‘I’m not a Muslim. In fact, my name is Katie.’: Muslim-drag in the C4 documentary My Week as a Muslim

Abstract

ABSTRACT In the UK Channel 4 documentary, My Week As a Muslim, an English, white woman named Katie donned a hijab, a prosthetic nose and copious amounts of brown foundation to disguise herself as a Pakistani Muslim so that she could spend a week experiencing Muslim culture and appreciate her position of white privilege. Although My Week as a Muslim was attempting to challenge many of the dominant stereotypes of Muslim women found in much of Western media, it was highly problematic in the way the entire experiment echoed the narrative conventions of cross-dressing comedy films. The documentary concluded with a final ‘reveal’ sequence where Katie removed her hijab, prosthetic nose and wiped off brown make-up to show her new Muslim friends that she merely had been performing Muslim-ness for the past week. Not only did this reinforce misconceptions that there are significant differences between British people and Islam (Katie could only pass as Muslim through the use of prosthetics and elaborate make-up) but the ‘hilarious’ reveal of the cross-dressing narrative also suggested the superiority of the Muslim-drag performer in comparison to the foolish people who were deceived by the act.