'Secret Lives of Muslims'; Shane Smith's Vice empire

JOSHUA SEFTEL: I guess it was around 2012 that we started, and it was hard on every front. We had trouble finding funding, we had trouble finding distribution. I won't name any outlets, but I'd go to places and say, We want to do this series about Muslims. And they'd be like, Yeah, okay, sure. And I could tell they didn't want to do it. Then, even with casting, there were some people who I think felt uncomfortable about being part of the series. 

NEGIN FARSAD: I feel like it's really important to see Muslims in a regular light. We learn some things about Muslims, which is that they're really boring, that they DVR episodes of "Downton Abbey," and that they're obsessed with Pop Tarts. These are all the kinds of things you would learn about Muslims if you knew any. I think it's important to know how human and normal and boring and obsessed with our weight and credit card debt we are. The way that all Americans are. 

AMAN ALI: As a Muslim, I'm just kind of exhausted. Doing these projects where it's like, Hey, I'm so normal, just like you. But knowing Josh and knowing creatively where he wanted to go with it, I said, Okay, this is totally different. But I do know for a lot of people that identify as Muslim, that are in the public spotlight, some of that is just like, Man, it's been how long? We're really still talking about this? We've been talking about this for 15, almost 20 years. Do we really need another "Hey, We're [American] Just Like You" video? 

ALI: You mention that it's not funny — I personally find it hilarious because there are some things that people have said, whether it's Trump or other elected leaders, that are so offensive, sexist, misogynist and racist that it's hilarious to me. As a comedian, this is a goldmine. So what I like to do, instead of just slamming it, I notice that a lot of this pain and frustration that people feel, you're able to laugh [away] the pain. And it's a way to cut through the tension. Yes, we live in a very tense time, but laughter is a way to bring people together. Even if you believe in one particular thing or another particular thing, everybody laughs at jokes. So it's able to say, Okay, maybe there's some commonality with entertainment and humor. 

FARSAD: The model we need to start going forward [with] is, Is it possible that these people are three dimensional? You know, we needed to see "Will and Grace" before we could have marriage equality. Not to say that fight is over. It's not over. But I think once we can see these people in our living rooms, we feel good about them and that helps. I think it's helped with movements that have come before us.

ALI: I think Hollywood is starting to resonate. One of the hit shows on TV this past summer was Mr. Robot. It got Emmy nominations. Rami Malek isn't Muslim, but just having an Arab American actor ... and there's a hijab-y, Muslim American woman that wears a headscarf [who's] a hacker. Her faith is completely irrelevant. She's just a dope, awkward, nerdy hacker that's doing it. And it's one of the hottest shows on TV. So I do think that people are starting to understand that we need to portray people that just happen to be Muslim, and not a Muslim show about a Muslim family. I think just normalizing the experience and having people live everyday life is one way to address a lot of these issues.

SEFTEL: I feel like we're in a new place. This series, not only did we get it made really quickly — it all came together in the last year — but it's been quite popular. We've had millions of views already and it's being shared all over the place and it's got some heat. I think that says something about things changing. At least I want to believe that. 

We were shooting it in the last six months of Obama's presidency and what that meant. And then, as we were talking to everyone in his camp, we realized we should talk to the people who were on the other side of the aisle: Speaker Boehner, [Eric] Cantor, [GOP consultant] Frank Luntz — people like that. So as the documentary progressed, everyone was talking about the election, but they were talking about the election as if it was a fait accompli for Hillary [Clinton].



As the documentary continued, the dysfunction and dissatisfaction with Washington became bigger and bigger. So when Trump won, it was kind of a perfect ending for us because it showed the amount of dissatisfaction with Washington and what the rise of the Tea Party [meant], and the dissatisfaction with certain Obama policies. So actually it sort of tied everything together.

I think when we were talking to everybody, Cantor and Boehner in particular were portrayed as these hardline partisan players. You know, not one [piece] of Obama's legislation had one single Republican vote, including Obamacare. So you look at that and say, These guys were really sort of intractable, hardcore, partisan guys. But when you talk to them, you realize Boehner and Cantor really wanted to work with the other side — at least they say they did.



And they actually got blown up by the Tea Party for being too bipartisan and for working with the Democrats at all. Speaker Boehner got destroyed because he would meet with Obama, which is his job. So when we saw that, when we saw the sort of Tea Party who were willing to blow things up in Washington rather than work across the aisle, then we knew something unique was happening in American politics that we wanted to chronicle. 

I think we try as hard as we can to be centrist and non-political, non-partisan. Now, that said, we have a lot of millennials who work for us and therefore that agenda does come out. But I always say, the environment should not be a right or left issue. That should be an issue for all of humanity because it affects all of us. It somehow has gotten labeled that.



Our demo is the most sophisticated media consumers of all time ... in our nightly news show, for example, we opted not to have a “voice of God” anchor, or any anchor at all, because we believe that if we go to somewhere — Standing Rock, for example — we press record, film this stuff and then allow you to decide for your own self.



So I think what we try to be is centrist, non-partisan. Although, that said, I think the world — not just America — is moving to the right. And if you're standing in the center, by not moving, you just took a step to the left. We definitely have to look at that going forward, because we do like to get into the halls of power and talk to people and get the information out. We're sort of an ever-changing entity, but we're doing our best to stay centrist.

We're just a media company. [We’re] no different from Time Warner or Disney or Viacom or any of these entities that own lots of different media. We're just weirder, we're newer and we're younger. So as the millennials — and this year the millennials became a bigger demographic globally than the baby boomers — grow more politically and socioeconomically powerful, we want to grow with them.



There's a changing of the guard every generation and we want to be the changing of the guard for Generation Y. We’re going to grow our news and our film and our music and our lifestyle capabilities and we're going to grow them internationally — and that's the goal for Vice as a brand. 



For news, I was saying to my staff, it's sort of a crazy time to be alive, but no better time to launch a news platform. We're one of the fastest growing news platforms in the world for a reason, and it's because there's a lot of news out there. Like the Cold War built CBS, ABC and NBC, and the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq built CNN, this sort of economic turmoil, this social chaos and this generational de-stratification is what is fueling the rise of Vice News.



 I think that where we find our place in that is, basically, just being the voice of a very disenfranchised [population]. Although the largest demographic cohort in the world is still very disenfranchised relative to their power, the baby boomers still own a lot of media and a lot of the social and economic power. But I think that going forward, as Generation Y gets more and more powerful, we're going to be [their] voice.