It’s All Happening: The Taqwacores Debuts in Los Angeles
Sundance Festival Pick The Taqwacores officially premiered in Los Angeles at the Laemmle Sunset 5 Theater to a modestly sized crowd on November 12. Friday night’s screening marked the fifth time I had seen the film, almost two years after hearing of a movie in pre-production about “Muslim Punks.” Though it’s a phrase I try to avoid using, especially since becoming a fan of the bands associated with taqwacore, it’s difficult to imagine what my life would have been like in the past two years if I had never heard it.
When I read Michael Muhammad Knight’s novel (which the feature film, directed by Eyad Zahra, is based on), my knowledge of Islam was still pretty limited. But my reaction after putting to the book was intensely positive. I thought immediately, “Punk’s not dead..” I’ve never had a religious affiliation, but the theme of disillusionment with an initially good idea plagued by fundamentalism reminded me so much of my experience with punk.
Punk is something I’ve always loved, but never felt I could use as a personal label. The music was always a big part of my childhood (my mother had me listening to “Who Killed Bambi” while most kids were still watching Bambi). But by the time I was a teenager, I wasn’t punk enough to hang out with the punk cliques in middle and high school. I liked a lot of non-punk bands. My favorite band, The Distillers, was “not punk enough.” My clothes didn’t meet the standards of the punk uniform. There was always some reason I felt embarrassed to proclaim my love of punk, even though I desperately wanted to. Eventually I said “fuck it, I don’t need this,” and up until this book, I thought punk was something I was done with.
But as I turned each page, pausing occasionally to look up the Arabic terms and Islamic references, I started getting nostalgic. Eventually, I threw on Rancid’s “And Out Come the Wolves” for the first time in maybe five years, and started browsing the net to see what “taqwacore” actually sounded like in musical form. I was officially hooked after stumbling upon The Dead Bhuttos’, a now disbanded act that included The Kominas’ Imran Malik and Basim Usmani, and their catchy-as-hell “Terri Assi Ki Tassi.”
Being a writer gave me a good excuse to actually talk to the people involved, starting with Knight when I interviewed him for LA2Day.com while the movie was being shot in Cleveland in October 2008. I always knew I wanted to do some kind of follow up on the subject after the article was published. I had originally thought it would be just one more story, though. After reviewing The Kominas’ Downtown Los Angeles show with Sarmust and Prop Anon in the summer of 2009, I got the idea to ask the band for an interview. In January of this year, after two interviews with The Kominas, and one with Al-Thawra and Omar Waqar, I headed to Sundance to cover the film’s world premiere and epic Star Bar show the following day. (I wasn’t getting paid, I just wanted to write about it.) Now I don’t even know how many articles I’ve written on “taqwacore,” off the top of my head (though you can find a lot of them on my blog).
Initially, I was eager to talk to these musicians, since their music was now becoming part of my daily routine, but I was also hyper aware of how easy it would be for me to fuck this story up. From what I’d been reading, the bands were uncomfortable with the problematic and exclusive sounding “Muslim Punk” label. But I still kept thinking, “I’m not Muslim, my heritage isn’t Middle Eastern, South Asian or North African, so how can I relate to any of this? “ In this case, I was surely running the risk of being called a poseur. But getting to know the “real life taqwacores” proved that wasn’t the case at all. When I nervously mentioned to Usmani in the first of my Kominas’ interview “I’m a super white valley girl, but I love your record,” his response was a gracious, “thanks, I’m glad!” When I talked to Marwan Kamel of Al-Thawra, he expressed delightful surprise at finally being asked questions about the band’s music. By the time I was hanging out with everyone at Sundance, I was experiencing something completely new in all of my encounters with punk. I was around people where I felt that I didn’t have to prove anything. In a group where I would last expect to fit in, I felt right at home.
I’ve kept in touch with the friends I made at Sundance, but since these writers, bands and fans are spread out across the country, it’s easy to feel disconnected from the so-called “scene” sometimes. Even if I am constantly listening to the music and am up to date with the news on all the bands, it starts to feel like it’s not “real” anymore when you haven’t actually hung out with anyone in months. But the great thing about taqwacore is that it can’t be classified just as a “scene.” It’s bigger than that. It’s an idea that’s so open to interpretation, which can only be as “real” as the individual decides it is. And it’s recently come to my attention that “taqwacore” is something I’ve managed to make very real in my close circle of friends, none of whom qualify as “Muslim Punk.”
The second time I saw the movie in April at the LA Asian Pacific Film Festival, I brought along two of my best girlfriends, sisters of Catholic descent. I was anxious about their reaction, especially since one of them, who I’ve known since 9th grade, considers her faith a huge part of her identity. They both loved the film, and haven’t ceased asking me when The Kominas are going to play in LA since. A few weeks ago their 18 year-old niece excitedly told me how much she “loved Muslim Punk.” I cringed at the term and told her she couldn’t call the bands that, but a few days later I found myself wondering why I thought that was such a bad thing.
On November 1, one of them asked if I was going to a special screening of the film at the Screen Actors Guild the following day. After wondering how the hell she had heard about this before me, I booked tickets, and within minutes was informed that she had to work and wouldn’t be able to make it. I called up another of my best girlfriends, who I’d burned “Wild Nights in Guantanamo Bay” for this past spring, and having loved it, she was stoked when I told her I had an extra ticket. We blasted the record through the West Side of Los Angeles on our way to the screening. Before the ending credits had started to roll, she turned to me, and the words “That was brilliant!” burst out of her mouth. She told me a few days later, at the after party at the Velvet Margarita following the November 10 special screening sponsored by the Levantine Center, that the past week of “taqwacore” made her feel “connected to my Moroccan side.” (she’s half Moroccan Jewish). These are just two examples of the many favorable responses I’ve witnessed after introducing my friends and family to taqwacore.
Each screening I’ve been to since Sundance has been followed by a question and answer session with members of the cast and crew, and the reactions exhibited at the three recent LA screenings varied. The audience at SAG seemed to respond positively, probably because we were in a crowd of people in film. Some asked about the editing and sound; a kid from Alaska on his 5th day in LA asked what techniques an actor can use to play characters that contradict a strict upbringing. When one woman asked what audience this movie was exactly for, Noureen DeWulf, the actress who brilliantly portrays Rabeya, the badass burqa wearing riot grrrl, responded that the film’s lack of a target audience is why it was a low budget independent production, and not a studio film.
The discussions at the screenings this past week were not as tame. At Friday;’s premiere, one man referred to the foreboding intensity in the dialogue about the upcoming Taqwacore show at the film’s climax as foreshadowing of a “terrorist act.” Actor Tony Yalda, whose performance as Muzzamil (or “Miss Muzzy”) reminds me of the best friends I made at punk shows in my teen years, boldly asked why he would make that association, when building up to a climax is part of every film, and there were no planes exploding in this movie. I didn’t hear my favorite question during any of the Q and A’s, though. Before the film started at the Harmony Gold Theater last Wednesday, I started chatting with a kid four seats down from me who was there because he was a fan of the book. Eventually he inquired about if I was “in the scene,” and when I responded “kind of,” he eagerly asked, “Where do you guys hang out?!”
I can’t begin to predict how this movie will be widely received, but I do know that not everyone who sees “The Taqwacores” will find it as thrilling as my friends and I do. Maybe it’s because I’ve been anticipating the film’s release for so long, but while I was trying to figure out exactly how to answer this kid’s last question, I couldn’t help but think, “It’s all happening…”
