CBS' The United States of Al turns Afghan Al into the "textbook Good Immigrant," but fails to make him as interesting as the other characters

Variety

"Making a classic 'odd couple' out of an American veteran and his trusted Afghan translator is an interesting idea to mine out of a very real phenomenon coming out of an endless war, if a much more complex dynamic than this multi-cam sitcom can reasonably capture," says Caroline Framke of the Chuck Lorre-produced comedy from creators David Goetsch and Maria Ferrari. Framke adds: "Despite the show’s obvious efforts otherwise, the unfortunate fact remains that Al is the show’s least-defined character even though he’s supposed to be the star. As Al quickly learns in his self-appointed role as the family’s resident conflict mediator, everyone else in this series has specific, fraught histories that give their individual stories drive....On a very basic level, it’s nice that Al is a kind, sweet man who genuinely wants the best for everyone around him. Middle Eastern TV characters, as the well-meaning team behind United States of Al well knows, have too often been caricatures or terrorists who barely get much consideration beyond a single episode, let alone their own shows. But Al is a Middle Eastern caricature of a different kind than the evil ones who became ubiquitous onscreen after 9/11. Instead, Al is a textbook Good Immigrant with few discernible wants or needs of his own beyond making skittish white Americans comfortable. To Riley and his family, Al is something between a court jester and a fairy godfather, making them laugh, reflect and feel good. His purpose throughout the first four episodes isn’t to figure out his own life but everyone else’s. There’s no saying what would happen if he were anything less than perfectly pleasant, because at least in this early going of the show, Al is never anything less than perfectly pleasant. This characterization wouldn’t have been particularly revolutionary in 2007 let alone 2021, but here Al is, gamely chipping away at white people’s skepticism of him by the power of sheer enthusiasm. United States of Al clearly wants to do right by Al, and all the real Als in Afghanistan who inspired him — but doing that requires way more than mere inclusion. It would require actually centering Al in his own show instead of putting Al at the center of everyone else’s problems."

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• The premature backlash to United States of Al may be just as damaging to future representations of Muslims on TV as the old Omar the Terrorist tropes: "Criticisms popped up immediately on Twitter (in reaction to the trailer), lamenting the series’ use of well-worn tropes in depictions of Middle Easterners, South Asians and Muslims on TV: The brown, Afghan lead character is a damaging stereotype. A non-Afghan actor is playing an Afghan," says Lorraine Ali. "There’s only one brown person in the trailer. And oh no, here we go with another 'white savior' narrative. The irony: The multi-camera sitcom is the most mainstream effort so far among the handful of comedies (Ramy, Master of None, Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj) that feature folks from largely Muslim regions or Muslim family backgrounds. The four episodes of United States of Al made available for review are many things — funny, goofy, corny, sometimes entertaining and sometimes uneven — but they’re hardly in line with the offensive tropes of 24, Homeland or Wonder Woman: 1984....The negative reaction to United States of Al illustrates the minefield that exists around good-intentioned efforts to diversify scripted television. The complaints around the show’s teaser are understandable and almost Pavlovian thanks to years of terribly racist portrayals of Pakistanis, Iraqis, Iranians or folks from any other region the U.S. has invaded, manned deadly drones or labeled a player in the Axis of Evil. The premature backlash around United States of Al may be just as damaging to future representations of Muslims on TV as the old Omar the Terrorist tropes. Lambasting of the show before it even airs sends a message to networks that they can’t win with stories about Afghans or Syrians or whoever faces Mecca to pray, no matter how much thought or effort they put into 'getting it right.'"
• United States of Al does show improvement -- like other Chuck Lorre comedies -- but the early bumpiness is a major problem: "The show's problem — and this is particularly troublesome, given the early controversy — is Al," says Daniel Fienberg. "The first point that has to be emphasized, especially with the tenor of the ads CBS cut for the show, is that everybody on the writing staff — which includes several Afghans and Afghan Americans — has taken pains to make sure the jokes are basically never directed at Al. Yes, there are cultural and linguistic misunderstandings, but the punchlines focus on the need for the Americans to listen and learn more. Still, is it funny when Lizzie asks if the language they speak in Afghanistan is 'Afghanistanish'? No! It is not! The persistent comic framework here is that while Afghans may play a sport using goat corpses and eat things that confuse our American tastebuds, it's much more important to acknowledge the integral role they have played in our long-running war and how badly we've failed in helping the civilians who helped us. It's a similar 'Let's start our story about how immigrants make America great by centering the Americans in need of magical immigrant intervention' approach to the one Bob Hearts Abishola relied on in its first few episodes. In smoothing out all of Al's edges, the show basically turns him into a nondescript collection of model minority tropes. He's hyper-respectful and hyper-patriotic. There are moments of specificity to his religious and cultural identity, but the show always stops at "explaining" rather than 'exploring' those details. And even though Al is presumptively funny — a lot of the things the trailers suggest are jokes on the character are, in fact, the character's attempts to tell jokes — that isn't a personality, and it's in this sea of vagueness that the writing staff consistently goes adrift."
• Al from United States of Al is reminiscent of another Chuck Lorre character -- Raj from The Big Bang Theory: "Its boilerplate humor is reminiscent of another of his long-running sitcoms, The Big Bang Theory—particularly its character Rajesh Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar)," says Saloni Gajjar. "Raj, an Indian immigrant, was always the butt of banal comments based on his ethnicity and an afterthought when it came to meaningful development. This treatment has been passed on in some ways to Al. Raj couldn’t talk to women for the first six seasons of TBBT unless he was drunk. Here, Al freaks out and is unable to concentrate when he faces a woman wearing shorts. There is some legitimacy in this behavior—Al is only used to seeing fully clothed women except for in movies—but the arc is too worn out for a show set in 2021. It’s natural for a few stereotypes to be strewn in if the plot is about someone belonging to a different background. Stereotypes exist because they often reflect accurate experiences, but everyone is already aware of them. No group is a monolith, though, yet United States Of Al keeps its titular figure in a mold. It does take a couple more steps forward than TBBT in this case, by showing slightly more empathy to Al’s freakout over the shorts than just dreary innuendos (don’t worry, they’re still in the mix—Riley’s response is basically 'wait till you see boobs'). In brief moments, the show does find a way to elevate itself. It’s certainly trying to be more moving in a way that’s similar to how Mom handled Bonnie’s (Allison Janney) addiction issues. But for touting itself for its representation, the show offers this tenderness mostly to its white characters, though even jokes that don’t involve Al simply fall flat."
• United States of Al plays less as offensive than dated and uninspired: "The series falls under the supervision of heavyweight producer Chuck Lorre (The Big Bang Theory, Young Sheldon), officially giving him stewardship of CBS' entire Thursday comedy block," says Brian Lowry. "Being prolific in TV, however, usually means your luck eventually runs out, and Al has the feel of an idea that sounded better during the pitch than in the execution, with the laughs ending up lost in translation."
• United States of Al plays like a caricature of immigrant life, and Al is rarely written as a coherent human: "Lorre and producers David Goetsch and Maria Ferrari have tried so hard to create a perfectly palatable story of an immigrant of color that they manage to turn Al into a caricature that borders on offensive," says Kelly Lawler. "Without a fully formed title character or identity, Al adds up to a lackluster sitcom that doesn't often land its jokes...Al is rarely the butt of the broad sitcom's jokes, unlike many portrayals of Middle Eastern characters on TV. But his character is also rarely written as a coherent human. Although his name is in the title, it's the white characters who get the depth, the emotions and the relatability."
• United States of Al's attempt to be a feel-good comedy misses the mark: "The premise does possess the potential for growth; later episodes could tackle the weightier issues that immigrants and veterans face — racism, Islamophobia, post-war PTSD and depression — without reducing these struggles to an easy punchline," says Diane Gordon. "Like Lorre's other immigrant series, Bob Hearts Abishola, the show's heart appears to be in the right place. But in its early episodes, United States of Al's humor feels cheap and half-hearted, and its attempts at being a feel-good buddy comedy miss the mark."
• Executive producer Reza Aslan says The United States of Al was designed to get a Muslim protagonist on network TV: "The dream for us has always been to get a Muslim protagonist on network television, someone who could really reframe the perceptions of so many Americans about Muslims or people from this broad region," he says. "We knew that Dave (Goetsch) and Maria (Ferrari) would be the perfect shepherds for this and that Chuck would be the kind of person who could take very heavy topics like immigration xenophobia and transform them into something entertaining and palatable, but without necessarily taking the edge away." Chuck Lorre adds: "I was really excited about what was explained to me that Al is a fixer. His role with the U.S. forces in Afghanistan was to not only translate, but to make introductions to facilitate what needs to be done — not on a combat level but in terms of working with people in the environment. When he comes to America, he's still playing the same role. He's intent on fixing his buddy's marriage, which is broken. His nature doesn't change, even though his environment changes dramatically. He is still that kind of extraordinary human being whose main motivation is to make life better for the people around him. This make a wonderful buddy comedy, but also it's a fish out of water story."
• Creators David Goetsch and Maria Ferrari on why they needed a diverse writers' room featuring Afghan writers: “As Maria and I started to talk about it, we realized a couple things: One, the only way to do this is with Chuck, to make the show the way we wanted to make it,” Goetsch said. “And then the second piece was, we’re going to need a writers’ room that’s unlike any writers’ room we’ve ever been in, that is more diverse, and can speak to the both sides of the story. There’s the veteran side, the challenges of coming back with how that impacts the family. And then the perspective of Al as an Afghan-born immigrant who’s now arriving in the United States for the first time. This has been a process where we know that we have to win the trust of the on both sides of the story of the veteran and the Afghan side and that really comes from our whole creative team." Goetsch has known Aslan for years and reached out to him about the idea. “We had sold a number of projects for various networks with Muslim protagonists, and they never made it on screen for one reason or another,” Aslan said. “And so, the idea that we could maybe get Chuck Lorre interested in this story was a dream come true. It took away some of the frustration that we’ve been having for a decade in trying to make a show just like this.”
• Habib Zahori, a former war correspondent who is one of United States of Al's four Afghan writers, was asked to email some Afghan jokes before joining the show: Zahori, who was granted refugee status in Canada, initially had reservations about writing for a mainstream American show. But the producers’ vision was kind, he said, and they were open to critique. “There are definitely some traumas that are so powerful that there is absolutely no way you could use humor to dismiss it,” Zahori told The New Yorker. He prefers comedy that is ridiculous and ironic, like Seth Rogen's stoner humor. After the Americans arrived, he said, “they used to air that super-racist and problematic show called 24. In Afghanistan!” He continued, “I remember people’s dogs were named Jack Bauer.”