Seeing yourself: Mr Robot

There is overwhelming evidence that people are ready to believe that not only white people have stories to share and problems to solve. And the majority of the globe – who are not in fact mostly non-white (unlike what you would think if you turned to mainstream media) – would actually like to see people and stories that remind them of themselves.

So you can imagine how excited I was to see Mr Robot. A visibly Muslim women in a very diverse team – and they show her praying too. Ok so she is very quite (nothing wrong with that as such – some people are quite, but this annoyingly plays into the quite and submissive rhetoric around Muslim women) and the white man says “she’s got some ‘Allah akhbar’ in her” *side eye*. But on screen she is, and for that I am grateful.

I am grateful because seeing oneself on popular and mainstream shows reinforces the idea that you exist. People like us are normal. People like us deserve to take up space. People like us are just as capable as the white man. And hell, if we have to pay the same amount in subscriptions and licenses – we deserve to feel that way.

I loved Mr Robot so much I managed to finish the whole season in one sitting. I had a headache in the end because I had watched 10 hours of TV. But it was worth it.