Articles + Talks

An exciting new chapter!

I’m really happy to share that I’ve started an internship for Brass Media! Brass Media is a multimedia company that produces content for young adults, by young adults, about money and real world stuff.

I’ll be doing what I love best: good, old-fashioned editorial stuff like dotting Is and crossing Ts!

I’ll also be blogging for their website, Money Side of Life! My first blog post is already up here, about how to make some extra cash consigning your clothes.

M.I.A.’s “Bad Girls” Video

The ladies of MMW and I deconstruct M.I.A.’s newest music video:

Fatemeh: This song is bad-ass and I’m going to be listening to it non-stop for the next week.

BUT YEAH. It’s cool that M.I.A. is showcasing a prominent and prevalent Khaleej pastime (this is all over YouTube in Arabic), but is obviously exploiting it while using dancers in niqabs and the “locals” as props. Plus, I think the shots of burning detritus and huge-ass pipes just shore up the idea that the desert is nothing but and these places have nothing better going for them. I’d react more favorably to see this set in a Dubai roadway with lit-up palm trees and the Burj in the background.

Check out the entire discussion at Muslimah Media Watch!

Shahs of Sunset

The show doesn’t premiere for another month, but I’ve already got a lot to say after seeing the two minute “sneak peek.” Check out my first thoughts at Racialicious:

How will a program featuring first- and second-generation Iranian-Americans (or Persians, as they prefer) affect public opinion on Iran? On one hand, Iran is presented as evil, nuclear, and menacing in news reports and pop culture. On the other hand, Shahs features a bunch of vapid, rich Americans with Iranian ancestry—many of whom are refugees from the 1979 revolution. In the opening credits, cast members relate that, “When the revolution happened, we all had to pick up and flee the old country,” and “I’ve been a refugee since I was eight.”

Who’s afraid of a Muslim feminist?

I write about my Islam and my feminism for Common Ground News Service, and how they’re not so different:

People, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, often tell me that I can’t be both a Muslim and a feminist. At a recent book reading in Oregon, for example, a male audience member asked me, “How does that even work?” These questions demonstrate some of the rigid misconceptions individuals have about Islam and feminism; many people think that they’re mutually exclusive categories. In fact, as a Muslim feminist, I have found them to have more in common than people realize, especially when it comes to social justice.

Check out the entire piece here.

I reviewed Craig Thompson’s Habibi

I’d been hearing quite a lot about Craig Thompson’s graphic novel, Habibi. I was lucky enough to get my hands on a copy, which was beautiful. But gnawed at me.

So I wrote a review! It’s the first thing I’ve written in awhile, and it’s up at Racialicious:

Themes of longing and survival permeate Habibi. The protagonists, Zam and Dodola, long for each other, likening this to a yearning for the Divine – Middle Eastern poets have done this for centuries. Zam and Dodola endure horrible events in the name of survival, perhaps tying in with Thompson’s conservationist theme by implying that our disregard for the earth is tantamount to rape and castration of the planet. These themes, however, are often drowned out—no matter how much Thompson underlines them—by the towering gaffes of his misrepresentation. The country of Wanatolia may be fiction, but the cultures it mimics and clumsily muddles together are real.

A lot of my colleagues have reviewed it, as well, and I include their reviews in my piece. So check it out!