Page 17 - Desk of the Imam

Desk of the Imam Magazine April 2018
How comedy explains
what it's like to be
Muslim and a woman
growing up in the
West
Nadia Manzoor and Radhika Vaz star in the web
comedy series Shugs and Fats.
Credit:
Shugs and Fats
Nadia Manzoor is on a crusade to use humor and
honesty to talk about the challenges she faced as
a young Muslim immigrant coming of age in the
West. She's the creator of Shugs and Fats, a web
comedy series about two Muslim women
who’ve recently immigrated to Brooklyn, New
York.
Manzoor plays Shugs, dressed in gold chains
and bedazzled hijabs. Her co-star, Indian
comedian Radhika Vaz, plays Fats, and is
slightly more subdued. The two women explore
life in their new, Western home, and most of the
time they’re not doing anything that rebellious.
They’re trying a juice cleanse, working out at
the gym, or buying a pile of maxi pads from the
Yemeni guy at the corner bodega. Occasionally
it gets a little racier. "I think that’s part of where
Masjid Al-Hamdulillah | Desk of the Imam 17
the humor is — 'Oh my God, I can’t believe that
Shugs and Fats got a vibrator and didn’t know
what it was about," Manzoor says. "Why is that
hilarious? Because we don’t think about women
in burqas being sexually expressed or
understanding sexual fulfillment, necessarily."
The intent is to show audiences the often unseen
perspective of Muslim women. Even though
Manzoor and Vaz don't wear hijabs in their daily
lives, they both come from traditional
backgrounds. And, as Manzoor explains, the
hijab is the mouthpiece for traditionalism.
Most of the time the
characters aren't doing
anything too rebellious.
But occasionally it gets a
little racier.
Shugs and Fats
"I’m totally hoping it
will cause a lot of
dialogue," she says.
"And also just make a lot of people laugh."
The show has also made some people angry.
Manzoor recounts some of the comments the
show has received on social media, like "Why
are you doing this? Do you think it's funny to
put on a hijab and put on an accent?"
She answers: "Yes, I kind of do, which is why I
do it." But she also adds that there's more to it
than cheap laughs. "You have to watch the show
to understand. We are not making a mockery of
women who choose to wear hijab. That’s not the
point of this.”
Manzoor discovered the power of humor
through a personal process to reconcile her past.
Before creating Shugs and Fats she wrote Burq
Off!, an autobiographical one-woman show with
21 different characters and an emotional journey
ranging from sarcastic to somber.
For example, in one scene, Manzoor laments the
plight of Muslim women — everything from
being called “too Western while living in the
west” to the practice of honor killings. “Because