IS ‘too evil’ for ‘Homeland’

Producer Alex Gansa says show tries to humanise antagonists but can’t seem to do it with the militant group.

Homeland has dealt with controversial stories before but they draw the line when it comes to the Islamic State (IS). Producers of the American TV spy drama said that they will not produce any episode based on the militant group as they are too ‘evil’ to decipher, reported the Daily Mail.

“Homeland for the last four seasons has tried to portray our adversaries and tried to humanise them,” said Alex Gansa, executive producer of the show. “That is very hard to do with IS,” he added, Al-Arabiya News reported. The Showtime series has dealt with terror cells and double agents across the world, but keeps away from dramatising the group and their recurrent executioner, Jihadi John, recently identified as Mohammed Emwazi, is not on the agenda.



Gansa feels that even attempting to depict a character, such as John, would not work for his critically-acclaimed TV series. “I think to create a sympathetic member of IS right now is a very tall order, that I would be nervous about doing it. I think right now the intelligence communities and the United States government don’t really even know how to deal with them right now.” Talking about the efforts to humanise other militant groups, the producer says, “And if you look at Abu Nazir, even look at Brody, or look at Haqqani this past season, there was a real effort to make their concerns and lives understandable. But we can’t do the same with IS,” reported accessshowbiz.com.

He revealed that writers have been asked to steer clear of the subject matter as he cannot see any way of humanising their despicable actions. “It’s very difficult to do because what they are doing on the ground feels so medieval and so horrible that you give them a platform on television, I’m a little wary of; to try to make what they are talking about understandable or relatable is very difficult,” he said.“So, we are struggling with that. Maybe, this is too soon. Maybe, we don’t understand them well enough; It may be that they are just too evil to dramatise on television.”



The producer confirmed that the show is not slated to end anytime soon, with lead actor Claire Danes insisting she is committed to the series. She said she is looking forward to working in Berlin for the next season. Gansa noted, “The writers are relentless in redesigning the show every season and Danes is naturally dynamic, but they put her in such different circumstances and environments that she had different facets of her revealed to me. She remains vital and novel.” He added, “The great thing about Homeland is that if you look at every single season is very distinct, so we are not doing the same show over and over again.”

Running since 2010, Homeland has been developed by Gansa and Howard Gordon. Since its inception, Homeland has been a hit around the world, picking up honours for its writers and actors, including Damien Lewis and Danes. While offers have been swarming into the stars to go elsewhere, Gansa feels the unique bond between the cast and crew has kept their show intact. “We were so fortunate to win the Emmy in the first year, but we are just getting started on that kind of thing,” he stated.

Discussing the show’s transition into the future, Gansa revealed, “You will see season five is so radically different from season four. We are going to be two-and-a-half years into the future from season four, we going to be shooting the series in Europe, the show will be set in Germany this year. Carrie will be out of the intelligence agency.”

Published in The Express Tribune, March 10^th, 2015.

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