'Homeland' slammed as 'most bigoted show on television'

"Homeland is the most bigoted show on television," declares a headline on a Washington Post opinion piece.

No question, the views voiced by writer/filmmaker/activist Laura Durkay are strong about the Showtime hit, which has its season premiere Sunday night.

Durkay speaks of "absurd and damaging stereotypes," and "peak idiocy," contending: "The entire structure of Homeland is built on mashing together every manifestation of political Islam, Arabs, Muslims and the whole Middle East into a Frankenstein-monster global terrorist threat that simply doesn't exist."

But "the most bigoted show on television?" That's not expressed in the text.

So I emailed her.

"Picking the most bigoted show on American television is no doubt a difficult task, but I think the headline is accurate," she replied. "I think Homeland deserves special attention precisely because it has been so critically praised."

Absolutely, it's fair game. Absolutely, Durkay builds a thoughtful, interesting case.

But, frankly, there's little allowance for three obvious excuses: (1) it's fiction, (2) of course, a CIA drama is going to focus on extremists, and (3) humans have invented so many cliches, anyone can find some anywhere.

Funny, but at no point during the first three seasons did I think, "Wow, this is real. The Middle East really is this way. That's what the CIA is really like! That's what terrorists are really like!"

Homeland is TV. No one's kept that secret from America.

I could argue that Big Bang Bang Theory is the most bigoted show on TV for its stereotyping of nerds as egotistical and socially inept, and I could decry the horrible damage being done to America's impressions about scientists -- and Katie Cuoco's intelligence. Might get a lot of page views, too.

But Big Bang Theory is TV.

Durkay fails to give Homeland credit for just how complex its many characters are.

Claire Danes' character is not some cliche Mysteries of Laura pretty-women-can-kill-too heroine. Carrie Mathison is strong and flawed, struggling with psychiatric issues. Her instincts about some things are spot-on, but she's still confused about whether to use medication and how she could fall for a twisted soul who might be a terrorist.

Durkay makes this assertion:

When Brody's wife discovers he's a Secret Muslim and waves the Koran at him, shouting, "These are the people who tortured you!" she's not just being melodramatic. She's expressing the show's core philosophy. 

Oddly, it's a scene where Brody feels tortured by his American wife, and there are a lot more scenes where Brody, traumatized as he was, is shown to find more solace in observing Islam than in family or country.

Durkay sees stereotyping when "an imam who's outraged that worshipers were shot during a police operation at his mosque turns out to be hiding information" about a terrorist. I remember feeling sympathy for the man's conflicted feelings.

Anyway, it's TV.

That concludes this opinion piece about an opinion piece on the Internet about a TV show.

Is the Republic now safer?

Contact staff writer Peter Mucha at 215-854-4342 or pmucha@phillynews.com. Follow @petemucha on Twitter.