Not everything about Palestine has to be depressing, painful and dramatic. Muhammad Amer, in a poster promoting the Mo series on Netflix
With careful steps and light touches, Netflix tries to bring the Arab viewer adapted and interesting content, which is close to the Arabic culture and language on the one hand, and on the other hand to challenge the viewer with difficult issues, which many Arab creators are not in a hurry to delve into, especially if they are interested in receiving government funds.
We saw an example of this, for example, in the series Ravavi High School for Girls, which touched on women’s sexuality and violence and gender oppression. The Arabic version of the movie Perfect Strangers (اصحاب ولا عز), touched on charged topics such as homosexuality. The series Who are you, Ola? (البحق علا) Dealing with relationships and divorces. It seems that creators in the Arab world who deal with these sensitive issues have applied for artistic asylum to Netflix, and found a platform there.
The streaming company has made one mistake so far, when it put on a stand-up show mocking the Saudi crown prince, who is controversial in the world following the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. In the end, Netflix folded in the face of Saudi pressure.
Criticism of dark regimes in the Arab world may not be, but the conflict that unites the Arab world, the Palestinian-Israeli, has actually been revived on Netflix in six films. Although the collection is not particularly brilliant, it is a welcome start of a discussion in an industry where the Palestinian narrative has almost completely disappeared for decades, in favor of the Zionist one.
Then came “Mo”. In August, a comedy series appeared on Netflix, starring the famous Palestinian-American stand-up comedian Muhammad Amer, known as Mo, and showed everyone that not everything related to Palestine has to be depressing, painful and dramatic. The creator of the series, and Amer’s partner in the journey, is Rami Yosef, the star of the series Ramy, which won decorations and awards, including the Golden Globe.
“Mo” is based on the events of the main actor’s life, and tells the story of a young Palestinian born to the Najer family in Kuwait. The family, displaced in 1948 to the West Bank, was forced to leave in 1967 for Jordan, and from there moved to the Gulf. In the first Gulf War, the mother of the family (Yosra) was again forced to flee for her life with her three children, this time to the land of unlimited possibilities – the USA.
The trailer for the Mo series on Netflix
The father of the family stayed behind, and managed to reunite with his family at the end of an arduous journey, during which he was arrested and tortured in a prison in Iraq. The series does not explain how he managed to survive this journey, maybe something for the next season. The father passed away suddenly, leaving the burden of livelihood on the shoulders of his eldest son, Muhammad.
With humorous segments and brilliant self-sarcasm, viewers accompany Muhammad Najjar in his attempts to make his way and survive in the big world in the multicultural era, and navigate through the upheaval in which the children of immigrants from the bloody Arab world live. The horror stories of the Middle East – many of which were created by the US and its allies – come wrapped in a graceful package. The young people and their families try to juggle between the roots and tradition and the strong desire to integrate and succeed in America – without getting into trouble with the immigration authorities.
Moe, the protagonist, speaks Arabic, English and Spanish, and is sometimes considered a Mexican immigrant in Texas. He works hard, pursues legal status, and holds loosely and dubiously to religious practices, which are supposed to preserve his Muslim identity, with varying success. He is torn between his love for the Christian Maria, and the fear of breaking his mother’s heart, if he chooses to start a family with a non-Muslim, however graceful.
Episode after episode, the series brings great pleasure, mixed with compassion and empathy, with violent jumps between customs of joy and mourning, funerals and weddings; Arab-Lebanese-Syrian-Egyptian-Palestinian mix; The status of the family and the abominable male honor, the divine aura around the parents and the concern and care for the younger brother, who has special needs; Even the role of traditional foods and the fight against their appropriation by American junk food is not extinct here, with a scene that revolves around chocolate-flavored hummus. Many more crossings between cultures sometimes sting and sometimes tickle our feelings as Arabs who stayed in the homeland.
The second story around which the plot is woven, woven into Mo’s adventures, is the Palestinian narrative that is 70 years old this year. The story of the loss of the original homeland, Palestine, is everywhere, present and hidden at the same time. For example, when Mo decides to replace the Palestinian lawyer, who handles the family’s status applications, with a talented Jewish-Polish lawyer, and his mother does not tolerate the idea and sees it as a betrayal of the homeland.
The task that Amer and Yosef took upon themselves – to bring a tragic story to the small screen in a comical way – is not an easy one. But Muhammad Amer’s Life Stations in the special adaptation for Netflix managed to make me laugh more than once, a third-generation Nakba woman like me. I was looking forward to this series, and I’m probably not the only one. Palestinians and activists from all over the world watched it. Some were disappointed and some were excited. I am one of the enthusiasts.
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True, it is difficult for a Palestinian to laugh at the Nakba, the occupation and the refugees. It is difficult for my mother to understand how the tragedy of the Palestinian people can be smoothed over and simplified, and made into a comedy series in English, in order to make viewers around the world laugh instead of arousing sympathy and identification with the Palestinian people.
It is difficult for me to explain to someone who was born in a camp the importance of this series for making its painful story accessible to the world, who does not want to hear us anymore, who is tired of this conflict already, and who is ready to accept the Palestinian in the US for all his troubles and traumas, on the condition that he stops harassing the Jews in their promised land. But how It is possible to talk about the Palestinians without blaming Israel, with the gray cloud that threatens accusations of antisemitism to anyone who challenges the story of the establishment of the Jewish nation state.
In “Mo” this is also touched upon, only replacing the word “Jews” with “Zions”. When the mother, played by the great Jordanian-Palestinian actress Farah Basiso, explains to her son what happened to the family from 1948, she says plainly: “That was until the Zionists came and took our mother’s place.” In general, his basis – who disappeared from the screen for many years and made an incredible comeback in the series – embodies in her character the entire tragedy of her people, alongside hopeless optimism.
In another scene, his base consumes the entire story. When her son feels that everything is closed to him, she says: “What are we doing, my son? We went from 1948 to 1967, and then the Gulf War, did we stop? Did we surrender? What are we doing as Palestinians? We keep going forward, that’s what we’re doing.”
In my opinion, “Mo” succeeds in presenting the history of the Palestinian people in a humane, moving and funny way, and connecting it to the reality of life and the consequences of the conflict for millions of Palestinians – who pay a heavy price to this day, when their status as refugees is not regulated, they have no right of return, and they have no other citizenship anywhere in the world .