Oppositional Banality: Watching Ordinary Muslims in Little Mosque on the Prairie

Abstract

This essay interrogates how the globally-syndicated series Little Mosque on the Prairie (2007-2012) mobilises one of the most beloved television formats – the situation comedy – to insert a banal and normalised gaze toward Muslims and contest hostile representations of Islam in Western media. Through what I have termed ‘ oppositional banality ’ the show relocates Muslim identities to the realm of everyday life and out of the confines of global terrorism. Rather than being under the scrutiny of news cameras and viewed through cataclys-mic international events the Muslims in Little Mosque are made comical and timeless, subjected to the emotional entanglements of ordinary life.