Popular Comedy as Transnational Intervention: Contemporary Muslimness on Screen in Germany and Australia

Abstract

This paper argues that a generalisation of Muslim identities connects Germany and Australia culturally and politically in the second half of the 2010s. Negative sentiments against Muslim minority communities have become commonplace in political discussions despite a lack of factual proof. From the German PEGIDA movement in 2014 sprung a political party, the Alternative for Germany, while Australia’s One Nation party originated similarly from right-wing populist movements such as Reclaim Australia in 2015. Both AfD and One Nation illustrate a shift in the portrayal of Muslimness in modern nation states with large and diverse ethnic minority groups. Muslim men have become the most visible example of the change in perceptions of Islam. An increasing number of politicians and mainstream media depict them as religious zealots and gullible followers of transnational terror organisations such as Islamic State. Comedic fictions though have appeared on television and in cinemas as popular counter-narratives to the reductive stereotyping of Muslim men in Germany’s and Australia’s general population.