Kane Dane
Messiah season 1 premiered on Netflix on 1 January 2024. The show that has 10 episodes in total is considered as many viewers by controversy. It is considered controversial because Messiah goes straight to the heart of what many think sacred religious territory.
Messiah Story
Messiah follows the rise of a Christ-like man named al-Masih, or Arabic for “the Messiah,” and his intention to march 2,000 Palestinian Syrians over the border of Israel eventually. A CIA agent is appointed to investigate the movement, and much of the show chronicles her efforts to figure out whether al-Masih is a divine entity or just a bad con artist trying to upend the world’s geopolitical order.
Netflix tweeted in December 2019 as ‘Who do you think he is?’ alongside a trailer for the show. Muslim viewers were immediate to criticize the platform’s flippant approach to the show’s religious focus and mocked that the answer to the question was already made obvious in the shows’ marketing elements. I turn out that ‘al-Masih’ does not just mean Jesus Christ in Islam. It is also the name with which Dajjal, or the Antichrist, declares himself in the Islamic religion, which meaning that Dehbi’s role is already outed as a con artist from the get-go.
Petition Made To Boycott The Show
A Change.org petition was made to boycott the show stating that ‘This issue is rather sensitive and making a production like this will only have fans forgetting the fact that this topic is not a joke.’ The petition also said the show as ‘anti-Islamic propaganda’ and ‘evil.’ Upto now, the petition has been signed by 4,000 people online.
Between the controversy, show creator Michael Petroni said that Netflix was reasonably “nervous” about getting behind the show, but that he thinks the conversations it can spark will be well worth the danger.
American author G. Willow Wilson gave her two cents, saying that even if the show were primarily intended to be a conversation starter, it was still very “heavy-handed,” to name the main character of the show as al-Masih.
