Homeland to improve its depictions of Muslims

LONDON— Mandy Patinkin knows that his show Homeland hasn’t always shown Muslims in the best light, but he says that is changing with the award-winning show’s sixth season.

“It’s deeply important to me,” he said in an interview this week.

“In all kinds of entertainment — movies, television — there are always the bad guys; the cowboys and Indians, then the Russians were the bad guys, the Nazis were the bad guys. Now it seems like Muslim ‘terrorists’ are the bad guys,” he said.

“So, inadvertently, because it’s an action show — it’s an on-the-edge-of-your-seat political drama that Homeland is — unintentionally, we were not helping the Muslim community and we take responsibility for it. And I know I can speak for the writers when they want to right that error that happened because of storytelling.”

The Showtime show (it airs in Canada on Super Channel), which also stars Claire Danes, is highly acclaimed but has also been criticized for its depiction of Muslims as terrorists. In this season, Danes’ character, Carrie Mathison, is back in the U.S. helping American Muslims.

“We’re part of the problem, but we also desperately want to be part of the cure and we are working toward that in our storylines,” Patinkin said.

“If you watch the whole thing as a whole, especially this season, the sixth season, you’ll see who the bad guys really are and you may have surprises in store for you,” he said.

Patinkin, who also praised the Muslim community for its contributions to the world’s civilization, is trying to make a difference in his own life as well. He works with refugees as part of his work with the International Rescue Committee and he urged U.S. President Donald Trump to be more welcoming to people displaced from war-torn countries.