Islam Comes to Bones

Like The Simpsons, the TV program Bones has made an attempt at non-hysterical depiction of Islam and Muslims.

In the context of a murder in a story loosely inspired by the Gloucester pregnancy pact, this past week's episode introduced a new graduate student named Arastoo Vaziri, who is Iranian, an observant Muslim and a former US army soldier.

It was not the worst depiction of Islam on TV, and Dr. Brennan (Bones) is for the most part an equal opportunity offender with regard to religion.

The repetitive use of Muslim prayer for cheap humor was slightly irritating.

In my experience observant Muslims typically pray once during the business day -- either the Dhuhr (Noon) service or Dhuhr combined with the Asar (Afternoon) service.

The ignorance and dismissive behavior of Bones and her fellow squints with regard to Islam was somewhat out of character because they tend to know the most obscure facts about all sorts of non-European cultures, which they generally discuss non-judgmentally.

Because one might have expected either Bones or Angela to have read Desiring Arabs by Joseph Massad or to have some acquaintance with The Perfumed Garden of Sheikh Nefzawi, the minor subplot involving Vaziri and Angela's lesbian breakup could perhaps have been slightly more nuanced.

The character Clinton, who impregnated 4 members of the girls' volleyball team as well as the victim, was somewhat jarring because the writers may have meant for him to copy sterotypical African American speech and behavior, but his imitation may not have been out of line for a white American high-schooler. I was surprised that there were no Muslim four wive jokes.

There might be some value in contrasting the episode's treatment of Islam with other Hollywood productions that have dealt with Jewish or Christian religion.

In comparison with the Sopranos, Ally McBeal, Sex and the City, Second Sight, and Fritz the Cat, the depiction of a committed Muslim minor or secondary character comes off as fairly reasonable.

Because the name Arastoo Vaziri loosely translates as Aristotle the Advisor, we can probably assume that some on the show actually did some research into Persian names. Aristotle is the archetypal experimental scientist of Greco-Roman classical period.

Bones: The Salt in the Wounds

Season 4 : Ep. 15 (44:01)

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