Ahmed and Salim
Encyclopedia
Ahmed and Salim is an animated
web series
created by Or Paz and Tom Trager. The series is a satirical
parody
on religious fundamentalists, or, as the creators define it: "A sitcom about terrorists". It first debuted on the 20 January 2009 and has since become an internet hit with over 2 million views and worldwide fans.
i animators and comedy writers, born circa 1990. They both write, story board, animate, edit and voice the characters from an apartment in Herzliya
. Though the show looks very anti-Islam
ic at first, Trager and Paz claim to have no real political agenda other than just "making people laugh". The satire
in their show is not aimed at Muslims alone, but at all the fundamentalists who take religion to an extreme place. The two met during a high school film production in 2006 and created web sketches (both live-action and animated) in Hebrew
until their big break
with Ahmed and Salim in January 2009. Tom Trager is a graphic designer
and a satirical columnist
and Or Paz is a graphic designer and a video editor.
Another of their series, The Shtreimels, pokes fun at ultra orthodox Jews
in a similarly crude manner.
y Arab
s, Ahmed and Salim, whose father, Yasser, is a fascist anti-Semitic terrorist who wants them to follow in his footsteps, while all they want to do is play Guitar Hero
and surf Facebook
. The episodes will often feature Yasser sending them on a suicide mission
ending with dire consequences to his own people due to Ahmed and Salim's naïve and childlike nature.
The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer
describes the series as depicting "young Arabs who spend their afternoons trying to bomb Israeli buses, gun down Jewish girls and incinerate crowded cafes".
, English
, Spanish
, French
, Italian
, Greek
, Hebrew, Russian
, Ukrainian
.
when cursing. The British slang-word "wanker" is one of their favourite curse words, along with "dicko", "fudge-packer", "butt-burglar", "pussy", "cock-pirate" and "looza" (slang for "loser").
Shooting a wife : Yasser, the father, has a catchphrase, "Jar-fill mousa ya pussy!" ("Shut up, you pussy!"), after which he usually shoots one of his wives without even looking.
Top spin shout : Every episode ends with someone yelling "Ahmed and Salim" in top shot while the camera spins. From Yasser to Habub, a father whose son was thought to have been killed, and even Israel's "Big- Brother" host Erez Tal
.
" in Israel. The debut episode, in which the father "bemoans the fact that his sons haven't gone off on a suicide mission and killed lots of Jews," attracted 600,000 viewers on YouTube
.
following complaints by shocked viewers, the father dreams he has become a "stinking Jewish rabbi
" and his sons do what they were taught to do when encountering a Jew, namely shoot him in the testicles.
The show has drawn the critical attention of the Arabic press. The United Arab Emirates
has banned Ahmed and Salim. Palestinian bloggers have denounced it. YouTube removed one of the first six episodes and warned the creators that it could ban the entire series if new episodes are too offensive. Despite the show's offensive nature, many of Ahmed and Salim′s Facebook friends are in fact Muslims and many of the show’s fans are in Arab countries.
Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
web series
Web series
A web series is a series of episodes released on the Internet or also by mobile or cellular phone, and part of the newly emerging medium called web television. A single instance of a web series program is called an episode .While the popularity of web series is continuing to rise, the concept...
created by Or Paz and Tom Trager. The series is a satirical
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
parody
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
on religious fundamentalists, or, as the creators define it: "A sitcom about terrorists". It first debuted on the 20 January 2009 and has since become an internet hit with over 2 million views and worldwide fans.
Creators
Tom Trager and Or Paz are IsraelIsrael
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
i animators and comedy writers, born circa 1990. They both write, story board, animate, edit and voice the characters from an apartment in Herzliya
Herzliya
Herzliya is a city in the central coast of Israel, at the western part of the Tel Aviv District. It has a population of 87,000 residents. Named after Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, Herzliya covers an area of 26 km²...
. Though the show looks very anti-Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
ic at first, Trager and Paz claim to have no real political agenda other than just "making people laugh". The satire
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
in their show is not aimed at Muslims alone, but at all the fundamentalists who take religion to an extreme place. The two met during a high school film production in 2006 and created web sketches (both live-action and animated) in Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
until their big break
Big Break
Big Break is a British game show based around the game of snooker, mixed with traditional game show elements. It was broadcast on BBC1 between 30 April 1991 and 9 October 2002...
with Ahmed and Salim in January 2009. Tom Trager is a graphic designer
Graphic designer
A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, printed or electronic media, such as brochures and...
and a satirical columnist
Columnist
A columnist is a journalist who writes for publication in a series, creating an article that usually offers commentary and opinions. Columns appear in newspapers, magazines and other publications, including blogs....
and Or Paz is a graphic designer and a video editor.
Another of their series, The Shtreimels, pokes fun at ultra orthodox Jews
Orthodox Judaism
Orthodox Judaism , is the approach to Judaism which adheres to the traditional interpretation and application of the laws and ethics of the Torah as legislated in the Talmudic texts by the Sanhedrin and subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and...
in a similarly crude manner.
Description
The Jerusalem Post describes the show as a "controversial animated series about two clueless characters who surf the Net and bungle terror attacks." The episodes revolve around two nerdNerd
Nerd is a derogatory slang term for an intelligent but socially awkward and obsessive person who spends time on unpopular or obscure pursuits, to the exclusion of more mainstream activities. Nerds are considered to be awkward, shy, and unattractive...
y Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
s, Ahmed and Salim, whose father, Yasser, is a fascist anti-Semitic terrorist who wants them to follow in his footsteps, while all they want to do is play Guitar Hero
Guitar Hero
Guitar Hero is a music video game developed by Harmonix Music Systems and published by RedOctane for the PlayStation 2 video game console. It is the first entry in the Guitar Hero series. Guitar Hero was released on November 8, 2005 in North America, April 7, 2006 in Europe and June 15, 2006 in...
and surf Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
. The episodes will often feature Yasser sending them on a suicide mission
Suicide mission
The term suicide mission commonly refers to a task which is so dangerous for the people involved that they are not expected to survive. The term is sometimes extended to, but is not limited to, suicide attacks such as kamikaze and suicide bombings, where the people involved actively commit suicide...
ending with dire consequences to his own people due to Ahmed and Salim's naïve and childlike nature.
The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer
Columbus Ledger-Enquirer
The Ledger-Enquirer is a McClatchy newspaper headquartered in Downtown Columbus, Georgia, in the United States. It was founded in 1828 as the Columbus Enquirer by Mirabeau B. Lamar, who later played a pivotal role in the founding of the Republic of Texas and served as its third President...
describes the series as depicting "young Arabs who spend their afternoons trying to bomb Israeli buses, gun down Jewish girls and incinerate crowded cafes".
Language
Though the characters have an Arabic accent, actual Arabic is seldom used. Ahmed and Salim's language is a combination of gibberishGibberish
Gibberish is a generic term in English for talking that sounds like speech, but carries no actual meaning. This meaning has also been extended to meaningless text or gobbledygook. The common theme in gibberish statements is a lack of literal sense, which can be described as a presence of nonsense...
, English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
, Hebrew, Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
, Ukrainian
Ukrainian language
Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....
.
Running gags
Cursing : Ahmed and Salim use American and British slangSlang
Slang is the use of informal words and expressions that are not considered standard in the speaker's language or dialect but are considered more acceptable when used socially. Slang is often to be found in areas of the lexicon that refer to things considered taboo...
when cursing. The British slang-word "wanker" is one of their favourite curse words, along with "dicko", "fudge-packer", "butt-burglar", "pussy", "cock-pirate" and "looza" (slang for "loser").
Shooting a wife : Yasser, the father, has a catchphrase, "Jar-fill mousa ya pussy!" ("Shut up, you pussy!"), after which he usually shoots one of his wives without even looking.
Top spin shout : Every episode ends with someone yelling "Ahmed and Salim" in top shot while the camera spins. From Yasser to Habub, a father whose son was thought to have been killed, and even Israel's "Big- Brother" host Erez Tal
Erez Tal
Erez Tal is an Israeli broadcasting personality.-Biography:His first hit program was "Ma Yesh" , broadcast on Galatz, Israel's Army radio, where he started his partnership with Avri Gilad....
.
Popularity
According to The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, the show has a "cult followingCult following
A cult following is a group of fans who are highly dedicated to a specific area of pop culture. A film, book, band, or video game, among other things, will be said to have a cult following when it has a small but very passionate fan base...
" in Israel. The debut episode, in which the father "bemoans the fact that his sons haven't gone off on a suicide mission and killed lots of Jews," attracted 600,000 viewers on YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
.
Controversy
The series includes extreme scenes, which many viewers find offensive. In one of the episodes, Ahmed falls in love with a Jewish girl, who in turn develops a crush on younger brother Salim; their father resolves the conflict by shooting the girl dead. In another episode, which was taken off YouTubeYouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
following complaints by shocked viewers, the father dreams he has become a "stinking Jewish rabbi
Rabbi
In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...
" and his sons do what they were taught to do when encountering a Jew, namely shoot him in the testicles.
The show has drawn the critical attention of the Arabic press. The United Arab Emirates
United Arab Emirates
The United Arab Emirates, abbreviated as the UAE, or shortened to "the Emirates", is a state situated in the southeast of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia on the Persian Gulf, bordering Oman, and Saudi Arabia, and sharing sea borders with Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Iran.The UAE is a...
has banned Ahmed and Salim. Palestinian bloggers have denounced it. YouTube removed one of the first six episodes and warned the creators that it could ban the entire series if new episodes are too offensive. Despite the show's offensive nature, many of Ahmed and Salim′s Facebook friends are in fact Muslims and many of the show’s fans are in Arab countries.