The first episode of CBS sitcom the United States of Al (USoA) aired on April 1, 2021 [CBS/Facebook]
The United States of Al (USoA), a new CBS situation comedy produced by Chuck Lorre and Reza Aslan, received an immediate backlash after the release of its official trailer last month. The plot of the show, which aired for the first time on April 1, is set around the friendship between Afghan interpreter Awalmir or “Al”, and an American marine veteran, Riley. The ongoing controversy is centred on the choice of Adhir Kalyan (South African of Indian descent) to play an Afghan, and the comedic approach taken to war. But there are stakes at hand that extend beyond the representation of an Afghan immigrant in a sitcom.
United States of Al: Hollywood s brown saviour project msn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from msn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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Qismat Amin’s adjustment to life in America wasn’t easy but, by his own account, it could have been much worse. For the Afghan former combat interpreter, 29, the truly hellish part was what came in the years before he arrived in San Francisco in 2017.
Amin was laid off by his employer, the US military, in 2013, when the Obama administration sought to wind down American forces in Afghanistan. He had served alongside US soldiers for three years, starting at the age of 19, but then spent much of his twenties inside his house in the southern Afghan city of Jalalabad, with the door locked. Fighters from the terrorist group ISIS, which at that time was only just emerging in Afghanistan, had his name on a list of targets. They wanted him to confess to his “crime” of collaborating with the US military.
«United States of Al»: la nouveauté ratée des créateurs de «The Big Bang Theory» sudinfo.be - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from sudinfo.be Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
America has a moral obligation to the military interpreters it left behind: Howard Manuel
Updated 5:34 AM;
Today 5:34 AM
In this Monday, Dec. 16, 2019, photo, Zia Ghafoori displays his Purple Heart at his home in Charlotte, North Carolina. He received the award as an interpreter wounded while fighting insurgents with U.S. Special Forces during the Battle of Shok Valley, Afghanistan. He received a Special Immigrant Visa in 2014 and took his oath of citizenship in 2020. In a guest column today, Howard Manuel of No One Left Behind writes that many who worked with U.S. forces are now in peril for their lives and still waiting for their Special Immigrant Visas a situation made more urgent by accelerating efforts to end U.S. involvement in the war. Advocates hope a new sitcom, The United States of Al, imagining a fictional interpreter relocated from Afghanistan to Columbus, Ohio, that premiered last night on CBS-TV, will help raise awareness about the problem. (AP Photo/ Sarah