Nida Manzoor, British Television Writer And Director, Changes The Way Muslim Women Are Portrayed On Screen
17 April 2023
• Nida Manzoor, British Television Writer And Director,Changes The Way Muslim Women Are Portrayed On Screen
• Muslim Mother And Daughter Report Alleged Hate Crime Involving Gun Threat In Kitchener, Canada
• Saudi Model Amira Al-Zuhair Shows Off Prada Bag From Eid Campaign
• Women Challenge In Performing Islamic Duties During Ramadan
• "Internal Issue Of Afghanistan": Taliban On Ban On Women Working For UN
Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/nida-manzoor-british-television-muslim-women/d/129584
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Nida Manzoor, British Television Writer And Director,ChangesThe Way Muslim Women Are Portrayed On Screen
Written By Marina Fang
April 17, 2023
British writer-director Nida Manzoor’s
comedy series “We Are Lady Parts,” about a group of young Muslim women who form
a punk band, premiered to great acclaim in 2021. Now, she’s making her
directorial feature film debut with “Polite Society,” in theaters April 28.
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To read about the other Culture Shifters, return to the list here.
It’s hard not to feel pure joy and delight when talking with writer-director Nida Manzoor and listening to her describe everything from her childhood film and TV influences to all the big ideas she’s cooking up for the future.
Joy and delight are certainly at the centre of her two biggest projects so far: “We Are Lady Parts,” her buoyant Peacock comedy series about a group of young Muslim women who form a punk band — and now, her debut feature film “Polite Society,” which premieres in theaters on April 28.
In the film, protagonist Ria (Priya Kansara) is a British Pakistani teen aspiring to be a stunt performer in movies. Her parents are about to marry off her older sister Lena (Ritu Arya) to, as Ria describes him, “a rich Mr. Darcy wanker.” To try to stop the wedding, Ria and her friends stage a heist. As that description suggests, “Polite Society” is a fun, bold and inventive blend of genres: everything from action to modern-day Jane Austen to coming-of-age, and much, much more.
Manzoor’s assured feature directorial debut feels like the kind of movie only she could make. It’s also the culmination of her years of writing and directing in TV, across many different genres, from small, intimate comedies to the legendary BBC sci-fi series “Doctor Who.” In fact, Manzoor, 33, wrote the first draft of “Polite Society” more than a decade ago, when she was first trying to break into filmmaking in her early 20s. But as she soon discovered, at that time, “nobody wanted to make a crazy genre film with a bunch of South Asians in it,” especially from a newcomer.
“I suppose I didn’t see how my film would ever exist, in a way, because I thought: to do a fun action comedy, it’d have to star, like, Ryan Reynolds,” she said. “It couldn’t have a South Asian teenage girl. I was like, ‘Maybe these two things can’t come together.’”
Even now, she’s in a bit of disbelief that it finally got made. “For a long time it was like, ‘Oh, I just don’t know if the industry is going to do it.’ And then, like, ‘Shit, the tides have turned,’” she said. “Even when I watch ‘Polite,’ I’m like, ‘How the…?’ There was a point where everyone in town had said no to ‘Polite Society,’ and it really knocked my confidence.”
The film was greenlighted thanks to the success of “We Are Lady Parts,” which premiered in 2021. She wrote the show after feeling demoralized by some of the offers she was getting, like being asked to co-write a project with a white male writer “and just be the brown person who can give that point of view and the rubber-stamping of his stuff.” Similarly, she was demoralized by the one-dimensional portrayals of Muslim women on screen, such as stories with “a misery porn vibe,” which bore no resemblance to her life.
“I’d just been asked to do lots of really annoying shows, being asked to write dramas about Muslim women being oppressed, long-suffering,” she said. “The annoyance of having been asked to write all this stuff that wasn’t my experience of being a Muslim woman made me create ‘Lady Parts.’”
As with “Polite Society,” when she started pitching “We Are Lady Parts,” she met a lot of resistance. “‘We Are Lady Parts’ got turned down basically everywhere, except for one place, and that was Channel 4 and then Peacock,” she said. “It was a lot of people being like, ‘I don’t think we can do this. Is this offensive? Are people going to get upset?’ A lot of stuff where it was like, ‘No, we don’t want to take the heat from something like this. This could have a lot of heat.’ And it was just really stressful. I’m like, ‘This is just a Muslim woman expressing joy!’”
That sense of joy and the delightful combination of genres in Manzoor’s work make total sense, given her childhood of watching a range of work, including sitcoms, Hong Kong kung fu movies and four-hour Bollywood epics. She says she’s always been drawn to big spectacle movies, where watching them feels like an event.
Growing up, Manzoor consumed a voracious diet of movies and TV that shaped her sensibilities. She tuned in to “Malcolm in the Middle” and “The Simpsons” and British classics like “Fawlty Towers” and “Blackadder.” Born in London, she spent 10 years in Singapore due to her dad’s job in business, and then moved back to London in her teens.
“In Singapore, I was watching these amazing Singaporean sitcoms that I became obsessed with. And my dad was a big action movie fan, so we’d always be watching action. I remember watching ‘Die Hard’ and lots of Jackie Chan movies: the ’90s ones, like ‘Rush Hour’ and that kind of thing,” she said. “It was just a kind of real hodgepodge, a mishmash of stuff. I think it all just shaped the kind of stuff I love.”
She studied politics at University College London, and her parents hoped she’d become a lawyer. But her real passion was writing and directing short films in her spare time: “I just thought: ‘I just don’t want to be a lawyer. I just don’t. I can’t.’” After graduation, she was determined to figure out how to become a director. Her first job was as a runner for a post-production company in London. While she remembers the job as “pretty rough,” including doing menial tasks and “dealing with badly behaved execs,” she loved being around creative people, which fuelled her to keep going.
She charted a path of applying for grants and contests in the U.K., where much of the arts are supported by public funding and publicly funded institutions like the BBC and the British Film Institute. The script for her first short film, “Arcade,” won a BBC screenwriting competition in 2013. Centring on two girls playing in an arcade, the film was shot in a day. Her dad drove the van with all of her equipment, and her mom made food for the crew.
“It’s still one of my favorite things I’ve done. I was just trying to be like, ‘This is my tone: very distilled, heightened genre comedy,’” she said. “And in many ways, people do look at that short film as like, ‘Oh, we’ve got you from that.’ And those short films were things that I think really helped me get to make the stuff in my voice, and sort of find it as well.”
Manzoor dreamed of getting “Polite Society” made, but had a lot of frustrating conversations with executives who thought it was too this or not enough that.
“I realized a lot of people I was developing ‘Polite’ with weren’t into it and were trying to push it into being a bit more serious. I’m like, ‘Why won’t you let it be silly?’” she said. She even remembers people telling her: “‘My influences are too male.’ I’m like, ‘Who has been making cinema?!’”
She put the script aside, finding more of an opening in TV. After the success of her short films, she got jobs writing for several BBC kids shows, where she loved the collaborative nature of the writers rooms. Her short films also opened up opportunities to direct TV pilots. Many of those jobs weren’t in her own voice. But she found that working on other people’s stories was a great learning experience: figuring out how to manage different styles of comedy or how to land on the right tone for a given story.
In 2017, Manzoor directed the pilot of “Enterprice,” a BBC comedy series created by and starring KayodeEwumi, inspired by elements of his life as a young Black British man from South London.
“It was his show, and I was bringing the visual language for the world. So I learned so much from seeing what he needed,” she said. “I learned a lot in the art of collaboration, so when it came to making my own thing, of seeing where I can bring collaborators and trust them. And he was really trusting, which I also found really amazing — like, ‘This is his story, and he’s trusting me to direct it.’”
When “Enterprice” got picked up to series in 2018, Manzoor directed the first season. In 2019, she landed a huge gig: directing two episodes of “Doctor Who,” which aired in early 2020. She again approached it as an opportunity to build new skills, particularly given the scale of the long-running time travel series. “I really saw it as, like, ‘I’m going to learn some shit. I’m going to learn about the machine.’”
Being on the set of such a monumental show helped her combat her impostor syndrome by simply “being good at the job.”
“There’s huge crews, crews of hundreds, big visual effects — I hadn’t done big visual effects — aliens, a really ambitious schedule,” she said. “I learned a lot more about having the kind of annoying dance that sometimes you have to do in proving yourself, if you are a young, female, person of color. I feel like sometimes you’ve just got to prove yourself in a way that a man, a white man, a middle-aged man doesn’t.”
“Doing that show gave me confidence, like: ‘I can do this. I’m good at the job.’ It’s not that I need to swagger around and shout. I can still be me. I’m quite a quiet, introverted person, so I don’t need to pretend. And doing that made me realize: I can be me and direct.”
During that time, Channel 4, which had broadcast the pilot of “We Are Lady Parts” in 2018, greenlighted the show for a full series. It premiered in 2021 to major acclaim, including winning a Peabody Award and a BAFTA TV Award for best comedy writing.
The show was produced by Working Title, the company led by veteran British producers Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner. Bevan asked Manzoor if she had any movie ideas, and finally, she dusted off her “Polite Society” script. To her pleasant surprise, Bevan encouraged her to lean into the boldness of her vision, unlike those frustrating rejections years earlier.
She has come a long way since she was 21, when she wrote the original script on free screenwriting software on her computer. This time around, she ended up rewriting much of it, incorporating what she had learned in the intervening years.
The script she wrote at 21 “was biting off too much and wanting to do too much,” Manzoor said. “I feel lucky that I got to be more experienced, especially with tone. Tone is hard, but it’s the most fun thing. You get to twist it and turn it and move it and play with it, and ‘Lady Parts’ helped me find that.”
Manzoor has plenty on her plate right now, including writing the second season of “We Are Lady Parts.” Beyond that, she wants to continue making the kinds of movies she loved growing up: big spectacle movies, but with “women of color at the heart of them.” She also wants to make a musical someday, “something like Anxiety: The Musical.”
“For a long time, I felt like, when you’re outside the door, it feels impossible to open the door,” she said. “And now, I feel like I’m in, which is incredibly exciting.”
At the same time, there’s always that anxiety of whether that progress is here to stay and the fear that it could all go away at any moment.
“What if this is a dream? What if someone pulls my pants down, and it was all a big joke? Because it still feels so new that we are even allowed to take up space in this way, and to have a voice in this way, and to not just be pandering to stereotypes. It’s all very new,” she said. “I feel like I’m in. But I’m still like: How do I stay here? And if I relax for 20 minutes, will it all be gone? Like, ‘Sorry. You left, so you’re now out.’”
She hopes to become the kind of filmmaker who produces decade after decade of hits, a career longevity that historically has only been afforded to white male directors: the Steven Spielbergs and Martin Scorseses of the world.
“Will I get to be like Scorsese in my 70s and be popping out massively long movies, and everyone loves it? I want to be that. I want to be an old filmmaker. I don’t want to just be gone,” she said. “So I still harbor slight anxiety, whilst also feeling extremely lucky to be here.”
Sourse: huffpost.com
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/nida-manzoor-culture-shifters_n_64305ec7e4b05cef00c8eebb
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Muslim Mother And Daughter Report Alleged Hate Crime Involving Gun Threat In Kitchener, Canada
TORONTO (AA): Two Muslim women, a mother
and daughter, reported an alleged hate crime that took place in Kitchener, a
city in Canada’s Ontario province on Wednesday morning.
According to a report by CTV News, the women said a stranger followed them with his car after morning prayers at the mosque and pointed a gun at them.
“We rolled down the window, he rolled down his, then we just saw him pull out his phone and point it at us and we were like, okay that’s weird. And suddenly, in the other hand, he pulled out a gun and pointed it at us,” the daughter told CTV News.
The women were unharmed, but they were left in fear and shaken by the incident. The woman drove away, but the man allegedly followed them for some time.
She said the incident makes her feel unsafe at her own mosque — but it won’t stop her from going.
“There’s this Muslim belief, ‘what’s written for you is written for you’. So you just keep living your life knowing that it could end at any time,” she told CBC.
The Kitchener Masjid’s Imam Mohamed Bendame said he was surprised and worried to hear what had happened to members of his congregation.
“We do have security cameras installed around the place and we also hire a security guy,” he told the CBC. “After what happened [Wednesday] morning, I think we’re probably going to have to make sure that we have security every day, every night because you just don’t know what’s going to happen.”
The suspect is described as a 20-year-old white man wearing a dark hoodie and a face mask, as reported by Waterloo Regional Police.
The police department tweeted, “Continuing to investigate a report of a weapons incident in the area of Franklin Street North and Ottawa Street North in Kitchener. Anyone with information is asked to contact police or @WaterlooCrime.”
According to CBC, local police have not yet said whether the incident is being considered a hate crime, but they did confirm that investigators are working in collaboration with The Waterloo Regional Police Service (WRPS)’ Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Unit.
The women reported experiencing the incident after leaving the mosque, and they believe it was hate-motivated.
Earlier on April 10, a man was apprehended pending trial for hate crime after he rammed his car into a Muslim person in Toronto.
The incident took place in the parking lot of the Markham Islamic Society Mosque, the oldest and largest mosque in the region, during the early morning prayer, according to a statement from York Regional Police.
The suspect was identified as 28-year-old SharanKarunakaran.
“Investigators with the York Regional Police #5 District Criminal Investigations Bureau have charged a suspect with several criminal offences after a suspected hate-motivated incident at a mosque in the City of Markham,” the police said in the statement.
“Witnesses reported that a male suspect had attended in a vehicle and drove directly at one of the worshippers and yelled threats and religious slurs. The suspect drove dangerously in the parking lot before leaving the property,” the officials from the York police also added in the statement.”
In the statement, the Markham Islamic Society said before the attack, Karunakaran entered the mosque hurled curses at the congregation and tore a copy of the Quran to pieces.
“After leaving the mosque, the person drove his vehicle onto those who were leaving the prayer. We are very disturbed by this incident. Especially as the anniversary of the vehicle terrorist attack in the city of London in 2021, in which a family of four died, draws closer,” the society said in a statement.
Additional reporting by The Muslim News
[Photo: Nadia Hasan (C) chief operating officer of the National Council of Canadian Muslims speaks during a press conference at Markham Islamic Society Mosque in Markham, north of Toronto, Ontario, Canada on April 10, 2023. A man was apprehended by Canadian police after he rammed his car into a Muslim person in Toronto, officials said Sunday. The attacker has been detained pending trial for hate crime. Photojournalist: MertAlperDervis/AA]
Source: muslimnews.co.uk
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Saudi model Amira Al-Zuhair shows off Prada bag from Eid campaign
April 17, 2023
Amira Al-Zuhair stars in Italian label
Prada’s Ramadan and Eid Al-Fitr campaign. )Prada)
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DUBAI: Saudi model Amira Al-Zuhair, who stars in Italian label Prada’s Ramadan and Eid Al-Fitr campaign, took to Instagram to show off her favorite accessory from the latest edit that features relaxed-yet-elegant pieces.
Posting a picture of herself with Prada’s distinctive leather shoulder bag, Al-Zuhair captioned the image: “My favorite bag from the Ramadan and Eid campaign I shot with @Prada,” along with a brown heart, stars and crescent moon emojis.
Al-Zuhair, 22, did not become a model full-time until she was 18. Instead, she had a gradual introduction to the industry with test shoots and editorials.
“School and my education have been a top priority,” she explained in a previous interview with Arab News. “I’ve always been a bit of a nerd — I represented my school in national math competitions, I was head of the math team, and a member of the UK’s Youth Parliament. And then I focused on my degree. It’s still my goal today to become a lawyer.”
Al-Zuhair was born in Paris to a French mother and Saudi father. She was raised in London, however — “my father wanted me to follow his steps and graduate from a UK university,” she explained. The family traveled frequently between the UK and Riyadh, so Al-Zuhair feels a strong cultural and emotional attachment to the Kingdom.
“I love Saudi. It’s a big part of who I am and I really appreciate everything that’s going on at the moment — the advancements in culture, education, economy, and infrastructure,” she said. “The current leadership has done an amazing job at putting the country at the forefront of the global stage, and I’m really proud to see these changes.”
Although Al-Zuhair grew up in Europe, she said she was raised with “traditional values.”
“I think the industry is very accommodating,” she said. “It’s all about what boundaries you set. My agency is amazing – and these boundaries have been respected with all aspects of my work and with all my clients. I’ve been very fortunate to have a very good experience.”
Al-Zuhair has had a busy year so far, hitting the Dolce and Gabbana runway at Milan Fashion Week in February before she took to the catwalk for Lebanese couturier Elie Saab in Paris in March.
Source: arabnews.com
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2288151/lifestyle
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Women Challenge In Performing Islamic Duties During Ramadan
April 17, 2023
Mr. Gaye TheVoice
Omar A. Bojang, Deputy Chairman of the Media and Communications Committee of the Supreme Islamic Council (SIC) has explained the importance of Ramadan and the challenges women are facing in performing their Islamic duties during Ramadan.
Speaking to The Voice, OustazBojang described the month of Ramadan as a blessed month and said Fasting in the holy month of Ramadan helps people to fear Allah and abstain from forbidden things they do in other months.
He explained that Ramadan also helps Muslims to answer the call of their creature because Allah said in the Holy Quran ‘I have not created mankind and Jinns for anything else except for them to worship me alone.’
He went on that fasting is very rewarding compared to other worships saying almighty Allah has said He will pay or reward humankind personally as Ramadan is for only Him alone.
“Islam consists of five pillars and fasting (in the month of Ramadan) is one of them. Fasting has started since before Islam the Jews and the Christians were fasting before the coming of Islam even though we have some differences with them,” he expressed.
He added, Allah said to the prophet and his people in the holy Quran that “Oh you who believe fasting is obligatory on you as it was obligatory on people before you so that you may fear Allah.”
Meanwhile, outlining the role and challenges of women during Ramadan, he said the role of women during Ramadan, is very unique. They (women) cook or prepare breakfast iftar for men or for the family which is an extra reward for them.
OustazBonjang quotes “The prophet (S.W.A) says whosoever prepares or gives food to people to break their fast, especially in Ramadan, will have a similar reward like them and that will not reduce your fasting.”
However, he said there are other challenges that women face during Ramadan that are natural. “Natural Challenges like menstruation, in Islam menstruated women are not allowed to fast during their menstrual periods, but they will still have the reward of fasting because they have a chance to pay back or fast the days they missed.”
And nursing mothers who are feeding their babies are also allowed not to fast because the nutrition that the child got is from the food that the mother eats so fasting may be harmful to both the mum and her child.
So, “pregnant women should not fast, because pregnancy is another natural challenge that women face during Ramadan but after Ramadan all of them have the time to pay or fast the days they missed,” he noted.
Source: voicegambia.com
https://www.voicegambia.com/2023/04/17/women-challenge-in-performing-islamic-duties-during-ramadan/?noamp=mobile
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"Internal Issue Of Afghanistan": Taliban On Ban On Women Working For UN
April 16, 2023
Kabul, Afghanistan: A ban on Afghan women working for the United Nations was an internal issue, the country's Taliban authorities said Wednesday, adding that the decision "should be respected by all sides".
Taliban authorities triggered international outrage earlier this month after extending a December ban on Afghan women working for non-governmental organisations to the UN.
"The Islamic Emirate does not want to create obstacles for the United Nations," Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement on Wednesday.
"Rather, it wants to make it clear that this is an internal issue of Afghanistan which does not create a problem for anyone and should be respected by all sides."
Under their austere interpretation of Islam, Taliban authorities have imposed a slew of restrictions on Afghan women since seizing power in 2021, including banning them from higher education and many government jobs.
The UN said Tuesday the ban was forcing it to make an "appalling choice" on whether to continue operations in Afghanistan.
The world body said it cannot comply with the ban as it was "unlawful under international law, including the UN Charter".
Mujahid, however, said there was no "discrimination" in the decision.
"On the contrary, considering the religious and cultural interests, we are committed to all the rights of our people."
The increasing curbs on women are reminiscent of the Taliban's first government between 1996 and 2001, when the UN said they were responsible for repeated human rights violations -- particularly against girls and women.
Since the ban was announced, the UN has ordered all its Afghan staff -- men and women -- not to report to work until further notice.
Taliban authorities justified the December ban on the grounds they had received "serious complaints" that women were not observing the group's interpretation of Islamic dress codes.
Several NGOs suspended operations in the country in protest, piling further misery on Afghanistan's citizens -- half of whom face hunger, according to aid agencies.
Mujahid said Afghans had the "capacity to stand on their own feet", but the country's problems were caused by sanctions and restrictions on the financial and banking system.
Soon after the Taliban's takeover, the United States seized roughly $7 billion in Afghan central bank assets.
"It is necessary that the member countries of the United Nations resolve the problem of freezing Afghan assets, banking, travel bans and other restrictions so that Afghanistan can progress in the economic, political and security areas," Mujahid said.
Source: ndtv.com
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/internal-issue-of-afghanistan-taliban-on-ban-on-women-working-for-un-3953724
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URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/nida-manzoor-british-television-muslim-women/d/129584