The Sheikh's Batmobile: In Pursuit of American Pop Culture in the Muslim World

by Richard Poplak

Overview

What happens to our pop culture when it meets another culture head-on—especially one that, according to some, is completely at odds with our own?

In The Sheikh’s Batmobile, pop culture commentator Richard Poplak sets out on an unusual two-year odyssey. His mission is to see what becomes of his and America’s obsessions—pop songs and sitcoms, Hollywood movies and shoot-'em-up video games, muscle cars and punk music—when they make their way into the Muslim world.

Over the course of his journey, Poplak gets body-slammed by WWE fans in Afghanistan, hangs out with hip-hop artists in Palestine, headbangs to heavy metal in Cairo, discovers a world of extreme makeovers in Beirut, bowls with the chief of police in small-town Kazakhstan, and encounters a mysterious Texan who builds rocket-propelled Batmobiles for a clientele of sheikhs.

With uproarious humor and keen cultural insight, Poplak asks some vital questions: How is American pop culture consumed and reinterpreted in the Islamic world? What does that say about how we are viewed by young Muslims? And can Homer Simpson bridge the divisions that are tearing our world apart?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781593762926
Publisher:	Catapult
Publication date:	08/17/2010
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Richard Poplak was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1973 and immigrated to Canada with his family in 1989. A co-founder of the successful Canadian music label 2wars & A Revolution Records, Richard is also a trained filmmaker and has directed numerous music videos, earning five nominations at the 2005 MuchMusic Video Awards. He is the author of the acclaimed Ja, No, Man: Growing Up White in Apartheid-era South Africa and The Sheikh's Batmobile: In Pursuit of American Pop Culture In The Muslim World.

Editorial Reviews

"With insight, humor, and compassion, The Sheikh's Batmobile puts a nail in the coffin of 'Clash of Civilizations' theory. The author and subjects are equally human. If you see Ayaan Hirsi Ali, throw this book at her. —Michael Muhammad Knight, author of Journey to the End of Islam

“I would read Poplak if he wrote about watching paint dry. He is a gifted addition to the exploding and increasingly sloppy literary non-fiction genre. Dark, funny, self-deprecating and poetic, Poplak is a punk Graham Greene both exploiting and being exploited by the cultures he inhabits.” —The Globe and Mail

“A heroic feat of research, analysis, and on-the-ground reportage . . . At the very least, The Sheikh’s Batmobile should shatter the Western stereotype of the Muslim world as repressive and stagnant.” —Quill and Quire

“Poplak avoids making easy connections . . . his de-embedded journalism is always open-minded and captures the uncanny perfectly.” —Eye Weekly

“Humorous, astute and vivid . . . Poplak’s view of popculture is nuanced, as it emerges as a mutating entity crossing national and ideological boundaries.” —The Coast

“This is a great book and despite its lighthearted title and subject matter it’s a serious book. It’s an important book too, because it promotes understanding and leaves the reader with hope that at a human level, and at a creative level, the kids are all right.” —Winnipeg Free Press

“The book is not a magnifying glass searching for Western brushstrokes on an Islamic canvas, but rather a kaleidoscope that bounces the reader's assumptions and expectations off the colorful mirrors of zestful narrative and impressive legwork.” —Wiretap Magazine

“A fast-paced and culturally savvy look at a section of the Muslim population underrepresented, if not entirely ignored, by Western media.” —Open Book: Toronto

“In the riotous, fearless, and very funny tradition of Hunter S. Thompson and Jon Ronson, Richard Poplak takes us through the looking glass and into an upside down, funhouse mirror pop culture universe where Homer Simpson drinks juice out of a beer can, batmobiles are custom-designed in a desert lair and Islamic children spontaneously recreate the video for Lionel Richie’s ‘Hello.’” —Nathan Rabin, The A.V Club

“Poplak is everything you want in a cultural interpreter—funny, frank and utterly incapable of spewing mass market pabulum. Poplak gets beyond the cheap, superficial observations lesser writers bring to his subject, revealing himself as a genuine thinker who delivers original insight and laughs in every chapter.” —Chuck Thompson, author of Smile When You’re Lying: Confessions of a Rogue Travel Writer

From the Publisher

Poplak (Ja, No, Man: Growing Up White in Apartheid-Era South Africa), interested in how and why Muslims living in predominantly Muslim countries embraced some aspects of American pop culture, visited 17 countries and conducted more than 200 interviews over the course of two years. In Libya, Poplak launched his quest by delving into why Lionel Richie performed at the Hanna Peace Concert and at Colonel Gaddafi's daughter's wedding in 2006. In Dubai, Poplak encountered an American chop shop owner who restores cars and builds Batmobiles for Gulf playboys obsessed with American cars. In Afghanistan, he met an 11-year-old boy who demonstrated body slams and half nelsons. Some of the people whom Poplak introduced himself to remained perplexed about his journey, but many waxed nostalgic about American culture, particularly from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, when they traveled to the United States for education or training. The author suggests other books and websites for each chapter.Verdict Poplak's fascinating premise makes for insightful and compelling reading.—Elizabeth Connor, The Citadel, Military Coll. of South Carolina Lib., Charleston

Library Journal