Channel 4 slammed for dressing attackers in keffiyeh on Celebrity SAS

Broadcasting bias watchdog Accountable Media have launched a new complaint action targeting Channel 4’s Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins show. Channel 4 describes the show as follows:

Celebrities who think they have what it takes to pass the SAS selection are pushed to their limit, and beyond, by an elite team of ex-special forces operators

You’d be forgiven for thinking that a show themed around making celebrities pretend to be British special forces was going to quickly turn into a bunch of racist propagandising. Unfortunately, you’d also be spot on.

As a spokesperson for the complaint action explained in a video posted to Instagram:

In this Celebrity SAS Channel 4 episode – Season 8, Episode 3 – individuals depicted as hostile attackers within a simulated combat scenario are shown wearing kuffiyehs.

‘Deeply concerning’ episode of Celebrity SAS

The video goes on to explain the significance of the keffiyeh – and the problems with Channel 4 using it as a costume to denote hostile enemies:

This creative and editorial choice is deeply concerning. The keffiyeh is a long-standing cultural garment with historical, social and cultural significance across Arab communities and wider West Asia. It’s worn by civilians, elders, workers and families, and it’s not a symbol of violence, extremism or criminality.

By visually coding the enemy figures in this way, the program risks reinforcing a harmful and reductive stereotype that associates Arabs or Western Asian cultural markers with danger, aggression or moral threat.

Channel 4’s decision to code its attackers as Arabs is racist – at best, it’s a deeply lazy reliance on negative stereotypes. Beyond that, it’s a conscious choice to paint Western Asians as enemies in a show that already launders the reputation of a unit that committed war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

The video ends by stating that:

Such portrayals are not neutral, and this is why we’ve set up an Ofcom complaint on Accountable Media where you can participate in this action and send a complaint direct to Ofcom in under a minute.

Lets put as much pressure as possible on this conscious effort by Channel 4 for perpetuate a certain stereotype.

‘A responsibility to uphold standards’

Follow the link here if you’d like to submit your own complaint to Channel 4. As well as echoing the critique in the video, it adds: 

As a public service broadcaster, Channel 4 has a responsibility to uphold standards relating to harm, offence, and responsible representation. The use of a culturally specific garment to denote perpetrators appears unnecessary to the programme’s format and risks causing avoidable harm to communities who may see their culture implicitly framed as threatening.

I believe this raises concerns under the Ofcom Broadcasting Code, particularly in relation to:
Harm and offence arising from discriminatory or stereotypical portrayals.
The reinforcement of negative cultural associations through visual representation.
A lack of adequate editorial care given the foreseeable impact of such imagery.

I respectfully request that Ofcom review this episode and assess whether the broadcast meets the standards required of UK broadcasters. I would also welcome clarification on whether Channel 4 will be asked to reflect on this portrayal and take steps to prevent similar representations in future programming.

Featured image via the Canary