How did MENA Arts Advisory Council (MAAC) get off the ground?
MENA Arts Advisory Council (MAAC) was founded after I came off of this series called “Alphas.” I started the audition process after being away from it for about three years and then I started noticing a change in tone in Hollywood. Diversity became very hip [but..] I wasn’t an identifiable diverse category. The North African Middle Eastern South Asian community doesn’t have a lobby. We don’t have an advocacy group, we don’t have a GLAAD [an organization monitoring media and advocating for the LGTBQ community], we didn’t have a NAACP [a civil rights organization advocating for African Americans] that would go to the studios and networks and educate them on our stories in order to create fair and balanced portrayal in television and film. That day I decided to start [MAAC] to figure out how to create change for this community that has been underrepresented. To try to plant some seeds on how to create some positive change across the board.
I was an asylum seeker in Washington DC. We grew up with a tremendous amount of political discourse in our family. I was very comfortable in the space of lobbying and legislation. I was able to translate that skill set to effectively educate and lobby our community on how we needed a category. I took the MENA language and successfully created a new casting category in Hollywood, for the first time in 37 years. This is a new language we built into the system; we achieved recognized status for a very large community of performers here.
What was the most shocking aspect about the study that was done?
We make up 1% of regular tv performers and two-thirds of that time that we are seen in a crime drama, we are perceived as a threat. And 67%, we had to have some exaggerated accent.
I felt like that was a big slap in the face, because I didn’t have an accent, I didn’t have value. As someone from that part of the world, it was really interesting to finally get a study and get some really important eyes on the information we’ve been discussing. In my experience, data is king.
How can we strive not just for representation but good representation? How can we be push for roles that go beyond quote on quote ” terrorist? “
The men have it incredibly hard. I’ve been able to sidestep a ton of that. I’ve able been to say no to [those roles] and slide into more dynamic roles and the men, unfortunately, have been carrying the brunt of having to play those roles and choose between feeding their families as an actor and choosing a different profession. I think the most important thing that we can do in our communities is to become storytellers, write books, become film producers, learn how to build funds to finance movies, come work at agencies in Hollywood or in New York, become actors…. In that space, create stories that are positive and then hire within your community. The Asian American and the African American communities have had a tremendous amount of success changing their narratives because they hire within their community, they hire directors from their community. They all work with one another, they support each other’s work. Chris Rock is supporting Kevin Hart’s work, they are at one another’s shows, they are proud of another. That kind of pride has continued to uplift their community. So if I were to say anything to our community, it lifts one another up. Even if you don’t agree with their career choice or how they how they have chosen how to live their life…. It’s our responsibility to start that here by the best successful version of who we are and not tearing each other down.
It seems to be a trend for shows and movies that are representational, yet that doesn’t seem to be true for MENA actors, why do you think that is?
Why haven’t we had we our own Blackish? I don’t think there’s enough creators, and writers and producers in that arena that would go to bat for us. It’d be another white American producer/writer producing and writing our story and essentially not have the correct tone. Blackish has an African American writer, it does well cause its authentic…. Same for Fresh Of The Boat, written by an Asian American, in that space the storytelling is authentic so we need to have writers that want to go to Hollywood and pitch these stories and start building a community, so you can come out here and work at William Morris [talent agency in Hollywood]. It’s completely feasible, you just have to be willing to come and work your way up from the ground up, like I did. I didn’t know anybody. I just showed up. It’s possible but we need more storytellers, and more voices and more presence in the business.
Is there anything the Afghan-American community can do to help push Hollywood?
I think for the Afghan-American community and an organization like yours–when there is a show that is a harmful stereotype, to put out a newsletter and a PR blast condemning and saying that this community doesn’t stand for that unfair representation. The bias is harmful and that it involves national policy and our family.
It’d be wonderful if more MENA organizations stepped up and said we don’t accept this. And in that space, to have more power, to have more people, in DC, in NY, in LA to pay attention to stereotypes and to actively say we don’t like this. The community needs to speak, there need to be more organizations that take on the studios and networks, and the writers and the producers and say: we’re ticket buyers. We buy your tickets. We’re not gonna buy tickets, we are gonna protest this television show. And in that space, there’s a tremendous amount of power and a voice. The community at large globally and nationally needs to speak up when there’s something they don’t like at all or like.
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