Is Ramy a Bad Guy? (Thoughts on Season 3)

Ramy (Hulu)-Fun fact: This is one of the three shows I’m listed as a RottenTomatoes critic for. Anywho, to catch you up, Ramy Yousef is the writer and creator of this pseudo-autobiographical show about a highly introspective American Muslin trapped in a phase of Arrested Development and living with his parents. I’m reading insightful reviews from Vulture by a Muslim woman (Deena El Ganaidi) that mention Ramy is about a man who does a lot of wrong. I’m not sure if the show is about a man beating himself up so much as it’s about a man living in a complicated world. Is it really automatic that you should ditch your racist uncle because he says racist things? Is temptation from marriage universal? I’d make the case that Ramy appears to exemplify the type of bad luck that befalls sitcom characters like The Life and Times of Tim or Seinfeld. Not everyone has a past fling show up on the night before their wedding to seduce them, after all.In fact, as much as I loved the second season, Pastor Malek’s pronouncement “F — k you, Ramy, you hurt people” rang a little false to me. Ramy’s friends also use him, his uncle doesn’t really respect him, and his parents often don’t make a sufficient effort to understand the context of Ramy’s world. It’s not as if he’s in the best of circumstances. In a recent episode where Ramy’s parapalegic friend, Steve, is using him for a ride. Over the course of the evening, Steve reveals to Ramy that he wants to propose to his girlfriend whereas Ramy reveals.Comedy often invites us to revel in the misfortune of our protagonists (Everybody Loves Raymond, Frasier, Three’s Company) but if Ramy does anything differently, it blurs the lines between comedy and drama enough that we’re invited to witness the tragic undertones of a modern Muslim life for a young single mam.To give credit to Ramy, it’s not just male-centered angst. His sister Deena is also navigating the BS that goes on in corporate culture as an aspiring lawyer. Or maybe it’s standard drudgery that you have to do to work your way up. Or parents who don’t understand her. Or a man who blames her for taking his virginity. If Deena is a female counterpart to Ramy who feels like modern life can’t give her a win, at least she and Ramy are self-aware of their imperfections (if perhaps a little hard on themselves).Both their parents and, especially their uncle, are ill at ease to handle life’s complicated moral quandaries. My mother is an Israeli-born woman of Iranian heritage and you couldn’t drag her to a therapist even if it was free. That’s why I think the thesis of the show is towards the value of self-awareness and the moral costs (something the young generation has due to their unique cultural assimilation) that the older generation is unable to do.