Little Mosque On The Prairie

So I ran across a rather strange Canadian show last night. It's called Little Mosque on the Prairie and for all intents and purposes it's pretty good. It's rather... campy. I dunno, what to call it. I've actually watched all of Season 1. Perhaps it's because it's absolutely nothing like anything I've seen before. See below report from CNN.


The show centers around a small mosque in rural Canada. There is a man and his converted wife (who is a Muslim but she's very new to it). They have a grown daughter who is a doctor and wears the hijab and is very serious about her religion. There is also a young (and pretty hot) Imam who is from Ontario. And then there's the big sassy black woman from Africa who runs a diner. They also have a controversial radio talkshow host who is always bashing the Muslims.

The good part of this show is that they don't stray away from very controversial issues, like religious conversion, religious modernism, Islamic feminism, homosexuality, religious acceptance, fanaticism, racism, and so on. However, the problem is they seem to take these issues extremely lightly and laugh about them all by the end of the episode. Nevertheless, it's consciousness raising. Best of all, it's something different than the same old Christian family.

So after watching show for a while, I liked it. It's not amazing. But it's a breathe of fresh air.

Now don't get me wrong. Anyone who reads this blog knows how anti-religious I am, but I really do love diversity. Even more than that, I love something that shows Christians that they aren't the only faith on earth and that other faiths aren't crazy (well, they're all crazy, lol).

So anywho, while watching I was thinking to myself, there's no way a show like this would be aired in the United States. Little did I know that there are talks to have it syndicated here in the states. Not only that, but I guess FOX is in talks of making an American version... which I don't understand why... can't American's understand Canadian English?

Well if you give half a shit you can watch the entire first two seasons on youtube (see here and here). I am just now finishing up the first season and the show is in it's third season now. Between Little Mosque on the Prairie, Robson Arms, and Corner Gas, I wish we had an all Canadian channel here. Why not? We've got BBC here. Why not CBC or CTV?

Like I said. It's not award winning material but it's different and it's consciousness raising. The shit here in America is just shit... pure shit. Sure, I don't like religion. But what I don't like even more is religious ignorance. And I can guarantee that if this show does get an American version, it won't last. I don't think Americans are excepting enough to see another culture on their TVs (remember Margaret Cho's television show?). I don't know why. 0.6% of Americans are Muslim. Shouldn't 0.6% of our television be about them? Below is the first part of the first episode.