Posted by BeautyandtheEast on 01-24-2012 | Comments | Share | Filed under: Entertainment, Film/TV, Leaders/Stories
Hollywood star Liam Neeson is considering giving up his Catholic belief and becoming a Muslim.
The Sun UK: The actor, 59, admitted Islamic prayer “got into his spirit” while filming in Turkish city Istanbul.
He said: “The Call to Prayer happens five times a day and for the first week it drives you crazy, and then it just gets into your spirit and it’s the most beautiful, beautiful thing.
“There are 4,000 mosques in the city. Some are just stunning and it really makes me think about becoming a Muslim.”
Liam was raised in Northern Ireland as a devout Catholic and altar boy and was named after the local priest.
But the star — whose wife Natasha Richardson died aged 45 in a skiing accident in 2009 — has spoken about challenges to his faith.
He said: “I was reared a Catholic but I think every day we ask ourselves, not consciously, what are we doing on this planet? What’s it all about?
“I’m constantly reading books on God or the absence of God and atheism.”
Liam was criticised in 2010 after claiming Narnia lion Aslan — voiced by him in the movies — is not based on Christ as CS Lewis had claimed but in fact all spiritual leaders including Mohammed.
His latest film The Grey, about an oil drilling team who crash in freezing Alaska, is released in the UK on Friday.
Tags: liam neeson, muslim, islam
Posted by BeautyandtheEast on 01-16-2012 | Comments | Share | Filed under: Entertainment, Fashion-Eastas, Fashion
Beauty and the East TV’s Best Dressed winners from the 2012 Golden Globe Awards are:
OUR BEST DRESSED WINNER: ANGELINA JOLIE
LEONARDO DICAPRIO
JESSICA ALBA
MATTHEW MORRISON
NICOLE KIDMAN 
DIANE LANE
HEIDI KLUM
Tags: 2012 golden globes fashion, best dressed, angelina jolie, leonardo dicaprio, jessica alba, matthew morrison, nicole kidman, diane lane, heidi klum
Posted by BeautyandtheEast on 01-16-2012 | Comments | Share | Filed under: Entertainment, Film/TV
TEHRAN TIMES—The acclaimed Iranian film “Nader and Simin, a Separation” was named best foreign language film at the Golden Globe Awards on Sunday.
“My people, I think, are truly a peace-loving people,” director Ashgar Farhadi told world audiences in his acceptance speech, Reuters reported on Monday. Angelina Jolie’s “In the Land of Blood and Honey” and “The Flowers of War” from China, “The Kid with a Bike” from Belgium, “The Skin I Live in” from Spain were competitors of the film at the Golden Globe Awards.
“A Separation” is one of the foreign-language entries for this year’s Academy Awards. Films and stars that are declared Golden Globe winners often go on to compete for Oscars this year. Thus, “A Separation” is expected to be one of nominees at the world’s top movie prizes given out on February 26.
Meanwhile, the ensemble female cast of the film, Leila Hatami, Sareh Bayat and Sarina Farhadi, won the best actress award at the Palm Springs International Film Festival on Monday. The film also won a Golden Bear for the best film at the Berlin Film Festival and its cast ensemble received best actor and actress Silver Bears at the event last year.
The Golden Globe Awards are given out by 90 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
Silent-era film “The Artist” and family drama “The Descendants” were the top film picks at the Golden Globe Awards. “The Descendants”, by writer/director Alexander Payne, won two Golden Globe trophies, including the top honor of best dramatic movie and another for George Clooney as best dramatic actor.
“The Artist”, directed by Michel Hazanavicius, picked up three awards including best musical or comedy and best actor in a musical or comedy for its star, French actor Jean Dujardin. Meryl Streep won best actress award for “The Iron Lady”.
Tags: separation, iranian film, golden globes 2012
Posted by BeautyandtheEast on 01-13-2012 | Comments | Share | Filed under: Entertainment, Leaders/Stories
Salon: Tim Tebow’s profession of faith has thrust the mixture of sport and religion into the national spotlight in a way that few can remember.
Students have been suspended for “Tebowing” — dropping to one knee to pray, even if you’re the only one doing it — in a school hallway in New York. Rick Perry claimed that he would be the Tim Tebow of the Iowa caucuses. “Saturday Night Live” lampooned Tebow’s fan-boy love for Jesus. In response, Pat Robertson has claimed that the skit demonstrates “anti-Christian bigotry.” His supporters even called for a boycott of HBO after a Bill Maher tweet made fun of Tebow and his relationship to Jesus after his Denver Broncos lost to the Buffalo Bills.
After an overtime upset of the Pittsburgh Steelers last weekend, Tebow’s Broncos play the top-seeded New England Patriots on Saturday. For at least one more media cycle, there will appear to be no way to separate Tim Tebow – the person, the quarterback, the Christian – from his religion.
But back in September, the cultural critic Toure asked a fascinating question in ESPN the Magazine. In a piece called “What if Michael Vick were white?,” Toure argued with those who said the quarterback would not have received a two-year sentence for dogfighting if he was white. Would he have been involved with dogfighting? Would an entourage have led him to the same mistakes? Would he have had a stronger paternal relationship?
So I ask, what if Tim Tebow were Muslim? How would our society react if during every interview, Tebow said “Insha’Allah” or “Allāhu Akbar” rather than thank his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ? Or instead of falling to one knee and praying, Tebow pulled out a prayer rug and faced Mecca? A recent study by the Pew Research Center suggests it would not be well received. While American Muslims in general tend be satisfied with their lives and communities in the United States, 55 percent report that being Muslim in the U.S. has become more difficult since Sept. 11. Twenty-eight percent report that people have viewed them with suspicion and 22 percent report having been called offensive names. The TLC show “All-American Muslim” has lost advertisers who were pressured by groups claiming that the show was Islamic propaganda. Yet Pat Robertson claims that the United States is a breeding ground for anti-Christian bigotry.
I don’t have answers to these questions. We can’t know the answers until we are faced with a prominent Muslim athlete who is willing to be so visible with his faith. In a country that consistently prides itself on freedoms – freedom of speech, freedom to assemble, freedom of religion – we can hope that Muslim athletes who are visible with their faith would find themselves just as revered as Tebow is for his.
But professional Muslim athletes are hard to find. Ahmad Rashād. Rashaan Salaam. Kareem Abdul-Jabaar. Hakeem Olajuwon. Rasheed Wallace. Most of these athletes are retired and went about their religious lives quietly. But it is to that list of retired professionals that we must look to find someone as outspoken about their faith as Tim Tebow – Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf and Muhammad Ali, for example.
In 1990, Chris Jackson was drafted by the Denver Nuggets out of Louisiana State University. In 1991, Jackson converted to Islam. In 1993, he changed his name to Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf. In 1996, Abdul-Rauf refused to stand for the national anthem at an NBA game. A religious storm followed.
Everyone had an opinion, from fans to sports writers to radio hosts. Sports Illustrated reported that some people suggested Abdul-Rauf be deported. Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf was born in Mississippi, however, and deportation from Colorado to Mississippi is rare. Two Denver-area radio hosts even walked into a mosque with a stereo playing the Star Spangled Banner. One was wearing a turban. And a Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf T-shirt. While broadcasting live, on air.
Abdul-Rauf claimed in a 2010 interview with HoopsHype.com that “[a]fter the national anthem fiasco, nobody really wanted to touch me.” He played only three more seasons in the NBA before going overseas to play professionally. In that same interview, he discusses how his home in Mississippi was burned down just a few months prior to Sept. 11. He eventually left the state.
So Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf stood up (or in this case, sat down) for his religious beliefs. He made his religion a visible aspect of his life and a visible aspect of his professional basketball career. Just like Tim Tebow. The difference of course being that Tim Tebow was satirized on “Saturday Night Live.” Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf had his home burned down and felt blacklisted from the NBA.
Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf pales in comparison to the outspoken nature of Cassius Clay. In 1964, Cassius Clay announced his membership in the Nation of Islam, and changed his name to Muhammad Ali. In 1966, Ali spoke out against the draft and became a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War based on his religious beliefs. In 1967, Ali was convicted of draft evasion.
But even before his conviction, Ali was causing controversy. Sports Illustrated dubbed Ali the most hated athlete in the world in April 1966. In the same article, Ali’s faith was referred to as being a part of his “fanatically religious side.” Instead of being something to admire, his faith was inconceivable fanaticism. No Christian leader supported Ali’s display of Islamic faith in the same way that Muslim leaders have supported Tebow’s display of Christian faith. Just like Tebow, though, Ali – the person, the boxer, the Muslim – could not be separated from his religion. This was never clearer than in his conscientious objection to the war in Vietnam.
By now, even casual boxing fans are familiar with Ali’s quote “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong … No Viet Cong ever called me nigger.” That one quote made Ali a social activist. And his social activism was based on his faith. Ali claimed that Islam prohibited war unless called for by Allah. That one belief made Ali’s religion a wider social issue. What followed was public outcry. Ali was stripped of his championship belt, had his boxing license suspended, and was convicted of draft evasion. The Supreme Court ultimately overturned it. But for four years, Ali, arguably the greatest boxer of all time, did not fight.
So Muhammad Ali stood up (or in this case, sat out) for his religious beliefs. He made his religion a visible aspect of his life and a visible aspect of his professional boxing career. Just like Tim Tebow 40 years later. Just like Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf 30 years later. Ali was an outspoken proponent of his religion, Islam, but was vilified for his outspoken religious beliefs. His Islamic beliefs.
Again I ask, what if Tim Tebow were Muslim? He’s not. So maybe it doesn’t matter. There is no way to separate the man and the religion. Some people praise him for it, others recoil. When this happens, avid defenders of Tebow invoke freedom of religion. But as Tebowmania makes its way into politics, sports, religion and the everyday life of the mainstream United States, it is important to think about how we approach religion in this country. How we approach religious freedom in this country. Do we accept freedom of religion, any religion? Or do we accept freedom of Christianity?
Tags: tim tebow, muslim, christianity
Posted by BeautyandtheEast on 01-12-2012 | Comments | Share | Filed under: Entertainment, Music
Afghan-American singer/songwriter Zohra’s new song “Lovely Day” was just released to rave reviews. The sound is very 80’s and upbeat. New album will be out soon!
You can listen to the track here: http://soundcloud.com/brooklynvegan/religious-to-damn-lovely-day
Tags: zohra atash, religious to damn, lovely day, new release
Posted by BeautyandtheEast on 12-30-2011 | Comments | Share | Filed under: Entertainment, Leaders/Stories
EW: With her famous high-pitched voice, ridiculously large bow, and assertion that “Islamic law has infiltrated your community, your country, and your life,” Victoria Jackson seems like she’s joking with her latest episode of PolitiChicks. In fact, the set-up even looks like one of the comedienne’s former Saturday Night Live sketches. But it’s decidedly unfunny how serious Jackson is. The SNL vet, who has spent the past few months speaking out against homosexuals and slamming protesters at Occupy Wall Street, claims on her web series that she attended a congressional hearing in Washington D.C., that proved that “the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated our highest positions in our government.”
That includes, of course, the president, said Jackson, who believes his policies have aligned with Muslim interests. Other assertions made by Jackson during the webisode: “Islam is not a religion of peace,” the media insists on defending Muslims and attacking the extreme religious right, and cries of Islamophobia will only lead to more unfair hate crime prosecution. After the jump, watch the video, in which Jackson insists that “You gotta get educated here, people,” after double-checking Hillary Clinton’s title as Secretary of State
Tags: victoria jackson, obama, muslim brotherhood, islamophobia
Posted by BeautyandtheEast on 12-23-2011 | Comments | Share | Filed under: Entertainment, Film/TV, Art/Books
LA Times: “Work of Art” on Bravo concluded its second season on Wednesday, with the three remaining contestants squaring off in competing gallery shows. In a season that featured little drama and even less excitement, the series saved its biggest bombshell for the very end when it crowned a surprise winner.
Most of Wednesday’s episode was given over to biographical sketches of the three finalists. Simon de Pury paid visits to each of them in their homes to give a final mentoring session and pep talk. Young, who lives in Chicago, introduced his boyfriend and mother before revealing his planned exhibition, which failed to impress De Pury.
Kymia, the high-strung one inclined to waterworks that would rival Versailles, gave a tour of her New York apartment where she lives with her boyfriend. Kymia’s gallery pieces also disappointed De Pury, causing her eyes to well-up with tears.
In Brooklyn, Sara revealed her works that were inspired by secrets scribbled on paper by passers-by on the street.
Serving as guest judge on this final round was KAWS, the New York artist and designer whose signature pieces are large-scale riffs on the cartoon world.
The judges expressed admiration all around for the gallery shows. Even critic Jerry Saltz kept his usually snide persona in check for what must have been sentimental reasons.
Sara was the first to be sent packing. Her installation, featuring sculpture, performance and other eclectic pieces, was deemed creative but somewhat too disjointed.
In the end, the judges chose Kymia over the favorite Young. Both of their installations dealt with the loss of a father and were weighty in tone. Kymia not only receives a $100,000 prize, but also a show at the Brooklyn Museum and other goodies.
Will there be a third season of “Work of Art”? It’s too early to say, but judging from this season—yawn—the producers face something of an uphill battle.
Tags: kymia nawabi, work of art, winner, bravo
Posted by BeautyandtheEast on 12-20-2011 | Comments | Share | Filed under: Entertainment, Music
Fact Magazine: Ayshay is the recording alias of Fatima Al Qadiri. Based in New York, but born in Senegal and raised in Kuwait (according to a recent Fader interview, she then lived in eight cities before settling in Brooklyn), her debut EP Warn-U, released on Tri Angle this Autumn, is one of 2011’s most unique and unsettling records.
Inspired by Sunni and Shiite Muslim worship songs, Warn-U is built 100% from Al Qadiri’s own voice, re-pitched and manipulated to mimic everything from century-old ghosts to Autotune chart pop. For those who’ve followed her Global.wav column (and, sometimes, accompanying mixtapes – check the Muslim Trance one once you’ve listened to her FACT mix) for DIS magazine, it’ll make a little more sense: mainstream Western pop and Muslim religion and culture are two key constants in Al Qadiri’s frame of reference, and the music she records as Ayshay (Arabic for “whatever”) absorbs and rethinks both. It’s also worth checking the excellent EP she recently released under her own name, Genre-Specific Xperience.
FACT mix 307 is subtitled Ayshay’s ‘Surrender’ mix, and is dedicated to the Fade to Mind crew (Kingdom, Mike Q, etc), Dave Quam, Azizaman and DJ Rashad and Spinn’s Ghettoteknitianz clique. That, combined with the rest of this introduction, might make you think you know what you’re getting into – traditional Muslim song, ballroom house and footwork. Trust us, that’s not even half of it.
Tags: ayshay, fatima al qadiri, muslim acapella trance
Posted by BeautyandtheEast on 12-15-2011 | Comments | Share | Filed under: Entertainment, Film/TV
ABC News: KEVIN DOLAK
Dec. 15, 2011
Travel website Kayak.com will remove all advertising from TLC’s new reality-TV program “All American Muslim” days after an outcry over a similar decision by home improvement retailer Lowe’s tore across the Internet.
A Kayak.com spokesman says that it has not pulled advertising from the program because of protests and backlash from conservative groups, including the Florida Family Association, but because TLC was “not up front about the nature of this show.”
The TLC reality-TV show focuses on the lives of five families in the greater-Detroit area. The conservative Florida Family Association organized an email campaign aimed at Lowe’s to drop its ads from the show, calling it “propaganda that riskily hides the Islamic agenda’s clear and present danger to American liberties and traditional values.”
Robert Birge, Kayak’s chief marketing officer, wrote a letter on the company’s website Wednesday saying that he is deeply sorry that the company’s decision comes across as bending to bigotry.
“It’s a worthy topic, but any reasonable person would know that this topic is a particular lightning rod,” Birge says in the letter. “We believe TLC went out of their way to pick a fight on this, and they didn’t let us know their intentions. That’s not a business practice that generally gets repeat business from us. I also believe that it did this subject a grave disservice. Sadly, TLC is now enjoying the attention from this controversy.”
Birge said the company received hundreds of letters from people who he believes wrote from a template found on the Florida Family Association’s website, and that the “amount of vitriol in the emails was saddening.” He added that those who wrote to express disappointment in Kayak.com’s advertising decision were much more civil.
He also said he viewed the first two episodes of “All-American Muslim” and “thought the show sucked.”
In a statement Sunday, Lowe’s had used language similar to Birge’s, stating that it made the decision to remove ads from the show when it became a “lightning rod for people to voice complaints from a variety of perspectives—political, social and otherwise.”
After the controversy over Lowe’s withdrawal of advertising, liberal advocacy group Moveon.org began a petition earlier this week asking major companies to “fight back against bigotry and fear-mongering by publicly repudiating calls to stop advertising during TLC’s ‘All-American Muslim.’”
The Florida Family Association has said that 75 companies that were targeted decided not to advertise again during the Dec. 11-12 episodes of “All-American Muslim.”
The organization said it will no longer post the names of the companies that pull off the show because of intense scrutiny by opponents.
Many have now vowed never to shop at Lowe’s again and called the company’s behavior un-American. Lowe’s has yet to comment on whether it will reinstate its ads on the show
Tags: kayak travel, all american muslim, advertising
Posted by BeautyandtheEast on 12-14-2011 | Comments | Share | Filed under: Entertainment, Film/TV
Clarence Page
A conservative Christian group has launched a boycott against “All-American Muslim.” The TLC cable TV reality show about Muslim families in America fails to live down to the group’s narrow-minded stereotypes. Their gripe, in my view, makes about as much sense as boycotting “The Cosby Show” back in the day because it didn’t mention black street gangs.
The Christian group’s boycott made national headlines this week when the home-improvement giant Lowe’s pulled its ads from the program. If the North Carolina-based company was hoping to dodge controversy, it failed. The move touched off protests joined by music mogul Russell Simmons and actor Kal Penn, among other celebrities, and a second boycott campaign — against Lowe’s.
The company apologized to everyone who is offended, citing its “strong commitment to diversity and inclusion.” But it stuck by its decision, explaining the show became a “lightning rod for people to voice complaints from a variety of perspectives — political, social and otherwise.”
Blame the Tampa-based Florida Family Association, which launched the boycott. When I clicked on the association’s website, a notice from David Caton, the group’s executive director, said it was shut down because of “extremely mean-spirited” hacker attacks. “In a country that supposedly embraces free speech,” a posted statement said without a hint of irony, “those that oppose our position have no qualms about destroying our free speech.” Right. No more qualms than the association feels about silencing “All-American Muslim.”
Nevertheless, if the association’s protest actually helps to boost the show’s ratings as people tune in to judge for themselves, I think it will have performed a valuable public service.
The show premiered in November on TLC, which previously made news with “Sarah Palin’s Alaska,” a reality show that I imagine the Tampa group found more to its liking. “All-American Muslim” follows the daily lives of five Lebanese families in Dearborn, Mich., a suburban Detroit city with one of the nation’s highest concentrations of Arabs. In a format mercifully free of self-congratulatory piety or eat-your-broccoli earnestness, its middle-class subjects offer entertaining yet also enlightening evidence that America’s multiethnic, multicultural melting pot still works, despite occasional bumps in the road.
Yet, the Tampa group and its allied fearmongers complain about what the show leaves out: The violence that Muslim fanatics have committed in the name of Islam.
“The show profiles only Muslims that appear to be ordinary folks,” the Florida group asserts in a letter to TLC advertisers, “while excluding many Islamic believers whose agenda poses a clear and present danger to the liberties and traditional values that the majority of Americans cherish.” Is it not enough for the critics that images of such violence appear on TV news almost every day? Most of the violence occurs overseas and, by the way, kills mostly fellow Muslims. Yet, the Florida Family Association insists that we judge Muslim Americans by their worst actors overseas, not as families who live in much the same way other middle-class Americans do.
I am reminded of the black intellectual critics who complained in the 1980s that “The Cosby Show” was too sentimental and far-removed, with its upper-class professional African-American family, from the lives that most black people lived. Yet, Bill Cosby’s show broke TV audience records during a time when race relations were less relaxed than they are today. Viewers across racial lines quickly connected with its subtle subtext: The American dream is not for whites only.
That’s why I suggested a few months ago that, as Muslims seem to have replaced African-Americans at the bottom of America’s totem pole of ignorance-based stereotypes, all Americans would benefit from a Muslim version of Cosby’s Huxtable family.
Some of my readers scoffed, but Canadian TV has aired five seasons of the popular “Little Mosque on the Prairie,” a comedy about a Muslim family and their interactions with non-Muslims, since January 2007. U.S. networks have produced pilots for similar sitcoms here but the occasionally funny moments in “All-American Muslims” are the closest that a Muslim family comedy has come to broadcast. We Americans are justly proud of our land of opportunity and fair play, but we’re behind Canada this time.
Maybe our networks still think Islamaphobia is still too raw in our minds for Americans to laugh about. Perhaps “All-American Muslims” can help to ease those tensions, even if some of its critics hope that it doesn’t.
Tags: all american muslim, tlc, russell simmons, kal penn, lowes, kayak, clarence page, florida family association,
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