It takes courage, intense sacrifice and endless hard work and perseverance to lead a movement against bigotry, intolerance and injustice… unless you’re a comedian.
Then it’s fun.
When three Muslims from three different backgrounds get together with funny material on their families, their names and their social struggles and tour the country making people laugh, it makes for some fun, thought-provoking, inspirational film footage.
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| (L-R): Bryant “Preacher” Moss, an African American, Mohammed Amer, an Arab American of Palestinian descent, and Azhar Usman, an Indian who grew up in a Jewish neighborhood in Skokie, Ill. |
They poke fun at themselves, their communities and 9/11-itis in the concert film directed by Andrea Kalin.
The film even gives behind-the-scenes looks at the three men as they work up inspiration and attitude and write their jokes.
It’s showing at the Landmark Maple Art Theater, 4135 West Maple Road in Bloomfield Hills.
Amer, after taking note of what a large, luxurious space a stage makes for a Palestinian, jokes about the difficulty of chasing and calling after a running child named Osama through Wal-mart.
Moss taps into a wealth of jokes that write themselves when you have “the best of both worlds,” being both black and Muslim, the two things white people fear most.
Usman takes note of Hollywood depictions of Muslim men as terrorists and Muslim women as oppressed, when the reality in a Muslim household is the exact opposite.
He also points out some of the joys of traveling to other countries: “Here I get dirty looks for being a Muslim. Sometimes it’s just kind of nice to be hated for just being an American.”
They’re not quite as funny as the guys from the Axis of Evil comedy tour.
The acts can be a bit banal and G-rated, without much satirical fire.
But the movie is fun, it’s for everyone and it definitely shows, again, that Muslims are, indeed, undeniably, regular people.
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