Graffiti artists hired to work on the set of Showtime’s “Homeland” have duped the popular series, painting Arabic slogans criticizing the show on walls seen in the background.
In the episode aired in the U.S. Sunday — set in a Hezbollah-run refugee camp in Lebanon but filmed in Berlin — star Claire Danes can be seen walking by slogans including “Homeland is racist” and “Homeland is a joke and it didn’t make us laugh.” The TV series has been criticised for portraying Arabs and Muslims in a negative, Orientalist light.
Berlin graffiti artist Stone told The Associated Press on Thursday that he and two friends initially weren’t going to take the job when approached by the producers, but then decided instead to use it to express their opinions of Homeland.
From the positive reaction he’s seen, he says “we obviously struck a chord.”
The artist also included a popular pro-black Twitter hashtag #BlackLivesMatter written in Arabic, showing solidarity to the Black Lives Matter movement which aims to highlight systematic racism and violence against black Americans and black people worldwide.
