NIDA MANZOOR: It just felt like a no-brainer. Like these women are gonna be not like anything you’ve seen before. We’re gonna show them in their full complexity and they’re gonna be joyful.
GABE GONZÁLEZ: Welcome to We Disrupt This Broadcast. I’m your host, Gabe González, and today we’re talking to Nida Manzoor, the creator of We Are Lady Parts. The sitcom kicks off when, despite her better judgment, a PhD student auditions for an all female, all Muslim punk band. A classic tale we’ve all definitely seen on TV before…
It’s jaw droppingly funny to watch the band Lady Parts form evolve, succeed, and bicker with punk music at the center of it all. What also makes the series special are the hilarious original songs, penned by Manzoor and her siblings. With titles like “Voldemort Under My Headscarf” and “Malala Made Me Do It.”
Today We Disrupt this Broadcast‘s Executive producer and executive director of the Peabody’s, Jeffrey Jones, talks to Nida Manzoor about the subversive potential of comedy, some of the real life punk bands that inspired her, and how differences of opinion in the writer’s room became inspiration for season two of We Are Lady Parts. Don’t go anywhere. We’ll be right back with Nida Manzoor.
GABE GONZÁLEZ: Welcome back. Today our own Jeffrey Jones is talking to Nida Manzoor, showrunner for the BAFTA and two-time Peabody award-winning series We Are Lady Parts as well as writer and director of her debut feature film Polite society, let’s dive in.
CLIP: “Voldemort Under My Headscarf” from We Are Lady Parts
JEFFREY JONES: Welcome to We Disrupt This Broadcast. This is Nida Manzoor, the creator and writer and music genius behind We Are Lady Parts. Welcome Nida.
NIDA MANZOOR: Thanks Jeff. Thanks so much for having me.
JEFFREY JONES: So let’s start with music if we could. I’m a musician and been playing since I was 12, and I read that you started playing at eight. Music is obviously the centerpiece of the show. Music, to me, is such an important gateway into broader artistry and creativity. Maybe tell us a little about how did it shape you as an artist?
NIDA MANZOOR: I think like you, music was my first love. My dad got me a guitar when I was eight years old, and I think when I was thinking about a show I wanted to write, I wanted to explore what it means to be a Muslim woman, but I wanted to do it sort of via things I love.
And so music was instantly like, it’s gotta be a music show. Both my siblings are musicians. My dad plays music, my grandfather played music. It was like, music is so intrinsic in my family and our creativity that I was like it needs to be a music show; and comedy’s my second love. So it was like those two things had to come together for me to really wanna write the show about Muslim women.
So when I was thinking about We Are Lady Parts, I really wanted it to be a band show because I wanted to write music with my siblings. I was like, I want that to be at the heart of it, that I can hang out with my brother and my sister and we can write funny songs together.
JEFFREY JONES: Well, your songs are really quite wonderful. Tell us a little about the process you and your siblings do in creating these songs for the show.
NIDA MANZOOR: Yeah, it would just evolve quite organically. We would start with coming up with lyrics. I’d always have a few song inspirations. So for like Malala Made Me Do It, the song, “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” was a huge inspiration. I’m like, I want it to be a western. I wanted to have like a kind of macho feel and be like, great storytelling. I love that song. I’m like, but it’s celebrating Malala. Like what’s funny? And then we would all sort of brainstorm lyrics and then come up with a good hook…
CLIP: “Malala Made Me Do It” from We Are Lady Parts
NIDA MANZOOR: Keeping it in that fun, playful spirit was really what helped us kind of create the music, I think at a better level in season two.
JEFFREY JONES: Well, it’s actually another way in which this show is disruptive is there’s not that many shows that I can think of that feature bands. And what I’m trying to get to is it’s such a perfect setup. You have five different characters that you can really play with. Did you think, hey, a band is a great way to really take characters on, you know, they play with each other. They’re very distinctive types. Tell us about the band as your central vehicle for talking about musical and Muslim representation.
NIDA MANZOOR: Yeah, I think the band element just came from my love of music, but also I know that it’s gonna be an ensemble show. And what way to show different kinds of women if they’re like, you know, they have to come together ’cause they make music together. So I love that thing of like they’re Muslim women. Yes, but they’re also musicians and they’ve got egos and getting to play with that, the sort of the ego jostling of being in a band is something I just find delicious as a viewer and as someone who’s been in bands and who like loves watching and reading about bands and musicians.
And there’s a great band called The Kominas who are like a Muslim punk band who are also an inspiration because they really combined like satire and humor and like the Muslim experience. And also, I guess just my own experience being a creative living in London, I just knew so many musicians who were Muslim and so many creatives and artists around me, and I was just sort of inspired by the swirl of people who I kind of lived with.
JEFFREY JONES: Well, I know that you were a fan of Paul Simon growing up, and your sister was more of a punker.
NIDA MANZOOR: Yeah.
JEFFREY JONES: I think that’s correct. There’s a lot of female, all female punk bands. The Runaways. Bikini Kill, Riot Grrrl, Pussy Riot. Were you fans of those growing up?
NIDA MANZOOR: Yeah. I mean, actually I was more like Amina the main character, so I was sort of more into Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Joan Baez kind of energy. My sister was much more into the punk stuff, but actually she was into that sort of nineties, early two thousands, slightly difficult to listen to, like American Pop Punk. But then when I came to write the show, my inspiration just was drawn from the Riot Grrrl Bands that you’ve just named Bikini Kill. I love also Sleater-Kinney, but also like the sort of central inspiration was X-Ray Spex and they’re a punk band from the seventies, and Poly Styrene is a sort of a black woman fronting this band. It was kind of unheard of in a time where it was like hardly any women, let alone women of color in bands, just really grounding into that kind of punk with a real kind of manifesto and sort of, you know ethos behind it.
And that’s why I gave one of my lead characters Saira, I’m like, she’s a punk singer, but she’s also got a manifesto. And I think that’s something I really drew from the riot girl, punk stuff.
JEFFREY JONES: Well, that’s a perfect transition to this question: Why is punk rock the perfect genre for an all woman and an all Muslim band?
NIDA MANZOOR: Yeah, I think it’s that subversion where, you know, Muslim women are always considered as being oppressed or somehow either villains or kind of victims, and given no nuance. And just shown in this very kind of reductive fashion. And for me, I just wanted to explode that and I wanted to show these women as joyful, as anarchic, as spirited, as sort of contradictory, you know?
And I thought, what is the most playful, anarchic thing I can think of? And punk music has that humor and has that vitality. And it just spoke to me and it just felt like a no-brainer. Like these women are gonna be not like anything you’ve seen before, we’re gonna show them in their full complexity and they’re gonna be joyful.
I think showing Muslim women as joyful and funny felt like a political act in a way because we’ve just not seen it that way. And that’s why I’m like, punk is so, it can be satirical, it can be wry, it can have a wink. And that’s why I love punk. And I’m like, this needs to be a punk show.
JEFFREY JONES: Let’s talk about the joy and burden of representation. So you’ve talked about, first of all, Muslim representation is abysmal in Hollywood and Muslim women, even further, so often seen as wives or mothers or oppressed. And so rarely with a lot of nuance. In 2018, you aired the pilot for, We Are Lady Parts, and there was some blowback online. Talk to us about that journey for you.
NIDA MANZOOR: Yeah, putting the pilot out, it was sort of the first time I felt like I put something very personal or something that I really cared for deeply out into the world. And it was that thing of like, I thought everybody was gonna love it, but obviously I think what I came to understand is that I couldn’t possibly represent every Muslim person, and that’s the burden of representation. You can only tell a singular story.
And I think as a woman from a certain background, I’ve also internalized this feeling of like, I shouldn’t upset the apple cart, and I had created something that is obviously not for everyone, and I had to sort of reckon with myself. It’s like, just because some people don’t like it, does that mean I’m not gonna make my show?
Because whilst there were people who didn’t like it, there was like equal, if not more people telling me they loved it. But it’s just that classic thing. As humans, we kind of really hear the negative and I just had to liberate myself and actually receiving that criticism from that section of the population, which is fair enough, you know, everyone’s opinion is valid. It freed me. It made me think, you know, actually it’s impossible to represent everyone in what I’m doing.
You know, the Muslim experience is so varied and so vast, and I’m just one voice and I really kind of felt that as my guiding light is like, does this have resonance with me? Does this resonate with the people and the women that I know? So I know that what I’m putting onto the screen is authentic and truthful to me and to the people in my world, and therefore it’s valid. And so honestly, it kind of unburdened me in a way and just allowed me to follow my truth even more acutely, I think.
JEFFREY JONES: With these five strong character types, I really feel, and you can tell me if I’m wrong. But the joy that you’re experiencing to represent Muslim women in such a wonderful, complex way. I think the statistics in this study I showed is like one out of 8,000, or I forget the number, but L-G-B-T-Q Muslims. And the drummer of course is gay. And so talk to me about just the joy of your ability to take these five different character types and play around with that.
NIDA MANZOOR: I mean, just such deep joy, you know, especially being able to represent the world and the people I love and tell those stories and be as nuanced as I can and just anytime I’m able to show complexity feels like such a gift because as you say, it feels rare. It was important that I had a gay Muslim character because I just wanted to represent the people I know and, and again, it’s showing that story, but joyfully through positivity, not as a victim or somebody who’s oppressed.
It’s like, I mean, I want this character to go through her own struggles, but you know, the first and foremost thing is like she’s a character we love, has complexity and experiences joy as well. So it was just like the ultimate fun. Honestly, every day I felt I was writing it. It felt like I was saying this to my producer, it felt like I was breathing air for the first time as a writer getting to write this show. And it was kind of strange just ’cause I was getting to speak in my own voice and to speak to something I cared so deeply about ’cause it was just ticking all the boxes for me as a creative to feel such catharsis and fulfillment.
JEFFREY JONES: Well, I can tell you we feel it as audience members too. It’s a breath of fresh air. The ride is just so wonderful. So let’s talk a little about season two. You do in fact really use season two to take us through there. So Saira’s turning 30. Bisma’s exploring not wearing a hijab and what that might mean to her faith. Taz is finding her inspiration and signing more artists. Amina’s– what are we doing with the love triangle and being more assertive? Ayesha’s reluctance to come out. Tell us about, as you went into season two, did you know that you wanted to take these characters on these particular journeys, and did you know that back in season one?
NIDA MANZOOR: Yeah, in season two, I think I had inklings for what I wanted to do, but I was much more open. You know, I could just be open to what I was hearing a lot from the cast as the, you know, they were sort of living within the characters and hearing what they were thinking and what they thought was interesting for their character.
And also then being really open in my writer’s room about, you know, I had this writer’s room of like a very diverse group of Muslim women of different ages, different backgrounds, different experiences, you know, different sexual orientations, just everything. We kind of got together and it was whenever a conversation became divisive. Not in a kind of angry way, but like there was different points of view that I would like, oh, this is interesting. Like, you know, what is the hardest things that, like what makes us all talk or gets us thinking like those were the things that I wanted to explore.
And for example, you mentioned like Ayesha’s struggle to come out and decision ultimately not to was also something that like was again with the kind of gay women in the group or like just like the different points of view on that. I’m like, anything that I felt had different struggles or tensions. I was like, this is an interesting topic, like let’s go in there.
And that’s really how I was sort of guided through season two. I was much more reactive and also sort of, I knew what my cast were able to do from season one and like where they had strengths and where I really wanted to showcase their talent or give them more to chew on.
So again, I was really just also emboldened by, by the trust I had in my team that really enables you to kind of go to harder places ’cause you know everybody’s there trying to make it, trying to pull it off with you.
JEFFREY JONES: How many writers in your writers’ room?
NIDA MANZOOR: I had, I think around five plus myself around that I’d say.
JEFFREY JONES: One of the distinctive things about this era we’re in, which we again, are saying is a disruptive era in the streaming era, is that writers’ rooms are finally not just a bunch of white guys.
NIDA MANZOOR: Yeah.
JEFFREY JONES: And that you actually are able to have, and I love that you actually report that the disagreements or even just the discussions in the room are what’s providing the richness to the characters as they grow and as you write them. And that’s what’s great about a writer’s room that’s really diverse.
NIDA MANZOOR: Yeah, totally. Totally.
JEFFREY JONES: Also in season two, it’s kind of the classic punk dilemma, right? Every punk band faces success versus selling out. It’s also somewhat of a metaphor for women of color and Muslim, and you articulate that in your “Glass Ceiling Feeling.” First, the manager is, keep your heads down. Play nice. Just get it done. She says, and then the lyrics are “Supercalifraga-racist sexist, xenophobic. Is it us or is it them? Why they trying to own us?” Talk to me about what you’re doing there with this trajectory of the punk band and them signing a record contract, but yet still being true to themselves.
NIDA MANZOOR: Yeah, I mean, I think this is one of the key turning points of the show and, and actually again, born a lot from my writer’s room. It was artists trying to work in the mainstream and representing kind of fringe communities and wanting to kind of maintain integrity.
And that was so inspired from the room that I was in, but also from my own personal experiences, you know, especially as a new writer, when I was really struggling to get those early credits. And one of the jobs that came my way was to co-write a TV show with a much more experienced white male writer about an honor killing and of Muslim women as oppressed.
And again, I had felt so strongly that I did not want to lend my voice to this narrative, but I also felt so strongly that I needed to pay my bills and perhaps this was my only way to do it. So it was like, do I sell out to have this opportunity to possibly, you know, this is a big writer, this Co-writing credit could really, really help me.
But I also knew that I was being brought on just to rubber stamp it and not really in good faith. Ultimately, I was like, I can’t do that. I just couldn’t do it. But it has stayed with me as an experience of like that question of like, also the band need to survive. They want to be artists. As a means to kind of live as well. And pretty much every person around the table in my writer’s room had a version of that story of like, how do I enter the mainstream but keep myself intact?
CLIP: “Glass Ceiling Feeling” from We Are Lady Parts
JEFFREY JONES: One of the lyrics in this song is white boys out here selling sex. We’re ethnic selling rage. That ain’t what the people want. That don’t make the main stage. Again, it’s a challenge of women of color performing and I’m really glad you articulated in that way. It’s a central tension in the narrative that’s played out and all the more to just put a spotlight right on it.
NIDA MANZOOR: We were really trying to hone in onto that feeling of like that. Yeah. “Glass Ceiling Feeling” was a song name really early on ’cause I was just like this. I want to speak directly to that idea of like, as women of color, you also have to somehow make yourself palatable. And the white boy selling sex, you can’t necessarily compete with Harry Styles and get the main stage, but you want your artistry to reach a wide audience and the tension of that. And also had like a really fun rhyme. But it’s so nice. Jeffrey quoting the lyrics. No one’s done that. I’m like, yes, finally. You know, we spent so long crafting those lyrics and so it’s not been often that anybody’s mentioned them to me.
JEFFREY JONES: Well, I adored that song and it was such, well, let me ask you this, this is a fun one. As a deep student of This Is Spinal Tap. Was there an homage there when the lights hit each one of the four singers in the band? Was that an homage to Spinal Tap?
NIDA MANZOOR: Absolutely, yes. Any chance I get to homage.
JEFFREY JONES: I’m always interested — so I’m a professor of media and politics — in audience feedback. Tell me some of the more touching things that you’ve heard from Muslim women about your show.
NIDA MANZOOR: I mean, it’s, yeah, it’s so, so heartfelt. It’s mothers coming up, parents coming up and saying how their children have been, finally feel represented. I mean, a lot of moving stuff about Ayesha’s, the sort of her story of her kind of coming out, not coming out story in season two and just seeing queer Muslims really resonate with that has been really moving.
And you know, one of the things that often makes me the most emotional is seeing all the fan art. There’s so much art from the fans of the show. And it’s like all ages. It’s just so — the joy that comes from people like drawing, I have like a file, a binder of all the fan art ’cause that just moves me so much that they feel so connected to these characters that they want to draw them and sort of make their own versions.
JEFFREY JONES: And you took your hand to that in season two.
NIDA MANZOOR: Oh yeah.
JEFFREY JONES: You show, oh, you, you show a fan art between Ayesha and Saira, and they’re both shocked by it.
NIDA MANZOOR: That’s inspired by real fan art that came out of like sexy Saira, Ayesha fan art. I mean, so much. I just drew, I drew from audience reaction and I just put it back into season two ’cause I’m just like, just the interesting thing of like, as a band and actually the cast members, each of them sort of experienced this in a way of like people think they are the characters. And so they get. I was just, I’m like, tell me what people are saying to you and you know, Juliet, people the way they are with her as Ayesha, thinking that she is in this kind of almost parasocial sometimes interaction she gets. And same with Saira. Just the joy of like putting the reality of audience feedback back into the show and sort of using that for storytelling purposes is always really fun.
JEFFREY JONES: Well, one of my last questions is the tension in season two between these Gen Z, these 18, 19 year olds and 30 year olds. I mean, as somebody much older, just to see that perhaps through social media, perhaps in the rapid changes in society, that there can be almost generational differences between these two. Tell us about the writers and arriving at that storyline.
NIDA MANZOOR: Yeah, it was that feeling like also across the writer’s room, although we had come together in this incredible room of Muslim women, we have been made to feel that we are in direct competition with each other. Again, this idea that two Muslim women couldn’t possibly be in the same writer’s room together, or both be creating shows. And you know, I had writers in my writer’s room who told me that Lady Parts was difficult for them because oftentimes people wanted another Lady Parts, like there couldn’t be another successful show about Muslim women, you know, that was different tonally. So it’s also, you know, reacting to an industry that only seems to be like there’s one spot for you. And that’s why I wanted in the show that Lady Parts embrace Second Wife, and then there’s this whole movement of muslim bands, different kinds of Muslim bands to just shatter that idea that there was only like a one in, one out system. That actually there’s space for all of us. And like this idea of like reaching out and like lifting up together was so important for me as a kind of key theme. Just from that feeling of having come into the industry, just really feeling like I had to fight other people who I really admired and who had similar backgrounds as me to like get a spot, and just sort of like dispelling that felt important.
JEFFREY JONES: Well, you are such a wonderfully fresh, clean voice on the scene and disrupting all kinds of traditional narratives, and we’re big fans of Lady Parts and thank you so much for taking time to talk to us today Nida.
NIDA MANZOOR: Oh no, Jeff, thank you so much for taking this time and you know, for honoring us with a Peabody. It has just been, you know, like just one of my like highlights of my life. I feel like I’ve peaked now. It’s such an honor. So thank you so much for taking that time and for speaking with me today.
GABE GONZÁLEZ: That’s right. The white boys are selling sex, but they are selling rage. What a fun conversation with Nida Manzoor and Jeffrey Jones. I particularly loved the insight into the songwriting process. Don’t go anywhere because up next we’ll keep the conversation going with Yasmin Elhady comedian, and star of the reality show Muslim Matchmaker on Hulu.
GABE GONZÁLEZ: Welcome back. We’re keeping this episode going with Jeffrey Jones, who’s now joined by Yasmin Elhady, who talks about her own experiences as a Muslim woman in comedy, and how she feels about seeing a series like We Are Lady Parts take off.
JEFFREY JONES: So today we’re joined by Yasmin Elhady, the comedian and star of the reality show Muslim Matchmaker on Hulu and a personal friend of mine. Oh, and I should add a fashion goddess.
YASMIN ELHADY: Oh, I’ll take it, Jeff. Yes.
JEFFREY JONES: So let’s dig in. You and I are both from Alabama.
YASMIN ELHADY: That’s right.
JEFFREY JONES: Your family immigrated from Libya and moved to the Huntsville region. How did growing up in Alabama perhaps make none of what we’re experiencing now all that surprising.
YASMIN ELHADY: Yeah, it feels like I’ve been preparing my whole life and we’re at the Super Bowl and people are like, oh, you know, what do we do? And I’m like, you haven’t been prepping? Like you, I was in the playoffs for years waiting for this to happen. Honestly, being in a place like Alabama has a lot of good and bad.
One of the great good things about being from a place in the deep South is that you are instantly misunderstood, you are instantly out of place, you don’t belong. And so you have to sort of find your own voice and figure out who you are in a way that relates to other people, but also in a way that absolutely accepts that you cannot conform fully. I feel like it pushed me into like being fully who I am, and it also made me realize you can get along with people that just fundamentally maybe don’t understand you, because you’re human beings and you fundamentally want the same things. You just getting there different ways.
JEFFREY JONES: And did Alabama shape you as a comedian?
YASMIN ELHADY: Yes, Alabama forces you to have a good sense of humor because life would be tragic otherwise. So when I was young there, I really wanted people to like me. I really wanted to find a way to connect with them. Comedy has absolutely been that. It was a bridge for me. I was eight when I was first told to be a standup comedian. And I was like, does that come with a 401k? I mean, what’s the health benefit?
So I knew that most likely I would have to get a real job because I’m an immigrant, you know, and I understand the world. But comedy served for me as a way to create levity in times that were confusing because no one wanted to be my friend and no one wanted to talk to me, so I had to make my own fun. And then I think like when you make your own fun and you make your fun grow, people get attracted to that. And they’re like, what do you got going on over there? Is that a party? And you’re like, oh yeah, like, you’re invited if you want, or I’m gonna party either way. So I think it really shaped my comedy.
I have found ways to understand racism, xenophobia, and maybe show people things like talking about privilege, but in ways that are funny and disarm them with my real stories that I’ve experienced in my life. And that can only come from, I think, a lived experience of people underestimating you or not really understanding what you’re about.
JEFFREY JONES: So, I wanna ask you a question. I talked to Nida about the joy and burden of representing Muslim women.
YASMIN ELHADY: Yeah.
JEFFREY JONES: And now that you’re on TV, what is your experience in that regard?
YASMIN ELHADY: Honestly, it’s a party. I love my life. I love my friends. I love living as a Muslim woman, and I’m comfortable in my own skin. So I think that actually gives permission to other people to be okay with being themselves too. When you can be fully yourself and I think authentic people can feel that. People can sense it. And whether they’re Muslim or not. Like what’s so cool about that is that I think for Muslim women, that’s quite inspiring, but I think for non-Muslims that are watching me and looking at me, it’s an expansive experience to be like, oh, Muslim women can be confident. Muslim women don’t have to be submissive. Muslim women are smart. There is a burden to that because you are representing so much more than yourself.
I think that in general though, if you wear any part of yourself on the outside things, both that are immutable and immutable, like things you can change and cannot change, I think, for example, for black people, they cannot change their skin color. They’re black. So like they walk in a room and it’s speaking for them and people have kind of notions about them right away. And as a Muslim woman, you know, and there’s a lot of intersectionality there with like African American, black Muslim women. It’s like they got so many layers. There’s volume in them saying nothing. Nothing has to come outta their mouth, and there’s this whole conversation that’s happening with the people in the room. And I think that that’s not fair, like fundamentally unfair.
And that creates a whole line of other things like stereotype threat, where you’re trying not to fit the stereotype that you know is out there. So you’re like, for me, as an Muslim woman, I don’t wanna look like I’m rageful or angry, right? Because I don’t wanna incite fear into your hearts, you know? So I could be at a restaurant and you could be the worst server in the world, and I’m like, thank you so much. Of course I’m gonna tip 22% because there’s a stereotype that I don’t want you to believe about me. So it has actually expanded me in good ways, but it’s also heavy. And I’m like, sometimes I just wanna tell you, you suck. Like you’re a terrible server. You get no tip. Yeah. I can’t.
JEFFREY JONES: Heck yeah. Well, tying that back to Lady Parts, how do you feel about the kind of breadth and depth of representation of Muslim women you see there?
YASMIN ELHADY: It’s so beautiful. I think what Nida has done is a real triumph there with We Are Lady Parts. It’s like a multi-layered show because first of all, they’re in a band and that breaks your brain. Like what Muslim girls are in a band? Well, there’s so many Muslim women who are musicians and damn fine ones.
It’s an amazing show because right off the bat you’re thrown into a whole cast of characters that don’t belong there in your brain. And then on top of that, they’re funny and complicated and kind of sad as well. And it’s just so beautiful to see the dynamism, and that’s why I was so excited to do a reality show in Muslim Matchmaker because it shows the reality of what we’re doing when we’re trying to match people and navigate being a Muslim American in this country, which can sometimes feel impossible.
And we have the real life disappointments, and the real life hopes and the real life fears and anxieties that perhaps you could relate to. They’re not exactly the same. We’re not just like you, but like come in and take a peek, take a look. And I think that’s what We Are Lady Parts is doing and saying, take a peek into this world that I’ve created of these women and how dynamic they are and how refreshing that is to just get to be human.
I wanna know more. I’m curious. And I think that’s the thing like, all of these shows, whether that be a scripted show or an unscripted show, that show Muslims are hopefully an invitation. They’re just inviting people to get curious about what we’re all about, and I just don’t want, I don’t wanna be a flat one dimensional thing.
Muslim women, even when they are represented, they’re in relation to a man. I don’t wanna be in relation to a man. I don’t have to be somebody’s mama or somebody’s wife or somebody’s daughter. I could just be me searching for love, searching for light, searching for joy, searching for myself.
JEFFREY JONES: One of the things that I walked away from your show with was how sweet it is.
YASMIN ELHADY: Yes.
JEFFREY JONES: To use the word sweet and reality television. No, those two don’t typically go together. So anyway, congratulations. I think it’s a wonderful show. Yasmin, thank you so much for being with us and best of luck with Muslim Matchmaker.
YASMIN ELHADY: Thank you so much, Jeff. What a joy.
GABE GONZÁLEZ: Thanks again for joining us this episode. Our team was so excited to talk to Nida Manzoor, who after years of working as a screenwriter for other projects and honing her skills, brought something that feels radically different to our TV screens. I was personally struck by her stories of her early days as a writer. Grappling with whether or not to compromise her values for the sake of a credit. That same and unfortunately relatable struggle is so thoughtfully depicted throughout We Are Lady Parts.
Our second guest, Yasmin Elhady, articulated exactly why comedy is such a crucial element to challenging historical depictions of Muslim women on tv when she reminded us how refreshing it is to just get to be human.
For a very long time certain individuals have been afforded complexity and depth on TV while others have been relegated to stereotypes or seductresses or villains, which is why it was such an honor and so much fun to spend this episode with two of the most punk rock, deviant and funny women we know. They rocked this episode to the core and hey, if you disagree to borrow a phrase from Lady Parts, you know, we’re [bleep] great.
The Peabody Awards are decided unanimously. So to close out our episode, I bring you, We Disrupt This Broadcast’s Unanimous Decision where we unanimously pick the most disruptive line of the day:
YASMIN ELHADY: I don’t wanna be in relation to a man. I don’t have to be somebody’s mama or somebody’s wife or somebody’s daughter. I could just be me searching for love, searching for light, searching for joy, searching for myself.
GABE GONZÁLEZ: That’s it for this week. Please join us next time when our guest will be the incredible Soo Hugh showrunner of the epic intergenerational Peabody Award-winning drama Pachinko.
SOO HUGH: We treat superheroes so differently than we treat everyday characters, right? Like, you know, when you have a Superman or a Spider-Man character, just by being a superhero, the camera, and this canvas gives them this big, huge eye, but how do we make a, you know, a little girl who comes from a poor fishing village in Korea feel just like a superhero?
GABE GONZÁLEZ: We Disrupt This Broadcast is a Peabody and Center for Media and Social Impact production hosted by me, Gabe González, with on air contributions from Caty Borum and Jeffrey Jones. The show is brought to you by executive producers, Caty Borum, Jeffrey Jones, and Bethany Hall. Producer Jordana Jason. Writers: Sasha Stewart, Jordana Jason, Bethany Hall, Jennifer Keishin Armstrong, and myself, Gabe González. Consulting producer: Jennifer Keishin Armstrong. Associate producer, Bella Green. Graphic designer: Olivia Klaus. Operations producer: Varsha Ramani. The marketing and communications team: Christine Dreyer and Tunishia Singleton. From PRX: the team is Terrence Bernardo, Jennie Cataldo, Edwin Ochoa and Amber Walker. The executive producer of PRX Productions is Jocelyn Gonzales.