‘Homeland is racist’ Arabian street artists troll producers by sneaking

They spray-painted slogans such as “Freedom, now in 3D!’, “This show does not represent the views of the artists”, “Homeland is a joke, and it didn’t make us laugh”, “Homeland is racist” and ‘Homeland is watermelon”, with watermelon being a common way to say in Arabic that something is a sham or not to be taken seriously.

In one scene of the latest episode, a Central Intelligence Agency officer played by Claire Danes is seen walking through an alley of the refugee camp after paying a Hezbollah commander $40,000 to protect her, past a scrawl of graffiti reading “Homeland is racist”.

They asked if he could help find “Arabian street artists” to give “authenticity’ to a film set of a Syrian refugee camp on the Lebanese/Syrian border for their new season”.

Berlin graffiti artist Stone said that he and two friends initially were not going to take the job when approached by the producers, but then decided instead to use it to express their opinions of Homeland.

Graffiti which appeared in hit television show Homeland accused the drama of racism, the artists commissioned to produce it have revealed.

The artists, who worked on the set design for the episode “The Tradition of Hospitality” over three days in June, said they were provoked by the show’s “inaccurate, undifferentiated and highly biased depiction of Arabs, Pakistanis, and Afghans”. Homeland has been criticised for its simplistic portrayal of Muslins as terrorists.

They were originally commissioned to graffiti “apolitical” messages, although they were given images of Syrian pro-Assad graffiti to use as an example.

“Given the series’ reputation”, they added, “we were not easily convinced, until we considered what a moment of intervention could relay about our own and many others’ political discontent with the series”.

They claimed that the Arabic script wasn’t checked through by the producers.

“In a typical “Homeland” way, the production company didn’t do much research”.

Homeland has come under criticism for its treatment of relations between the U.S. and the Arab world, with a few accusing the show of peddling stereotypes and inaccuracies. In their statement, they said that the show’s set designers were too busy to verify their work, and that “The content of what was written on the walls… was of no concern”. “In their eyes, Arabic script is merely a supplementary visual that completes the horror-fantasy of the Middle East”. “But we also wanted to make people think about the series a bit”.

Metro.co.uk have contacted Showtime for comment.