Islamophobia and The Simpsons

After today's discussion, I wanted to look more in depth into the idea of "Islamophobia". When I googled the term several websites popped up, but this is the one that caught my eye and seemed the most interesting.

To begin with, the article talks about how Islamophobia was portrayed in the show The Simpsons. After looking on both hulu and YouTube, I couldn't find the episode they talked about in the article. However, I did find two other clips that represent Islamophobia in popular culture. One, called Suspicious Neighbors, is about Homer going over to their neighbors house, who is a Muslim, on the pretense of wanting to apologize for something he said at dinner when, in actuality, he is going over there to snoop around her house to determine if she is a terrorist. After going into her kitchen to get some more almond dip, he finds her computer and opens a document showing a bomb connected to the mall. Immediately he pretends to be hurt and jumps out the window to escape the so called "terrorist". The other episode, Religious Bullies, is about 3 boys who begin picking on Bart's new friend Bashir because he is Muslim. One of them blames Bashir for not being able to take toothpaste on a plane anymore.

These two episodes are prime examples of popular media reinforcing the idea of Islamophobia. Both of these clips stereotype all Muslims as being terrorists or the cause of problems in America. I think it is because Americans see things like this and process this information unconsciously that many Americans are Islamophobic.

However, the one thing I really liked in the Religious Bullies episode is that Bart kind of brought the tension down and stood up for Bashir after he said he was Muslim. This shows that while some people do believe all Muslims are terrorists and are prejudice against them, not everybody is.