Real Housewives of ISIS", the parody of the jihadist women of the BBC who passes badly

A skit in the British Revolution program "BBC2" featuring jihadist women and parodying the American reality show "Real Housewives" has raised controversy in the UK.

"The decapitation is in three days and I have nothing to put myself!" Thus begins the sketch Real Housewives of ISIS [ISIS being the acronym for Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, so the EI] - a parody of the American reality TV show "Real Housewives" on The housewives - broadcast on the "Revolting" program of the British channel BBC2, January 3.

The tone is given: humor very shifted on the theme can no longer anxiety of Islamist terrorism. One of the sketch characters - three of them living in what looks like a ruined apartment in a war zone - boasts of having received a waistcoat wrapped in explosives "very chic" ... and complains when " Another appears in the same accoutrement. One last laments that her husband prefers the "40 virgins" who are supposed, according to the jihadist propaganda, to wait for the candidates suicide bombings in the afterlife.

At the expense of Muslim women?

The aim of the program, which is often very impertinent and explores the limits of "humorously correct", has been achieved: creating a wide-ranging polemic in the media landscape.

"The show is shocking and not at all funny," assures the American media Mic . "The BBC strongly criticized a sketch of 'bad taste'," relishes the Daily Mirror tabloid right . The British conservative press took pleasure in transcribing the avalanche of tweets and negative comments left on the Facebook account of the chain that taclent BBC2 for this parody.

"The women who wear the hijab will feel even more isolated and risk being more mocked by Islamophobes," complains a surfer. Another contends that "the jokes about the terrorist organization Islamic State (EI) are not funny at all. It is a lack of respect for laughing at that while others mourn the death of those they love" .

The question posed by "Real Housewives of ISIS" is whether, on a public channel and thus with the taxpayer's money, one can laugh at the fate reserved for women by the jihadists of the IE. According to critics of the sketch, these jokes are done at the expense of women. This parody "makes generalizations about Muslims based on a very small minority, which can ultimately harm the vast majority," assures Mic Manal Omar, the vice president of the center of studies of the Middle- Middle East and Africa to the United States Institute for Peace.

"Ridiculing the propaganda of the IE"

But the show also has its defenders. The British comedian Ali and Muslim Shahalom approves humor that "ridicules the IU propaganda" and helps attract "attention to an important issue [the lot of women in parts of Syria] without criticizing religion."

For the daily center-left The Independent must not "underestimate the power of humor." The subject is too serious - dozens of British women have gone to join the ranks of the IE, recalls the newspaper - not to try all the weapons available in order to sensitize the population. The Independent recalls that "Arabs know better than anyone how satire can be useful in defying fundamentalists." 

For the Saudi actor Nasser al-Qasabi, who performed several skits parodying the militants of the IU , "humorously warn people of the dangers of this group is the real jihad, because we fight against them with our art, not Going to war ".

Source:mashable