Dilshad D. Ali: September 2008 Archives

Thanks to my husband's parents who have come to live with us for several months (really, it is a good thing!), we were able to see a movie this weekend (which we haven't done so in more than a year--since my third child was born last fall). He pushed for "Tropic Thunder," but I won out with my choice: "Traitor" starring one of my favorite actors, Don Cheadle. "Traitor" intrigued me with its touted plot of a devout, "true" Muslim who by all accounts seems like a radical and a terrorist, but of course things are very different under the surface.

There are very few Muslim characters in the movies (or on television) that don't fall into the stereotype of terrorist, radical, or extremist (insert your own adjective here). And as I search my brain through all the films and shows I've seen, Samir Horn (played by Cheadle) is perhaps the first character shown to be a devout, intelligent, practicing, Allah-loving, but NOT an extremist "lets wage a jihad on the infidels" kind of Muslim.