The death of the Muhammad Hassan character

[Dave at the Movies]

Mar 11, 2011 6:39:03 GMT -5 jabronidrive said:

Had they just kept his gimmick as "Muslim-American who feels discriminated against" and not put terrorist stuff in there, he would've been the biggest heel of this generation by a long shot.

How in the heck does that make him a heel though? That's what I don't get. Arab Americans have been discriminated against in the U.S. It isn't like he was lying so why would he be considered a great heel?

[James McCloud IS John Godot]

It's the standard WWE heel thing. Have a heel protest about something with a grain of truth in it, then blow the response completely out of proportion until you can't sympathise with his actions.

[jabronidrive]

Mar 11, 2011 7:00:11 GMT -5 Dave at the Movies said:

Mar 11, 2011 6:39:03 GMT -5 jabronidrive said:

Had they just kept his gimmick as "Muslim-American who feels discriminated against" and not put terrorist stuff in there, he would've been the biggest heel of this generation by a long shot.

How in the heck does that make him a heel though? That's what I don't get. Arab Americans have been discriminated against in the U.S. It isn't like he was lying so why would he be considered a great heel?

It was very possible. Search for his debut promo with Mick Foley. No terrorist implications whatsoever.

[Dave at the Movies]

Mar 11, 2011 7:02:44 GMT -5 James McCloud IS John Godot said:

It's the standard WWE heel thing. Have a heel protest about something with a grain of truth in it, then blow the response completely out of proportion until you can't sympathise with his actions.

I wouldn't quite say it was just a grain of truth. Do you know how many Arab looking people got arrested the day after 9/11 for no reason?

[James McCloud IS John Godot]

Mar 11, 2011 7:12:56 GMT -5 Dave at the Movies said:

Mar 11, 2011 7:02:44 GMT -5 James McCloud IS John Godot said:

It's the standard WWE heel thing. Have a heel protest about something with a grain of truth in it, then blow the response completely out of proportion until you can't sympathise with his actions.

I wouldn't quite say it was just a grain of truth. Do you know how many Arab looking people got arrested the day after 9/11 for no reason?

I mean within the specific context of Muhammad Hassan himself and his character. Come on.

[Dave at the Movies]

Mar 11, 2011 7:13:53 GMT -5 James McCloud IS John Godot said:

Mar 11, 2011 7:12:56 GMT -5 Dave at the Movies said:

I wouldn't quite say it was just a grain of truth. Do you know how many Arab looking people got arrested the day after 9/11 for no reason?

I mean within the specific context of Muhammad Hassan himself and his character. Come on.

What is the specific context of his character though? That's what I didn't get about the gimmick. It was a tweener through and through while he was on RAW from my perspective.

I think what people don't understand about the gimmick is that WWE totally meant for it to be a heel gimmick all along. They had no real plans for it to be anything but. The problem is that they got into complicated political issues and the truth about the stuff they were having Hassan say in his promos were very true but they obviously meant for it to be exaggerating and from what I've seen all over the country since 9/11 it wasn't that exaggerated.


Remember the General Adnan gimmick who managed Slaughter? There are stories that he looked so much like Saddam Hussein that people wouldn't even let him into restaurants because of it and he wasn't even kayfabing.

[FUNK_US/BRODUS]

The terrorist bit was just unbelievably stupid. Certain stereotypes should just not be touched.

[Dave at the Movies]

Mar 11, 2011 7:32:46 GMT -5 FUNK_US/BRODUS said:

The terrorist bit was just unbelievably stupid. Certain stereotypes should just not be touched.

The whole thing was pretty stupid. It showed how ignorant people can be and how ignorant WWE is.

[Kevin Hamilton]

There's almost no way they coulda gone that wouldn't have been the broadest stereotype imaginable; wrestling doesn't lend itself to multi-faceted characters and is really for the most part the most one-dimensional theater imaginable.

Wrestling isn't really the place to look for nuanced social commentary.

[FUNK_US/BRODUS]

Mar 11, 2011 7:38:51 GMT -5 Dave at the Movies said:

Mar 11, 2011 7:32:46 GMT -5 FUNK_US/BRODUS said:

The terrorist bit was just unbelievably stupid. Certain stereotypes should just not be touched.

The whole thing was pretty stupid. It showed how ignorant people can be and how ignorant WWE is.

It did just seem like an exercise in cheap heat, but the terrorist bit for me was just the final straw for me.

Its not just that we had the London bombings on the same day, but they were basically saying "Our Arab character has connections to guys who fill every checkbox on "What does the media think a terrorist is"


It was just tasteless playing on post 9/11 attitudes and as a 15 year old, it made me got WTF. Which is not a response a 15 year old shoud be giving to your program.

[Dave at the Movies]

Mar 11, 2011 7:54:07 GMT -5 Kevin Hamilton said:

There's almost no way they coulda gone that wouldn't have been the broadest stereotype imaginable; wrestling doesn't lend itself to multi-faceted characters and is really for the most part the most one-dimensional theater imaginable.

Wrestling isn't really the place to look for nuanced social commentary.

I see what you are saying but I don't completely agree. Guys like Jake Roberts, Raven, and CM Punk I think have proven that you can have very complicated characters in wrestling.

The Hassan character just didn't work as a tweener or social commentary because most people in the U.S. are way too nationalist and I'm sure WWE in their own nationalist and stupid way were going off that and most likely never even thought they would get criticism for the character.

It's just too bad that the criticism they got wasn't based on the fact that they were basically mocking Arab Americans who have a legit reason to be mad about the discrimination in the U.S.

The criticism was just based on bad timing and the fact that they would "gasp" have a terrorist character even though TV shows and movies have terrorist characters all the time.

I sure didn't see anyone getting mad when they had evil Russian and evil Iranian characters back in the 80s.

[Deleted]

I wish CM Punk was around at that time and had gotten himself a fake tan, he'd have had the crowd in fits with that gimmick not knowing whether to cheer or boo him.

[Joe Galt]

I miss the Muhammad Hassan character and he was actually really really good on the mic to make the gimmick even better.

[Deleted]

Mar 11, 2011 7:00:11 GMT -5 Dave at the Movies said:

Mar 11, 2011 6:39:03 GMT -5 jabronidrive said:

Had they just kept his gimmick as "Muslim-American who feels discriminated against" and not put terrorist stuff in there, he would've been the biggest heel of this generation by a long shot.

How in the heck does that make him a heel though? That's what I don't get. Arab Americans have been discriminated against in the U.S. It isn't like he was lying so why would he be considered a great heel?

It doesn't at base value but as usual a heel takes something that normally could be morally right and distorts it into something hateable. In Hassan's case he brought up being discriminated against any time something didn't work out for him in the WWE, even though his heritage had nothing to do with it.

It's like saying "How does punk being straightedge make him a heel?" Obviously it doesn't, it is his actions that stem from it that make him a heel.

[ben:friendship frog]

I liked the Hassan character and didn't have a problem with anything they did with it until the martyr stuff on Smackdown which was a bit like 'okay, he doesn't need that for heel heat', keeping in mind I hadn't seen it. On RAW he was fine.
For what it's worth they cut that Smackdown angle out of the broadcast here in the UK and when I finally got round to seeing it, it wasn't nearly as bad as I had heard about. The London bombings (yes there was more than one) were a scary time as there were a couple of other attempts as well. Exactly two weeks later some guys tried to do the same thing I believe but were arrested beforehand. I can't remember the specifics now but it was a scary time and my sisters live right in the middle of London, but I didn't have too much of a problem with Hassan's character and still don't.
Sure, it could have done without the stuff on Smackdown but I think it was more unfortunate timing than anything else. Nexus have done practically the same with CM Punk, they attacked in droves and carried out a fallen member like a martyr, they even did 'sacrifices', no one cared.

[Deleted]

The London subway bombing was horrible timing, especially after Hassan had some goons strangle Undertaker with piano wire, but the reason why he failed will always be (in my mind) the fact that the character was too deep to be depicted in a still-cartoonish and black-and-white world of wrestling. Decades after Ivan Kolaff and the Iron Shiek, people still associated foreigners as bad guys, but the thing was that Hassan wasn't a foreigner, he was an Arab-American.

They had the decent storyline of a guy who felt he was being persecuted simply on the grounds that he was an Arab-American, but it quickly devolved into him being just another foreign bad guy.

And that is why his career died.

[Hit Girl]

Was a great character until they turned him overtly heel.

It was a character which actually showed the prejudice of the audience.


I remember when he slaughtered Ross and Lawler in that verbal debate where Ross had to resort to jingoistic slogans like "America....Love It Or Leave It".

[Andrew is Good]

He's an interesting character in WWE history, and the fault of his release and issues goes towards creative. This is an issue of wrestling, and even now with rumours of release, the boys will be let go, and creative will stick around. The problem though is, you can't fire you're daughter. Stephanie is the head of creative. And Vince is the one who gives thumbs up and thumbs down to everything, so he's also at fault. So, it's an issue that could not have been stopped I guess. As soon as you had the Arab American character who complained (complaining is the killer usually), and have him as a heel, there is potential in the minds of WWE to go that far. Especially with someone who thought necrophillia was a good idea.

[carp (SPC, Itoh Respect Army)]

This was a problem of the audience and half the writers not being on the same page as the other half of the writers.

One or two of the writers obvious had this very clever and awesome character arc for Hassan, where everyone mistreats him and acts like he's a foreigner and terrorist, and he proudly refuses to be quiet about it, which just prompts more racism. And then he snaps and goes, "Fine, if that's what you want me to be, I'll do it and you can all go to hell." Boom. Bad guy, the WWE has their evil terrorist character... but believable motivations and an open door for a face turn (and face Muslim character) down the road.

But, the problem was, there was always this very uncomfortable undercurrent, most of it coming from the announcers, that he was bad for talking about it in the first place. King wasn't exuding any shades of gray when he wished Hassan would shut up... we weren't supposed to be noting lovable ol' Lawler being confronted with his own ambivalence, we were just supposed to go Yeah! America!

So it was this really really weird situation where Hassan clearly was right about everything, but no one acted like he was right, and the crowds weren't listening anyway. He was an evil Muslim and a sympathetic Muslim at the same time. And that's not shades of gray, that's just a mess. I really think it's because of a split in the writing team, or maybe the writers wanted shades of gray but Vince was determined to just have a terrorist? I don't know.

[agent817]

The thing that still gets me was the fact that his career had to end the way it did. Being given a Last Ride through the entrance stage was a bit much. How on earth was he not hurt after that? Unless there was a table below and had to be made to look like he fell on concrete when the camera rolled on him through the hole.