Mo: A Better Step
The latest attempt at Muslim Representation takes...an improved turn. Surpisingly.
Yesterday, Netflix released the first season of a new show created by comedians Mohammed Amer and Ramy Youssef. The latter name you might recognize due to him having his own show currently running on Hulu, Ramy, which as some of you who follow me know was a frightful phenomena for us Muslims in the west who were not used to being shown in today’s mass media culture.
Though this is a review about a different show, I feel the need to preface with what was it I hated exactly about it’s spiritual predecessor. I enjoyed some episodes of Ramy, but overall, the show — with its moral subtext, its insistence on lurid displays of sexual filth, its vying for liberal “tolerance”, and above all its horribly unrelatable, narcissistic protagonist — made it unbearable and a chore to get through. No high enough budget or production value can let someone get over the utter dissapointment the ending of that second season was, which I’m hoping is rectified in the third (which I’m honestly only going to watch for review purposes at this point). Its greatest sin, which I judge all shows that portray the journey of a Muslim man or woman, is whether it’s set on the course of the character at the very least trying to find their way to a righteous life for Allah’s sake, and making progress towards that goal. I, and many others who crave content like this, are not demanding perfection. We don’t want saints that are not accessible to us, but at the same time reject the nihilism that has constantly been the trademark of these slice-of-life genre shows. Ramy makes zero attempt at this, and instead insists on the messaging that “nothing really matters bro, this is life, get over it.”
Mo however, though is co-created by Youssef, shows a drastic improvement. We don’t know whether this is due to Youssef learning from his prior mistakes, or perhaps Amer (the far better stand-up comedian, in my opinion) was more heavily involved in the production of this one. The bottom line is all my gripes with Ramy were either heavily minimized or cut out entirely from this show, which makes me believe that the people producing them are realizing what makes good art about a culture and what doesn’t.
The season in total only comes up to less than 200 minutes, which made me wonder why they just didn’t produce this as a movie instead. Each episode was around 20-25 minutes, leading to some awkward cliffhangers and pacing for some episodes, especially in the beginning. It’s clear they didn’t have as expansive a budget as Ramy.
Unlike Ramy, the protagonist Mo Najjar is actually quite funny and relatable, because his goal in this show is not some yogi cop-out “path to enlightenment”. Mo is a refugee trying to secure the future of himself and his family. His goal from the beginning is survival, and trying the best he can with his struggles and trauma to overcome and move on with life. He has clear moments of weakness and breakdowns, but you’re shown clearly why that is. His lack of religiosity and sins are not due to peer pressure or carnal temptations, but are coping mechanisms as he tries to live day by day. This kind of story makes far more sense than what was purported in previous portrayals.
The show strays from sex scenes, violence, or nudity. Mo has a Mexican girlfriend whom he (actually) loves, which though many will disapprove of I find far more preferrable than other characters who destroy entire families with their sexual indulgence. It also presented a great contrast between his character and that of his sister, who married a white man as soon as she could for citizenship. He refuses to perform the same act to save just himself (as he still has his mother and autistic brother who need asylum), a noble and admirable act.
The acting on the part of his family members, friends, and other parodies were superb. The contrast between the horrific second-generation Arab lawyer and the dedicated Jewish one, the hilarious dichotomy of the Palestinian uncle with a close Jewish friend, and the parody of the white liberal tech dork who marries a colored woman for diversity points were all great. I’m glad these were kept in.
My favorite part, which I think brings this series to greater heights than any of its similar conceptions, was the focus on olive oil. This was impactful to me not just as a Palestinian, but as a writer who recognized the genius of that strategy of storytelling, where the characters have to dig deep into their own heritage and pride to make a way for themselves. Its one rung below seeking help from God and religion in a direct manner, but even then it was combined with Islam in minor ways (like in the last episode).
I didn’t like how rushed everything was. I wish more time was dedicated to scenes of him and his father, as to me that stole the show from the rest of it. A few of the racism jokes and rants were weird. Overall though, it was great to see this betterment in American Muslim media, and I hope it keeps getting better. Mo Amer is good people, seems like he knows what he’s doing and I hope he doesn’t screw this up later. This was based on his own life, after all.
8/10