Casualty aims for a massive and wide target audience. This includes Muslims, African and other ethnic minorities. It also aims at other minorities, such as homosexuals. Even though it aims at all these different minorities, I think that it is safe to suggest that the majority of the audience would be the white community. This is due, simply, to the fact that the white community is the majority of the population in this country.
So when the white majority audience see what this Muslim man is doing, but more importantly when they see that he is doing it to a white man, a lot of people in that particular audience would likely be offended by this. These scenes could bring in peoples stereotypes of the Muslim community. Throughout the programme and in other scenes, it plays with many white peoples stereotypes, just like Carol Sarler’s newspaper article.
I think that the Muslim people watching the programme may also be angered, just in the same way as they would have been by the newspaper article. I think that they would be annoyed by the way in which they and their culture could be perceived by a number of the white audience.
They may feel that the programme could suggest, to shallow minded people, that the Muslim people are violent and not trustworthy. To me however, the acts of one character cannot speak for a whole culture. If many “shallow minded” individuals saw these actions and believed that the whole Muslim community is like this, then they could tell friends (remember, believing that this is true!) about it, and it could be spread that Muslim people are like this in real life.
Overall, both pieces of media have the potential to affect the audience massively. They also split the audience. Both play with stereotypes and both also create anger between the two communities.
In Carol Sarler’s article, she uses many different techniques in order to get the desired effect: a split and angered audience.
There are two writing techniques in particular that she uses repeatedly.
The first of these two techniques is the use of divisive language. This contains words such as “we”, “us” and “them”. These words and this technique split’s the audience very well and may well anger the Muslim side.
She uses the terms “we” and “us” as if she is writing to and on behalf of the white community. She writes as if there is only one culture in Britain, when obviously there is not, and when she uses words such as “them”, she tries to convince the (supposedly just white) reader that the Muslim society is and should be a separate thing in our culture. She could possibly be hinting at the fact that she believes in segregation.
This language, as I said previously said, splits the two sides of the audience. The majority of the audience may well read the article and words such as “we”, “us” and “them”, and separate themselves from the Muslim culture. Carol Sarler uses this language her advantage as she tries to convince the reader to join “her side” and, if it would, “fight for the cause”.
Although this language can potentially split the audience and make a lot of people angry, she is very successful in using it. I know this because when I first began to read the article, she had me believing that her statements and that her points were truthful. This was until I realised just how racist this article really was.
These statements would most definitely offend the minority audience, the Muslim community. They would be offended straight away, just after reading the headline!
“It’s time we stood up to these Muslim bullies”
is bound to cause anger throughout the Muslim people straight away. But I also think that the headline is an intriguing one and so intrigues the reader to read on. This makes it a successful headline (in terms of gaining an audience).
The Muslim reader, however, would not like the fact that Carol Sarler is separating them from the rest of the country in just her first sentence! S/he would most definitely be angered by what they are reading. This however is what Carol Sarler intends for in this article; an emotional response. The division in the audience is that the white community starts to separate itself from the Muslim community. The Muslim community is angered and feels discriminated against. This is the exact intention of the writer.
The second technique that Carol Sarler uses is the use of assertions. Assertions are opinions given by the writer with no evidence to back them up. For example, Carol Sarler starts to try and disgust the target audience by stating that Muslims in this country, and Muslim people all over the world circumcise little girls by cutting off the clitoris (“the mutilation of little girls”). Another writing technique is brought in during this assertion. This is the use of emotive images. The person reading this article would be presented with an image of this horrible act and would therefore be horrified and disgusted by it. The white reader would most definitely be disgusted, but a number of the white readers would be angered at the fact that Carol Sarler says that all Muslim people do this. S/he may well believe statements like these and use them to fuel their hatred for the Muslim people.
I noticed another technique in Carol Sarler’s article that added to the opposing techniques. This was alliteration. She uses alliteration in many different places in the article in order to enhance her separation from the Muslim people and add to the already apparent shaming of the Muslim community. She tries to put down the Muslims by using phrases such as “rabid rabble”. These, as I said earlier, enhance her degrading of the Muslim culture and they add to the effect that the article already has on the audience.
This statement would also offend the Muslim reader massively. Firstly, s/he would not like the fact that they are seriously being made out to do this. Secondly, that s/he is being subjected to a statement that isn’t true. Thirdly, s/he would not like the fact that the writer is using these assertions to try and convince the white target audience that the Muslim people do this.
The white audience would be angered by emotive comments such as “no enforced rape of those little girls in what is laughingly called an arranged marriage”
The target audience could possibly believe Carol Sarler’s comments because she presents them as if they are in the cultural norm. She does this in a very successful way because it does what it is intended for.
I think that Casualty, in some parts, also divides viewers. The divide isn’t very obvious but by looking closely, you can see it.
At Charlie’s and Baz’s wedding ceremony, many of the minorities in our culture are represented. Sam – homosexual community, Ash – African-Caribbean community.
Although all of these minorities are represented, there is another one missing. This is the Muslim community.
If any part of the Muslim audience noticed this, s/he would probably pick up on it and might be offended by it. They may feel left out, separated from the culture and they wouldn’t like the fact that all the other minorities are represented except them. The viewer could even begin to question racism.
Carol Sarler also does a lot in her article to demonise Muslims. She never says “Muslim” or “Islam” on its own. She always has to add a negative to it. This increases and enhances the negative image that the white target audience already has in their minds about the Muslim people (after reading assertions non-sequiturs, hypocritical points, etc). These comments present further Carol Sarler’s image of Islam as a bad thing.
Descriptions that she uses, such as “Muslim fanatics”, “Muslim menace”, “rabid rabble that Islam encourages”, “Muslim bullies” and “Islamic nutters” all present to the target audience a negativity about the Muslim people. These comments, and as you can see there are a lot of demonising comments, could turn some of the white target audience against the Muslim people further.
There are two scenes in particular, in Casualty that could have an effect on the way in which Muslim people are presented. One scene was the tunnel scene and the other was the ambulance scene.
In the tunnel scene Damien is chased by Khalid and his associate in a car. Damien enters the dark tunnel limping and then suddenly the car of Khalid enters, lighting Damien from the back. This frames Damien but it also conceals the faces of Khalid and his associate. When Damien collapses, the two men get out of the car and begin to hit Damien several times. I think that this increases Khalid’s bad-boy image. Many white viewers watching the programme could question the fact that it could be a racial attack (as it is at the beginning of the storyline and the viewer doesn’t know that Damien has ran away with Khalid’s sister). If the viewer did think that it is a racial attack, they may begin to think that all Muslim men are racist and attack helpless white men.
In the ambulance scene Khalid’s friend runs down Damien in an ambulance (which he has stolen), when Charlie (the main character) sees what is going on he tries to save Damien, but he also gets run down when the ambulance returns for a second time. The audience’s reaction to this would be massive. The programme finishes on this scene and has a cliffhanger effect. The viewer is left wondering if Charlie is dead or not. I think that many white viewers would treat this as a racial attack. They would be angered and overwhelmed at the fact that an Asian has had a part in the killing (?) of the programmes big star.
Both scenes split the audience, just like the newspaper, and in just the same way.
Overall, I did not like the way in which both media texts presented Muslim people. I especially did not like Carol Sarler’s article. In my opinion, it is an extremely racist and corrupt article. The techniques that she uses turn audiences against each other. Carol Sarler’s article is very successful in what it aims for, to corrupt and cause a reaction, but in terms of facts, it is a very weakly written piece of work.
In fact, both pieces are very weakly written in the sense that they don’t use facts.
Carol Sarler gives opinions and presents them as facts, i.e. when she explains that Mosques preach to Muslims and tell them to annihilate the white community. This is obviously not true, but she presents it in a way that makes the reader believe it.
Casualty is also poorly written by Barbara Machin. She too cannot get her facts right about the Muslim people.
The sister of the “bad-guy” in Casualty is called Lamisha. This name, as a matter of fact, is not even a Muslim name! The Muslim people in my class have never even heard the name or even associated the name with Islam.
It’s ironic isn’t it? That this writer can write a whole story on a Muslim family’s problems, but then can’t even get a name correct?!
I do think, overall, that these texts are very poorly and very weakly written. I think that it is quite dangerous to write about and criticise a culture when the writer doesn’t even know the facts.
The two pieces can create a lot of fear in the Muslim community because they both turn the majority against them.