Little Mosque: A View From The Room, Part Two

FOR PART one of this interview, click here.

For the second part of my interview with Paul Mather, Showrunner, and Rob Sheridan, Executive Story Editor and Paul's right hand for Little Mosque on the Prairie, Season Two, we got away a little from the basics of character and conception, and spoke a little more about philosophy. In a country that sometimes sacrifices entertainment value for "good for you"-ism, how does the mission of Mosque -- such as it is, fit in?



DEAD THINGS ON STICKS: A lot of the focus in the first season was on how different it was. Do you think it's more important that this show strike a blow for portraying Muslims in a positive light etc., or is it more important to be just funny?


PAUL MATHER: I don't think people watch TV because they want their attitudes adjusted. I think it's just got to be funny, charming, and a good story. You want your characters to be likable because they're on your show and you want people to like it. So I guess you're humanizing Muslims by doing that. Rob has a good story about watching some 9/11 show and a Muslim guy is praying and Rob realized whenever he's seen this in the past it's proceeded to the Muslim guy blowing something up. And now he's seen a Muslim guy pray and then that guy goes and loses his shoes or run over his daughter's bike in the driveway or whatever, and on some level just doing that changes the way you look at people. So the important thing is this show has made Rob less of a racist. And that alone has made society better. I heard a guy on CBC radio talking about how he sees women walking around in burqas. And a burqa's a full-body covering like you see in Afghanistan -- there's just a little screen that you look through. There aren't a lot of women walking around like that in Canada. He probably meant face veils (niqab) or headscarves (hijab). So that's a pretty big mistake. And it occurred to me that if this show goes on for a few years, and he was doing that same piece again, he wouldn't make the same mistake -- people might learn stuff. That's not the point, but it is a pretty cool side effect.


ROB SHERIDAN: Great. Now people can Google “Rob Sheridan” and “racist” and get a hit. I just finished David Mamet’s new book “Bambi Vs. Godzilla” (which I really only bring up as a way of saying “Look at me, I read!”). At one point Mamet says, “Movies possess unlimited power to entertain. They have, however, no power whatever to teach.” His point being, ‘tell your story, don’t lecture.’ I think he may be overstating the case slightly, in that movies and TV are certainly capable of reinforcing negative stereotypes, and can similarly advocate for something more positive. But I know what he’s saying. Ultimately we gotta tell good stories and funny jokes and the positive stuff can be a great corollary of that but not necessarily the focus.


[Denis here. Rob has basically shamed me into admitting I've been meaning to do a review of this book for about four months. I guess I was busy trying to defuse all the damage Rob's done as a racist.]

Moving on...

DTOS: Do you feel like the fictional town of Mercy is coming into its own more as a character this year?

P.M. I guess. There aren't that many non-Muslim main characters -- we're really about the people in the Mosque. So the town's a backdrop. You try to make it a place you would like to live.

R.S. As I hinted at earlier, I think one of things Paul really brings to the show as showrunner, aside from the obvious writing discipline, was to open up the show, get us into the corners of the town a little more, flesh it out. This world just seems bigger to me now. There’s a location in the first episode that really gives us a sense of the broader community surrounding the Muslim characters and it really made me laugh. Also the production team just built the most unbelievably beautiful, detailed swing sets every week that blew me away. It all feels quite real and lived-in.


DTOS: What sort of things do you wanna see explored in Season Two?


P.M. Well, what did we do: mostly just whatever seemed fun and interesting to us. There's some fun father/daughter stuff between Baber and his daughter Layla. Late in the season there's some twists and turns in the relationship between Amaar and Rayyan that are kind of fun. We've got some semi-political stuff: there are episodes about the American no-fly list and about CSIS. [The Canadian Security and Intelligence Service] There's a Bollywood dance number. There's a Christmas episode. There's a flashback episode where we see Amaar as a lawyer before he became an imam. There's a goat and a sheep, but not in the same scene.


R.S. Also there are a couple of really big episodes in the middle of the run that really involve the whole town going just nuts over one thing or another. Fairly ambitious and sprawling. They were a lot of work in the room, but Paul gave everyone a sense that there was nothing we couldn't do. Also we had some good guest stars. Dave Foley, Samantha Bee, Darcy Tucker. I had this really funny idea for a Merv Griffin cameo, but Paul kept saying “next season, next season.” Jerk.


DTOS: Finally, What's the deal with two hit Canadian comedy shows being set in Saskatchewan? You and Gas, mining the same territory. There's gotta be tension. C'mon. Be real. Are you gonna do an East/West Biggie/Tupac thing?


P.M. Theoretically we're not set in Saskatchewan, we're set "on the prairies." We're in Saskatchalbertatoba. But we do shoot in Saskatchewan for a few weeks. The Hotel Sask bar is our turf, O' Hanlon's bar is the Gas guys' turf. That's not out of any dislike: the Hotel Sask bar is just fifty feet closer to our hotel rooms and we're lazy. I went over to O'Hanlons once and met Kevin [White] and Andrew [Carr] and Norm [Hiscock] (from Gas). They'd just put out their last Production White so they were having a few drinks. I think I might have left without paying for my drinks. So ha ha! Fuck you Gas guys! You got Mathered!


R.S. I have a feeling we're all going to run into each other at the Canadian Comedy Awards. So, yeah, I expect gunplay.


Corner Gas airs Monday at 9:30 p.m. on CTV, and on the WGN Superstation in the USA.

oh..uh...

Little Mosque was just sold to Israel, Gaza & The West Bank.

(Seriously, how weird is that?)

It also airs on CBC Wednesdays at 8:00 p.m. (Premieres tonight!)