Serious book with lighthearted title PROMOTES UNDERSTANDING Culture crusade in Muslim world / 4

In Pursuit of American Pop Culture

in the Muslim World

By Richard Poplak

Penguin, 344 pages, $24

555Circumnavigating the world has become more comfortable over the centuries -- airline seats aside -- although if it's safer is a matter of opinion.

In The Sheikh's Batmobile, Toronto-based writer Richard Poplak wanders the Muslim world, without host or invitation, in search of American popular culture.

Previous adventurers were challenged to bring home exotic tales and marvellous trinkets: Poplak's concern is what previous contacts have left behind.

At first Poplak's travels seem unnecessary. Surely, in the world of Twitter and wi-fi, the tastes and opinions of the ROTW (rest of the world) are at our fingertips? Do we really need another white guy pontificating on how Muslims think and feel? Didn't the late Edward Said warn of this form of journalistic racism in his influential 1978 book Orientalism?

Armchair eggheads need not fear. Poplak is well aware of his whiteness. He recounted this awareness with disarming charm in his previous book Ja, No, Man: Growing Up White in Apartheid South Africa. As he mentions in this new book, Poplak has read Orientalism and heeds its advice. Besides, he's not there to point out cultural differences; he's looking for similarities.

Poplak begins his journey by stepping back into the '80s. Remember Hello, the classic Lionel Richie video where the blind woman sculpts the bust of Lionel though she's never seen his face: "How do you know?" Richie asks.

In a later GQ interview, Richie recounted a similar real life story, where to the delight of the pop star, a group of Libyan kids swarmed him outside a shop in Tripoli chanting Hello.

In the dark days before digital downloads, how did the kids recognize the Jheri-curled millionaire? "How do you know?" wonders Lionel. "How do you know?"

The answer, as you may have guessed -- and Poplak takes a great deal of trouble to find out -- is the anecdote is BS, as are many of our preconceived notions. American culture is ubiquitous, but it's not magic.

This essay is a great place for the book to start. Poplak cut his teeth shooting punk videos and not surprisingly, the journalist in him seems most at home writing about music. He's at his most descriptive then, as in this recollection of a punk gig.

"The stage was a riser with a drum kit, two amps, four emaciated Indonesian kids. Everything in the room was carpeted: the floors, the walls, the ceiling, the doorknob. We had removed our shoes; the room stank of feet and vomit. I felt like I was in a deep-sea cave into which some vile leviathan had crawled in order to scream itself to death."

This isn't Kansas, Dorothy. It's Jakarta. This is an Indonesia you don't hear about in the news. Actually, it could be Kansas, if you were at a similar underground punk gig

That's Poplak's point: underneath the stereotypes and the official versions is a vibrant world, a mash-up of them and us, that somehow turns us all back into us.

Although most at home in the world of tunes, Poplak does a good job covering the whole pop culture map. He gives us a keyhole peek at artistic expression of all stripes. And remember these are cultures, where the very idea of artistic expression is forbidden.

What happens to The Simpsons, when, in order to make it more "Islamism," references to beer, sex, religion and bodily functions are removed? If you guessed that it bombs big time, while everyone downloads illegal copies of The Family Guy, you would be right.

The Sheikh's Batmobile shows how similar we all are, but it's also full of tidbits suited for a game of Is That Really True? Is there really an Arab animated show with three smart-mouthed hijab-wearing feminists? Yes, there is.

Do Muslim kids actually play U.S. Special Forces video games where the enemy is ostensibly themselves? Yes. Is there really a thriving heavy metal scene in Baghdad? Freakin' right there is!

Did a billionaire sheik hire a guy from Texas to build him a real-life working Batmobile? Uh huh. Does that make the sheik a loser no matter his faith or the colour of his skin? Yes, Robin, it does.

This is a great book and despite its lighthearted title and subject matter it's a serious book. It's an important book too, because it promotes understanding and leaves the reader with hope that at a human level, and at a creative level, the kids are all right.

Al Rae, artistic director of the CBC Winnipeg Comedy Festival, helped develop the Mother Corp's sitcom Little Mosque on the Prairie and is the creator of Monsoon House, heard weekly on CBC Radio One.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 31, 2009 D6