The Portrayal of Muslim Love in HBO’s Ramy - Fatma Elsayed

In Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East, Lila Abu Lughod’s piece on “The Marriage of Feminism and Islamism in Egypt '' considerably explores the portrayal of women in Egyptian media. Abu Lughod uses examples like Usama Anwar ‘Ukasha’s Hilmiyya Nights, a television series that aired during the 1980s and early 1990s about struggles of looking for love and marriage, and She and the Impossible by Fathiyya al- ‘Assal about the value of education for women. It was interesting to find how, despite both creators sharing a similar strand of progressive and liberal views on feminism and women in the workplace, there were still differences in how that intersected with marriage and love.  For example in Hilmiyya Nights, Zohra marries her boss at work who seduces her as Ali frustrates her and in She and the Impossible, the female lead goes from illiterate to educated and raising a son alone after being rejected by her lover. In both pieces, there is a similar sense of autonomy but portrayed in different ways Zohra chooses to marry her boss and the female lead chooses to educate herself and raise her son alone.

Reading Abu-Lughod’s piece made me think about the HBO show Ramy which recently won an Oscar for Ramy Youssef as Best Actor in a TV Comedy. The show itself is a modern, comedic portrayal of a Muslim, Egyptian in America that follows their struggles and challenges with merging their Muslim faith and Egyptian culture with American life. The show deals with standard topics such as growing older and building a career, but also emotional ones like love, marriage, and sacrifice. 

I enjoyed the show, and I had previously watched clips by Ramy Youssef who’s comedy was an entertaining yet relatable expression of being Muslim in America. However, I know female Muslim friends who absolutely despised the show, criticizing it’s negative portrayal of Muslim women as objects and appealing to the western eye. Having a back-and-forth with these friends about the show was very conflicting because I usually agreed with these friends on many other things but this case seemed to be an exception. I was fully a fan of Ramy for how hilarious it was, but also for how I felt like it painted a relatable portrayal of the spectrum of Muslims and piety in western societies, and how challenging it can be to find an appropriate partner in the midst of this diversity. However, my friends mentioned plots such as the hijabi Muslim woman who sleeps with Ramy and cheats on her husband as an offensively sexualizing portrayal of Muslim women. 

Conversations and disagreements like these make me wonder if we can ever portray Muslim women in all their diverse lifestyles and piousness without degrading the Muslim woman herself? Additionally, what responsibility do Muslim creators have in upholding or molding the perception of Islam and Muslims? Do we hold them accountable if we do not like their vision?