PTT FOCUS: “From Chaiwallah to Playwright: The Rise of a Pakistani American Writer”

The problem occurs when casting must decide the race/ethnicity of those lead characters. Which skin color brings back the best return on investment for a studio? Should you cast an actual Iraqi in The Prince of Persia or do you have Jake Gyllenhaal play the part.

It turns out the only color Hollywood is interested in is ‘green’ and in order to maximize the amount of green a film brings in, execs choose to whitewash scripts.

ForaTv tackle this issue of race and film funding in the clip above:

Muslim-American writer Wajahat Ali discusses the uphill battle minority filmmakers often face when funding projects through Hollywood studios. As an example, Ali relates one producer’s unintentionally funny casting suggestion for the role of a Pakistani father in a film adaptation of his play, “The Domestic Crusaders.”-ForaTv

Ali’s essays and interviews on contemporary affairs, politics, the media, popular culture and religion frequently appear in the Washington Post, The Guardian, Salon, Slate, McSweeney’s,Wall Street Journal Blog,  Huffington Post, CNN.com,  CounterPunch and Chowk, among other on-line sites. His blog, “Goatmilk: An Intellectual Playground” is ranked in the top 7% of all political blogs by blogged.com.

He is the associate editor of Altmuslim.com and contributing editor to the award winning Illume Magazine. His first short story, “Ramadan Blues,” was published in Powwow: Charting the Fault Lines in the American Experience, Short Fiction From Then to Now (Da Capo Press, 2009). His second story, “The Perpoose Story,” will be published in the anthology Voices of the Asian American Experience (Winter 2010). His first movie, “Ms. Judgments,” was a finalist for the Link TV Muslim American Film Competition.

Wajahat Ali was honored as an “An Influential Muslim American Artist” by the State Department and invited to their 2008 and 2010 Annual Ramadan dinners. He was named a “Muslim Leader of Tomorrow” for his journalism work and invited to participate in the 2009 “Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow” conference in Doha, Qatar. He is the recipient of Muslim Public Affairs Council’s prestigious “Emerging Muslim American Artist” recognition of 2009. Wajahat Ali is also an Attorney at Law, practicing in the San Francisco Bay Area. Wajahat Ali is the proud recipient of the 2011 Otto Award for Political Theatre.

Ali is a frequent consultant on Islam and Muslims, post 9-11 Muslim American identity and politics, multicultural art and activism, and New Media Journalism. In 2009, he consulted U.C. Berkeley on their 2009 landmark  “Islam Today: Youth and New Media” program. The same year, he consulted McSweeney’s, a prestigious American publishing company, on their Muslim and Arab American community outreach to promote Dave Eggers’ award winning book, Zeitoun. He also consulted “Voice of Witness,” a non profit book series that documents human rights abuses and issues of contemporary social injustice by using oral history and personal narratives, for their book “Patriot Acts” featuring stories of Muslim, Middle Eastern and South Asians facing discrimination after 9-11.

Ali also researches on Islamophobia in America. In 2011, he was the lead author and researcher of “Fear Inc., The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America” published by The Center for American Progress.

Ali is the co-editor of the anthology “All-American: 45 American Men on Being Muslim” published this June 2012 by White Cloud Press.

Wajahat is currently writing a TV pilot with Dave Eggers about a Muslim American cop in the Bay Area, California, and he is working on his first movie screenplay.

The Domestic Crusaders is powerful and provocative. An intimate and poignant look at 21st Century Immigrant Experience.

— Gary David Goldberg, Creator of Family Ties and Producer of Spin City and Brooklyn Bridge.

    Reference  

WAJAHAT ALI: THE PLAYWRIGHT

Wajahat Ali (playwright) is a Muslim American of Pakistani descent. The Domestic Crusaders is his first full-length play. Born and raised in Fremont, a city located in the Silicon Valley of the San Francisco Bay Area, he has been writing, producing and directing plays, films, and comedy sketches since he was a child, enlisting his friends to be actors and crew. In Fall, 2001, during his undergraduate studies at U.C. Berkeley, he hesitantly began writing The Domestic Crusaders in order to pass a 20 page short story assignment due for a writing class taught by Ishmael Reed, and with his encouragement, transformed the piece into a play which premiered in 2005 at the Thrust Stage of the Berkeley Repertory Theater and San Jose University Theater. In 2009,  The Domestic Crusaders premiered Off-Broadway in New York at the famous Nuyorican Poets Cafe, and broke their box office records during its historic 5 week run.

Ali’s The Domestic Crusaders was published by McSweeney’s in December 2010.

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