MBC Drama "Man Who Dies to Live"'s Problematic Portrayal of Islam/Muslims

[shinychopstick]

[ a thread] Reasons why MBC's new drama Man Who Dies To Live should not be aired. YALL NEED TO BOYCOTT IT pic.twitter.com/2ftnjQLqlx
- MAY💌 (@mayssemgh) July 20, 2017
Plot synopsis: Jang Dal Goo sought his fortune in the small Middle Eastern kingdom of Bodantia in late 1970s. He returns to Korea as Count Souad Fahd Ali to find his estranged daughter

Comments

[smilish]

Mbc clearly don't know what respect is

A little research sure was to help and it is not like there are no Muslims or arabs in South Korea

[blackpapillon]

as a muslim, there's nothing to discuss here. just a simple statement: what is this fuckery?

[arysthaeniru]

gaaaaaahhhh everything about this situation drives me insane. i know why nobody called this out in production, nobody gives a shit about being offensive and inaccurate, as long as they think it's """"funny"""" everything's okay, and URGH. i hate this so much.

when the middle east is shaping up to be a HUGE consumer of k-dramas, in the absence of china's market, this doesn't seem like the smartest move :/

[mjspice]

[arysthaeniru]

I will never understand why people will put their own racism over sensible business decisions to keep what's starting to become a HUUUUUGE consumer of the hallyu wave? Plus you have countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, where the muslim population is huge and k-dramas are a huge staple! This just seems entirely nonsensical and insulting.

[mjspice]

[lilmissniza]

So happened to catch the first ep on TV last night and with all the hype in SK, was excited for it (no i didn't google it up beforehand). Watched the first few mins and even my mother went 'that's offensive.' We're muslims and while we're not as religious as most - a few in my family do drink and so does other muslims though we can argue that another time - everything about the portrayal of the fictitious muslim country was ridiculous and just downright offensive. Like the forced marriage and polygamy do exist in middle eastern countries, so it's something that I didn't really bat an eyelid on during the part of the show, but the bikini clad ladies wearing a hijab? That's just bull. They could've gotten away with scantily clad women without the need to wear a hijab.

And it's disappointing to see its the highest rated drama in its timeslot.

[anonymous_loljk]

Wow, highest rated in its time slot? I'm seriourly questioning my faith in humanity now...

[by_venoms_sting]

Yeah I figured this show would be messy~ just based on the synopsis when I read it a week or so ago in one of the drama roundup posts.

All this shit is so offensive I kind of don't know what to say right now. Like I said I was expecting some bullshit out of this show but this is so ridiculously bad I'm at a loss for words to describe it.