Beirut, Lebanon, was once known to tourists as “the Paris of the Middle East.” Then came a 15-year civil war from 1975 to 1990 that, for many people, made the country’s capital city seem synonymous with terrorism and death.
So much for the tourism.
But that was more than 20 years ago. And in the ensuing decades, the city has worked hard to rehabilitate its image and lure tourists—and their currency, of course—once more. Due to those efforts, contemporary Beirut is a far cry from the war-torn, bombed-out city many of us remember from news footage of the Lebanese civil war in the 1970s and ’80s.
But perhaps no one bothered to tell the producers of Showtime’s Emmy-winning show Homeland that this beautiful city on the Mediterranean coast is not, in fact, a swarming haven for Muslim terrorists today.
The second episode this season was titled “Beirut Is Back,” a phrase appropriating a slogan that’s been used by reporters and travel agencies to describe the Lebanese capital’s transformation since the war. That, however, was not what the episode depicted. Instead of the city’s bustling, thoroughly modern shopping district, Homeland showed a shabby city in which gunmen might erupt unexpectedly from cars to terrify the city’s citizenry.
Fady Abboud, Lebanon’s Minister of Tourism, characterized the inaccurate depiction of Beirut as a “serious misrepresentation.” He has also threatened legal action, saying, “We are following the case legally. I raised this at the cabinet meeting, and the president asked the minister of justice and the minister of communications what can be done.” In a separate interview with the Associated Press, he added, “The information minister is studying media laws” to determine whether the country might seek legal remedy for the misrepresentation.
Abboud also sought to stir up an online “intelligence counterinsurgency” of sorts. “I am calling on all young Lebanese adults to do what they need to do; to write blogs, to call the BBC and CNN to try to raise awareness that Beirut is not a city of Kalashnikov and war.”
Further exacerbating Lebanese leaders’ frustration is the fact that the episode in question was actually filmed in an the Jaffa neighborhood of Tel Aviv, Israel—a country with which Lebanon is technically still at war.
“To the average viewer, the Beirut scenes may appear authentic,” said an uncredited AP story. “But to the discerning viewer, hints of Israel are everywhere: cars with blurred yellow Israeli license plates, red-and-white curbs that designate no-parking zones, an Israeli-style traffic circle, and a well-known minaret and clock tower in Jaffa.”
British ambassador to Lebanon Tom Fletcher added, “Lebanon tends to get a rough time from filmmakers—I’d encourage people to see the real Beirut.”
Twentieth Century Fox Television has yet to comment on the controversy.
Reading about this story, I couldn’t help but think that it illustrates a principle most of us know but sometimes forget: What we see on television isn’t real. Even in the case of a show such as Homeland, which strives to depict some real-world (or, at least, realistic) conflicts, the producers often substitute one location for another in the name of filmmaking expediency.
According to AP, Jaffa was “an Arab town before Israel gained independence in 1948, and its Levantine architecture, mosques and minarets, situated along the Mediterranean, allowed the creators of Homeland to present a plausible version of Beirut.”
But “plausible” for whom? Most American viewers might not know the difference. But for those living in the real city that this fictionalized series depicts, the distortion of reality in the episode in question obviously means a great deal.
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