“The Ridge” Web Series

While a lot of the visual self-representations of Muslim Americans work to distance Muslims from the terrorist narratives, the Amazon series The Ridge employs the terrorist tropes in order to point out the absurdity of these stereotypes. Created by Ali Abbas, The Ridge is a short web series that features four young Muslim American misfits who are exposed to the explosion of a unknown substance. Each of the four characters walks away from the explosion having gained a unique super power. The show is a superhero origin story as the friends develop their powers and negotiate how they are going to use them.

The show also plays with the terrorist tropes that proliferate most mainstream TV dramas, as the Muslim characters find out that the cafe where they hang out has been under police surveillance. This storyline is not only reminiscent of the plot lines of TV dramas, but it is also a reflection of the real-life surveillance programs that exist in Muslim American communities. This series pokes fun at the existence of surveillance since the characters are trouble-makers and misfits within their families and Muslim communities, but they are clearly not radical terrorists.