IA quarter of a century ago, viewers of American series were summoned to welcome new villains to their screens. Coming from the Orient, they replaced their predecessors, originating from Eastern Europe, almost at once. The transformation of the American imagination caused by the attacks of September 11, 2001 was almost instantaneous. The change between the first and second seasons of 24 hours flat (2001-2010) is the most obvious manifestation of this.
Broadcast just after the fall of the World Trade Center towers in November 2001, but shot before the attacks, the first season pits agent Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) against an organization born from the Serbian ultranationalist movement. A year later, this gave way to an Arab terrorist cell determined to detonate an atomic bomb in Los Angeles.
Suddenly, actors capable of playing Arab characters – which, coming from the Iranian diasporas and the Indian subcontinent, they are not necessarily – became in high demand by Hollywood. In the years following September 11, it will almost always be to embody terrorists or, at best, repentants. It will be necessary to wait until the 2020s for American series to finally take an interest in an old reality: the existence of Muslim communities on United States soil.
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