Afghanistan is—or the so-called savior narrative presented at the expense of innocent civilians and many other casualties including soldiers in that country. It is appreciable to see that the show has a staff that is of Afghan origin.
It is pertinent to mention them here; Fahim Anwar (writer/consulting producer), Habib Zahori (staff writer), Hila Hamidi (writers assistant), and Ursula Taherian (staff writer). While an Afghan staff does contribute to the show, there are still some major issues. One of them is that the experience of an Afghan raised or living abroad is entirely different from an Afghan living in Afghanistan, so how accurate is the show when it comes to showcasing the experience of the average Afghan? In the pilot, Riley corrects her sister when she asks a question about the language spoken in Afghanistan as they receive Al at the airport. According to her, it's "Afghanistanian," and Riley tells her it's Pashto. This is true, but Pashto is the second most spoken language.
The most commonly spoken language is Dari which is spoken by 77% of people in Afghanistan in comparison to Pashto, which is spoken by 48% of the population, according to a 2018 report by Asia Foundation. The major problem with the show is not the language but the character Alwamir who is played by Kalyan, who is not of Afghan background and is of Indian South African origin.
This is not the first time Kalyan has played a stereotypical role of a character unrelated to his origin. The short-lived 2007 CW sitcom Aliens in America starred Kalyan as a Pakistani foreign exchange student who moves in with a Wisconsin family. One might argue that it was meant to bridge a gap between Pakistanis and Americans, but the show is filled with stereotypes surrounding the former. It has only 18 episodes, but I have lost count of stereotypes towards Pakistanis in the show. Aliens in America not only raises concerns on how ignorant Hollywood is but how lazy it is as well.
The laziness is due to the character's name played by Adhir Kalyan which is Raja Musharraf. Raja is a favorite name when it comes to Western writers naming South Asian characters. The character shares his last name with the Pakistani president at the time, Pervez Musharraf. It does not appear to be a coincidence, but I suspect lazy writing and research on the part of the creators and those involved.
Homeland, a television series where every single Muslim, even those sympathetic to the United States, is linked to terrorists one way or another, makes the same mistake where one of the main antagonists in Season 4, which is set in Afghanistan and Pakistan, shares the same last name with Pakistan's former ambassador to the United States, Husain Haqqani.
Homeland makes a lot of other mistakes when it comes to Pakistan's portrayal, such as Urdu being spoken in Pakistan's Miran Shah (a town in North Waziristan in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where Pashto is widely spoken instead), among other inaccuracies as rightfully pointed by Pakistani lawyer and activist Jibran Nasir in a BuzzFeed video.
Homeland is not only inaccurate when it comes to Pakistan, but the show is filled with inaccuracies and stereotypes concerning Muslims and Muslim countries (notably the depiction of Lebanon). Homeland's laziness and ignorance are explored further in Season 5 when graffiti artists who were hired to write Arabic on walls in what is set in Syrian refugee camps in Lebanon write "Homeland is racist" in Arabic. Despite so many embarrassments, the television series still went on to receive accolades and received considerable critical acclaim.
There are examples Hollywood/Western mass media can and should learn from. The British television series Man Like Mobeen about a British Muslim character written by Guz Khan, a British Muslim as well. The series does not only deal with the issues faced by the British Muslim community but also talks about themes and problems which British Muslims also should reflect upon. Another notable mention here is the Hulu miniseries Four Weddings and a Funeral which is based on the British film of the same name.
Despite the series receiving mixed reviews for its plot and storyline, it's groundbreaking that the lead characters are a British-Pakistani man and an African-American woman in a romantic comedy, a genre that has been historically dominated by white leads. Not only that, but it is one of those rare occasions in Hollywood or Western media where Muslims are portrayed as simply normal people with normal lives and a normal culture who are not after America at every chance they get.
I will not deny that Muslims have problems within their own community, such as the 2017 Norwegian film What Will People Say? which depicts the problems faced by a Pakistani Norwegian teenage girl raised in a conservative household. As in Four Weddings and a Funeral, every Muslim or Pakistani character is unique in their issues, concerns, lifestyle, and culture.
Hollywood has a history of presenting Muslims as one-dimensional characters, all of whom hate women and American values. Not just Muslims, but African-Americans, Hispanics, Chinese, Japanese, Russians, etc. have also been presented as one-dimensional characters at different points in time while the white character is the hero, there to solve their communities' problems.
Hollywood, as well as U.S media, is globally popular, including in the countries and among the people they either inaccurately or antagonistically portray. Diversity and representation are just the start of Hollywood re-examining its past. It has thrived on racist and offensive content; accuracy and research need to be taken into account. One might argue that these portrayals are fictional, but this argument comes from a place of ignorance.
Hollywood is more than just a television series or film churner; it is an international soft power export of the U.S. It is understood that there is a line between fiction and reality and a debate where to draw that line. If television shows, films, video games, comics, books, etc. that have an international following start bringing more people of color from their narrative's origins behind the scenes and in front of the camera, one would see an accurate representation of cultures and countries presented.