Middle Eastern writers urge Hollywood to be less stereotypical

Los Angeles (QNN)- Members of the WGA West’s Middle Eastern Writers Committee signed a letter urging Hollywood to be more inclusive and less stereotypical in its storytelling, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

“Reach out to us. Get to know our work. And most of all, take more chances on us to both tell our own stories and contribute to the ones being crafted in writers’ rooms all over town,” they wrote Monday in an open letter to the film and television industry. They noted: “How can we get in the rooms to tell other stories if we’re not even being hired to tell our own?”

The letter, signed by over 50 members of the Committee, including writer-director Ramin Bahrani (The White Tiger), writer-director-producer Sam Esmail (Homecoming) and actor and writer Mitra Jouhari (Three Busy Debras), notes that their union’s most recent inclusion report found that just 0.3 percent of employed screenwriters and 0.3 percent of employed TV writers are Middle Eastern, behind all other ethnic groups measured in both categories. “Because of this, we find ourselves at a cultural inflection point, and we’re asking for your allyship to improve this number,” the letter reads. “Identifying the problem is the first step — taking action is what should follow.”

The Middle Eastern Writers Committee was formed less than a year ago and is co-chaired by Big Hero 6: The Series writer Paiman Kalayeh and Life-Size 2 scribe Cameron Fay. Its goal is “to boost visibility and employment of Middle Eastern writers within the film and television industry, while celebrating and promoting accurate portrayals of Middle Eastern characters in all areas of media,” according to the union. The Committee also seeks to be a resource for productions looking to portray the Middle Eastern community in the U.S. and internationally.

“This current trend tells us that nuanced stories with intimate knowledge about real, Middle Eastern people and their families are wanted in the mainstream. Unfortunately, these stories are typically few and far between. We’re often branded as one-dimensional, naïve foreigners with funny accents, stereotypical, shady businesspeople, and too often, our identities seem to be intrinsically tied to the War on Terror and being America’s number one enemy.

“But we hope that through diversifying our storytelling and creating a larger community within the industry, we can find our common ground and together cultivate more positive and nuanced representations of MENA cultures on TV and the big screen.”