Little Mosque on the Prairie, the new CBC comedy about Muslims living in a small prairie town, generated tons of conversation and hype before it even premiered on Tuesday night.
The show's creator, Zarqa Nawaz, kindly agreed to join The Globe and Mail for an online discussion Wednesday at 2:30 p.m. EST. Your questions and Ms. Nawaz's answers will appear at the bottom of this page.
The inspiration for the show's storylines comes from the real-life experiences of Ms. Nawaz, the creator, consulting producer and writer. She was born in Liverpool, raised in Toronto, and moved to Regina ten years ago with her husband and children.
"I think people are assuming because of the title and the subject matter that it's going to be really controversial and political. But it's just a comedy that happens to have Muslim people in it, and it's meant to make people laugh," Ms. Nawaz said before the show's premiere. "It's about relationships and human interactions and life in a rural setting. But it's really the first comedy of its kind in North America, and that's why it's so intriguing."
Ms. Nawaz worked as a freelance writer/broadcaster with CBC radio, and in various capacities with CBC Newsworld, CTV's Canada AM, and CBC's The National. Ms. Nawaz got into filmmaking in 1996, when she took a summer film workshop and made BBQ Muslims, a short comedy about two brothers who are suspected of being terrorists after their barbecue blows up. In 2005, Ms. Nawaz's documentary entitled Me and the Mosque, a co-production with the National Film Board and the CBC, was broadcast on CBC's Rough Cuts. She has recently finished a feature-length screenplay entitled Real Terrorists Don't Belly Dance.
On Tuesday, Globe and Mail television critic John Doyle praised the Little Mosque pilot as the smartest thing the CBC has done in years. "It's hokey as hell," Mr. Doyle wrote. "But it's terrifically good-natured, has a few terrific jokes and its mere existence is a grand-slam assertion that Canadian TV is different and that the best of Canadian TV amounts to a rejection of the hegemony of U.S. network TV."
But Globe columnist Margaret Wente was less impressed. "It is so risk-averse, so painfully correct, it makes your teeth ache. No sacred cows were gored, or even scratched, in the making of this show," Ms. Wente wrote in Tuesday's paper. "The only possible offence in this show is to the intelligence."
What do you think? Please send in your questions for Ms. Nawaz, and join the conversation on Wednesday.
Rebecca Dube, globeandmail.com: Welcome everyone, and thanks to Ms. Nawaz for joining us online today. There are a ton of reader questions, so we'll try to get to as many as possible. There are also a lot of comments, so I'll try to post those too after the discussion is over.
Alejandro Munoz from Victoria, BC writes: Hello Ms. Nawaz, I enjoyed watching the show tonight. I see the the show as way to show young Canadians that it is possible to live in an ethnic community peacefully despite religious differences. However, do you think that Muslims and Westerners will ever be able to live in the type of harmony that is presented in the show? I like the characters interpreting the Muslim women. They are so cute and pretty. Good luck to you.
Zarqa Nawaz: I would say we live in that harmony now, in North America. I think North America is one of the most harmonous environments for Muslims and non- Muslims living together. I had a wonderful experience growing up as a Canadian of Muslim faith and I feel that's what informs the comedy -- it comes from a good place.
