'Homeland' Season 5 Episode 2 Recap: Show Accused Of Racism In Subversive Art By Set Designer

The fifth season of "Homeland" just started, but already, a lot of action is taking place, although a big one is not in the show, but rather, on its set.

Time Magazine reported that Berlin street artsits "hacked" the Showtime series by adding Arabic graffiti on sets critical to the show.The group, which identifies itself as "The Arabian Street Artists" slipped anti-Homeland graffiti into the most recent episode of the show. Slogans painted in Arabic include statements such as "Homeland is racist," "There is no Homeland" and "This show does not represent the views of the artists".

The group includes Heba Amin and Caram Kapp, who were hired by Showtime to add graffiti on the Berlin set so as to add authenticity to what should be a Syrian refugee camp.

Amin wrote on her website, "The series has garnered the reputation of being the most bigoted show on television for its inaccurate, undifferentiated and highly biased depiction of Arabs, Pakistanis and Afghans, as well as its gross misrepresentations of the cities of Beirut, Islamabad -- and the so-called Muslim world in general."

She also wrote about how they pulled it off, which was easier than one would think. The visiting assistant professor at the American University in Cairo shared, "The set decoration had to be completed in two days, for filming on the third. Set designers were too frantic to pay any attention to us... The content of what was written on the walls, however, was of no concern."

However, showtime remained unperturbed by the graffiti. The show's creator, Alex Ganza told Time, "We wish we'd caught these images before they made it to air. However, as Homeland always strives to be subversive in its own right and a stimulus for conversation, we can't help but admire this act of artistic sabotage."

In a phone interview via The New York Times, Amin addressed her grievances, which are centered on what she called "distortions of reality in the Middle East," she said. "The framing of events and brainwashing about the region has a real impact on foreign policy because millions of people are getting their information from the show and can't differentiate between facts and fiction," she added.

The Arabian Street Artists are certainly not the first to criticize the show. The New York Times, for instance, noted that it has consistently been criticized for their inaccurate and inconsistent portrayals, although it did not stop lead actress Claire Danes from winning two Emmys and two Golden Globes for her portrayal of CIA's Carrie Mathison.