Rihanna
But while I understand why many people are upset and offended by the show's sloppy disregard for cultural beliefs, I have to take a step back and look at the whole picture. To me, this is less an example of a corporate entity exploiting an under-represented culture and more like a disastrous case of telephone.
Let's start with the song in question. "Doom" is a 2016 dance/electronic song by British music producer Coucou Chloe. The entire song's hook, chorus, and verses are built around a cropped and sped-up sample of a Hadith (narrated by Mishary bin Rashid Alafasy). For my non-Muslim readers, a Hadith refers to reports of statements or actions of prophet Muhammad P.B.U.H., or of his implied approval or criticism of something said or done in his presence. If this sounds vague and open-ended, that's because it is.
If you really dig into it, there are actually different levels of authenticity to Hadiths; some are regarded with mild skepticism and some are as sacred as the Quran itself. The specific Hadith that's sampled in "Doom" references a conversation between Mohammad P.B.U.H. and his followers, wherein he describes a period of time before the Day of Judgment called Haradge, or, "The Killing." He goes on to describe this Haradge as a period of chaos (or "doom") when you aren't killing your enemies, but killing yourselves: friend killing friend, neighbor killing neighbor, brother killing brother. Frankly, I'm surprised Blumhouse Productions hasn't optioned the rights to this Islamic nightmare yet.
After listening to the song by itself, I found myself pretty underwhelmed. As a Muslim-American I have to recognize that my sensitivity to Islamic traditions may differ from other Muslims around the world, but I didn't find the song necessarily blasphemous. An ignorant exercise in cultural appropriation? Sure. But not wholly sacrilege. The beat is hypnotic, and the bass synths are massive and beefy. The biggest blunder is that at no point did Coucou Chloe think to run this song by a single Muslim person–or Arab-speaking person, for that matter–who would immediately be able to tell that these vocals were Islamic in nature and likely advise her to find a different sample.
Or did she? She herself acknowledged (in the description of the now-deleted YouTube video for the song) that the sample is taken from a recording of someone speaking in a different language: "For those who were wondering what were the vocal samples–I didn't make the vocals on this one as you can easily guess."
She even linked to the original clip of the Hadith. Given the specificity of what the Hadith is illustrating– murder, carnage, and chaos– and the fact that Coucou Chloe titled the track "Doom" leads me to believe that she had some idea of what the verse was saying, or at the very least understood it to be Islamic. In her apology tweet, she has this to say:
Many Twitter users responded to the tweet with the fact that she titled the song "Doom" while claiming not to know what the Arabic words were saying. I find it hard to believe that someone could invest so much time and effort to compose this intricate, appropriated piece of work and didn't think to do even a modicum of research.
But people aren't upset that a random non-Muslim music producer made a song that sampled an Islamic Hadith. This song could have lived in the ether of Bandcamp for all eternity, to remain an ignorant notch on this artist's bedpost of a career. But then it was featured in a lingerie show. And not just any lingerie show– Fenty's multi-million dollar fashion production, replete with cinematic lights, dynamic choreography, multi-camera setups, and an army of internationally acclaimed models from around the globe–featured on the mainstage of the second-biggest streaming platform in the world.
As someone who grew up hearing those words in the context of chastity and worship, it was unsettling. A model in a black leotard walks toward the camera, an echo of snare hits ringing out amongst a slur of vocalization. And then the holy words come. Not obvious at first. Just a phrase. Something eerily familiar to any well-to-do Muslim… Are we hearing that right? Is that what I think it is? It isn't until a red-headed model in a thin blue two-piece takes center frame that the full phrase of the Hadith becomes clear. It only gets worse as the camera follows the scantily clad model to a rotating centerpiece, where a final girl is literally unveiled, hair down, legs spread, tongue extended in a seductive smirk.
via Amazon Prime Video
It felt like something out of 2018's Suspiria: hedonism and piety woven into a cacophony of profligacy.
What's worse is the fact that this isn't the first time Rihanna has bumped up against Islamic appropriation in her Fenty line. In October 2018, Bella Hadid walked for Fenty lingerie wearing a headdress resembling an Islamic hijab.
When you look at the photo, it could be seen as walking the fine line between appropriation and fashion; her hair isn't fully covered and her face is visible. But a lot of Muslim women choose to wear their Hijab in this style and associate it with an Islamic expression. Wearing that headdress with a lace bra and panties isn't exactly respectful of the culture.
Plus, I can't help but laugh to myself at the fact that Rihanna has dated two prominent Muslims and still didn't think to run this song by an actual Muslim person! How does that happen? I don't believe Rihanna knowingly blasphemed an entire religion in order to make a statement with her lingerie. Maliya Naz references one twitter user in her article from Muslim Girl, as saying "Maybe the song just sounded good to them;" one minor aspect of a multi-part extravaganza. It just ended up being a horrible miscalculation.
While Twitter is ablaze with people condemning both Rihanna and Coucou, I don't think it's fair to cancel them. Professor Khaled Beydoun points out in a tweet:
I think is totally possible for both Rihanna and Coucou to "grow and move ahead" if they truly own up to their mistakes. It's not like they're doubling down on their ignorant, offensive transgressions and dying on a hill they have no right to be on, like some celebrities.
For myself, and from what I can tell by the thousands of outraged tweets being lobbed at Rihanna and Coucou, Muslims are feeling as though our culture is only valuable as long as it's commodifiable. Rihanna has taken steps in the past to include Muslim visibility by hiring Halima Aden and Mariah Idrissi for her Fenty fashion campaigns in 2017 and 2018, respectively. That's all well and good, but if she can't take the time to discern between an Arabic-language song and a song that samples religious scripture, then her inclusive strides feel a bit hollow.
In her apology, she promises that "nothing like this will never happen again." But how exactly can she promise that if she didn't know what she was doing was wrong in the first place? I think the best way for her to address this transgression is to reach out to the Muslim community in an effort to understand why we were so offended. It's not enough to just say you won't do it again, Rihanna. How are you going to not do it again? And I'm not talking about making a donation to a Muslim charity or putting out a new line of underwear for Muslims. This has to be work, as in working towards understanding the culture she wants to advocate for.
We shouldn't discount the work Rihanna's done for Muslim inclusivity, but she very clearly has a long way to go before we can consider her a true ally. As for Coucou… She should donate all the money she made off that song to a Muslim charity. Islam isn't an aesthetic, and it isn't here to be monetized.
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In Defense of Jeff Goldblum's "Stupid" Islam Comments on "Drag Race"
Unlike most Americans, Jeff Goldblum had some humility on the issue
Jeff Goldblum
Actor Jeff Goldblum appeared as the guest judge on Friday night's episode of RuPaul's Drag Race and got himself into some hot water.
After Iranian-American contestant Jackie Cox walked the runway in a red and white striped kaftan with a blue hijab rimmed in stars—in keeping with the episode's "Stars and Stripes" theme—Goldblum asked her if she was religious. She responded that she is not but that her outfit "represents the importance that visibility for people of religious minorities need to have in this country."
She later got into how Donald Trump's controversial (and blatantly Islamophobic) travel ban had affected her personally, saying, "When the Muslim ban happened, it really destroyed a lot of my faith in this country. It really hurt my family … And I had to show America that you can be LGBT and from the Middle East, and there's gonna be complicated sh** around that, and that's okay. But I'm here, and I deserve to be in America just as much as anyone else."
It's a potent and important message in a time when xenophobia and exclusion are being promoted as the cure for all of America's problems, but that significance ended up being overshadowed by the outrage that erupted around Jeff Golblum's attempt to dig into some of that "complicated sh**." Noting what he referred to as "an interesting wrinkle," Goldblum asked, "Is there something in that religion that is anti-homosexuality and anti-woman? Does that complicate the issue? I'm just raising it and thinking out loud and maybe being stupid."
While RuPaul immediately brushed aside that bit of self-doubt, noting that "Drag has always shaken the tree, so to speak," it's important that Goldblum acknowledged his possible stupidity on the subject. The truth is that the vast majority of Americans are stupid when it comes to the topic of Islam—which is far from the monolithic system of oppression that Americans are encouraged to imagine. While some have criticized Goldblum's suggestion that Islam is particularly unfriendly toward women and the LBGTQ community as "dangerous," isn't there a danger in leaving commonly shared thoughts unspoken and uninterrogated?
As a nation, we've spent much of the last two decades being indoctrinated into a view of muslim countries as uniquely oppressive to the point that our military involvement in the region is justified and necessary. The truth is that misogyny and homophobia remain common to most cultures and religious institutions around the world, and the fact that America has legalized gay marriage and platformed a popular show about drag is hardly proof that we have moved past those problems ourselves. But while it would have been better for Jeff Goldblum to acknowledge that reality in his comments, that doesn't mean he's oblivious to it.
As it turns out, Goldblum has seen a lot of American homophobia. His older brother Lee was pushed into "conversion therapy" by their father, whom Goldblum describes as "conspicuously cruel" toward Lee, who has since passed away. All the while Lee's sexuality remained a secret, and it seems more than likely that the shame and trauma of those experiences contributed to Lee's later struggles with mental health. Some viewers have speculated that it was thoughts of his late brother that motivated Goldblum's tearful reception of the episode's lip-sync battle.
Regardless, it's safe to assume that Goldblum is aware of the homophobia that is still a big part of American culture and of most forms of religious belief. He has expressed broad criticism of organized religion in the past, and while Jackie Cox's outfit brought the topic to Islam, Goldblum might have asked the same sort of questions if a contestant from a Christian or Jewish background had dressed as a nun or a hasidic woman.
So while it's worth criticizing the islamophobia that can be inferred in Goldblum's comments, we can't jump at the chance to "cancel him." His perspective is likely more nuanced than a harsh interpretation would suggest, and the humility included in his note that he was "thinking out loud and maybe being stupid" deserves some credit.
Certainly criticism of Islam and Muslim-majority countries should be handled carefully and placed in a context that acknowledges the harm done to those cultures by American and European imperialism. But if we treat that criticism as inherently taboo and hateful, we give fodder to actual voices of hate to say that we are ignoring reality—the reality, for instance, that Iranian women are currently striving to improve with their headscarf protests.
For evidence, see the myriad "conservative" (white/Christian-supremacist) publications now rallying behind Jeff Goldblum as a supposed victim of cancel culture for calling out Muslim homophobia. Never mind that those same publications would never publish a tolerant word about a show like Ru Paul's Drag Race in any other context.
So yes, take Jeff Goldblum's slightly clueless perspective on Islam as an opportunity to educate and correct broader American ignorance, but leave outrage out of the equation—it doesn't help anything.