Dunno what predicament Desperate Housewives' Terri Hatcher has got herself in here, but I do know that this image from an early episode contains at least two elements that supposedly did not sit well with the Prophet Mohammad: dogs and women who aren't swaddled in clothing. What's the connection between Islam's founder and ABC's hit TV show? Nothing--unless you're a puritanical-minded British Muslim.
According to Agence France-Presse, (credit: Chrenkoff) a Birmingham-based group calling itself Muslims Against Advertising (MAAD) have taken to defacing "ads for perfume, hair dye, bras and television programs"--including a poster for Desperate Housewives which apparently showed "two scantily-clad actresses." MAAD, the article continues,
gives an index of defaced ads in the city, including Levis, Wonderbra, PaddyPower, a radio station and a strip club.
The group said on its website that it believed in "direct action" and "has paint and isn't afraid to use it ... there is no longer any need to cringe as you walk past a sleazy poster, well improve it".
Interesting use of the word "cringe." In any case, the campaign, which has also defaced ads in Glasgow, Bradford and Luton, has had some success: advertisers are now placing "few such billboards close to mosques."
Is this a problem? Many of us, I wager, possess no love for inane, exploitative and generally insulting billboard advertising. And yes, there are Christian groups which also object to licentious imagery--just try to buy a Playboy at a 7-11. But let's not excuse the cultural critics of MAAD just yet. As I argued in an earlier post discussing a plot by radical Muslims in Amsterdam to blow up the city's Red Light district (as well as the Dutch Parliament--interesting combination) there is a worrisome trajectory to Islamic ire. The standard definition of jihad is to defend Islam from attack, based largely on this Koranic verse:
Permission to take up arms is hereby given to those who are attacked, because they have been wronged. (22:39)
Increasingly, it seems, Muslims' sense of being "wronged" is expanding into areas which have no direct connection with Islam. Or, as I wrote last December,
it matters not if an outrage perpetrated by unbelievers has a connection with Islam at all--if some local mutawwa'in find it offends their morality, it deserves destruction. Logically, this potential jihad-list can now include anything that Western cultures do that affronts Muslim sensibilities--which is another way of saying just about anything we do. Drink alcohol? Walk about with your "finery" exposed? Fly the American flag? Watch Desperate Housewives?
And here I thought I was exaggerating to make a point. On the other hand, radical Islam had its own long-running version of Desperate Housewives, directed and produced by Afghanistan's Taliban regime. It was canceled in 2002.
UPDATE: Far less amusing is this London Times Online report about Brit Muslims boycotting Holocaust remembrances. (credit: Andrew Sullivan)
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