The entry begins:I love this question, because I have actually thought that my book would make for a great film. At the heart of the book are five young men – ranging in age from fourteen to nineteen – who are dynamic, funny, and very close friends. The book uses over three and half years of ethnographic observation with these kids – who I call the Legendz after the name of their hip hop group – to tell the story of their growing up together as young Muslim Americans in post-9/11 urban America.Learn more about Keeping It Halal at the Princeton University Press website.
Rather than being centered on politics, though, their everyday lives – and therefore the book, and therefore the movie (!) – is focused on the trials and tribulations of urban American teenage life, intertwined with concerns of Islamic propriety. While spending their teen years together, the Legendz were also working to manage complex cultural dilemmas in their daily lives: how to listen to profane hip hop music while being a good Muslim, how to date in a way that doesn’t clash with expectations of Islamic behavior, how to meet Islamic religious obligations while still feeling and seeming to others like independent American teenagers, and how to respond to frustrating anti-Muslim harassment while not playing into the very stereotypes they hoped to escape.
I think a coming-of-age movie about these young men would be great – think an early-oughts Stand By Me meets a Muslim Smoke Signals. And the boys’ interest in hip hop would provide an excuse for a great soundtrack. In terms of casting, I think a movie like this might work best with some fresh-faced, relatively unknown actors, for whom this could be their break out roles (assuming that the movie is a big hit, of course!), but I do have a few ideas of well-known actors who could play the Legendz.
I think the part of Muhammad, one of the older boys in the group, could be played well by Michael...[read on]
My Book, The Movie: Keeping It Halal.
--Marshal Zeringue
Posts
