Muslim Council of Britain accuses Channel 4 documentary of brownface and says it has caused deep offence

A Channel 4 documentary in which a white woman is given the appearance of a Pakistani Muslim in order to experience public attitudes and Islamophobia has caused “deep offence”, the Muslim Council of Britain has said.

For the programme, to be aired next Monday, makeup artists darkened the skin of Katie Freeman and gave her a prosthetic nose. She was dressed in traditional Muslim clothing, including a hijab.

A spokesperson for the MCB said: “The use of brownface and blackface has a long racist history and it is not surprising that it has caused deep offence amongst some communities. Had we been consulted, we would not have advised this approach.

“We do, however, laud the apparent goals of the documentary – to better understand the reality of Islamophobia, which has become socially accepted across broader society.”

In a press release announcing the documentary, Channel 4 said it was “an immersive programme that will explore what it’s like to be a Muslim in Britain today and challenge some of the assumptions and prejudices that different communities in the UK have about each other”.



The programme, made by The Garden Productions, used “radical methods … to offer insight into the everyday lives of people from two separate cultures”.

Freeman, 44, an NHS healthcare assistant who lives in a predominantly white area in north-west England, is given makeup and prosthetics to be “fully immersed into a Pakistani Muslim family living just a few miles away”.



The documentary was filmed immediately after the terrorist attack at the Manchester Arena, in which 22 people were killed and 250 injured. Home Office figures released this week showed a rise in hate crime in the aftermath of terror attacks in Manchester and London this year.



After news breaks of the Manchester bombing, Freeman tells her host, Saima Alvi: “It’s this community that has bred this terrorist.” Later, speaking to camera, Alvi says: “It’s very humiliating that I am pigeonholed, or put in the same box as a terrorist.”

Freeman initially says of Muslims: “You see them and think they’re going to blow something up.” Driving through a Muslim neighbourhood, she says: “You wouldn’t even think this was England.”

But, dressed as a Muslim woman, Freeman experiences hostility from her own neighbours. Afterwards, she says: “It makes me ashamed to live here. I was raging and fuming inside. But I also felt vulnerable. What harm was I doing?”



Alvi, 49, says Freeman’s experience is “what I face every day. This is me for life.”

After a trailer for the programme was aired this week, there was criticism on social media. A woman called Firdos wrote: “You continue to hijack our stories & distort them and US. We are not your Halloween costumes. Stop using us, we are not a cultural commodity.”

Ayesha tweeted: “I’m fuming. I just heard about the upcoming @Channel4 programme ‘My Week as a Muslim’. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”



Shelina Janmohamed, the author of Generation M: Young Muslims Changing the World, told the Guardian: “Increasing understanding of Muslims at a time when divisions and hatred are rising – some of which is violent – is more vital than ever.



“It’s a shame if efforts are derailed by basic errors such as ‘brownfacing’ which reinforce rather than challenge such prejudice. I hope the programme lets the experiences of Muslims shine through rather than being a form of television tourism.”



Fiyaz Mughal, the founder of Tell Mama, an organisation that monitors anti-Muslim abuse and attacks, said the programme was “absolutely shocking” and a “complete catastrophe”.

“Just think for one second if that was done against the Jewish community. There would be legitimate accusations of antisemitism, which would be correct and clear. So why is this OK for the Muslim community, in the desire to reach what I think is a laudable objective?” he said.

“They could have simply taken a secret camera and got Muslim women to record things that happen to them every day. But they tried to maximise their audience by putting a twist on it, a twist that has badly backfired.”

Fozia Khan, the documentary’s executive producer, said: “The programme allowed Katie to meaningfully walk in the shoes of someone from a different background and to experience what it is like to be part of the British Pakistani Muslim community, rather than observe it as an outsider.”



Khan said the idea for the film came after the EU referendum and the rise in Islamophobia that followed. “We saw divided communities, people living side by side but not mixing. We wanted to do something bold, a kind of social experiment: to take someone with no exposure to the Muslim community and give her a really authentic experience. The transformation in her appearance was important for that.

“If we’d done it for entertainment purposes, I can see why it would be offensive. But its purpose and intention needs to be understood. I feel really proud of it and I hope that when people see it, they will understand why we did it.”

Before taking part in the programme, Freeman had never engaged with any Muslims and admitted to holding stereotypical views.

Freeman and Alvi were both worried about how they would appear. “I had concerns about how I would be framed. I’m not racist. Although, looking back I am surprised at some of my early opinions,” Freeman told the Telegraph.

“People were negative about the idea,” said Alvi. “But there are lots of people out there who just haven’t had the chance to engage with Muslims.”



The pair said they were now friends.