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Emily Hughes Kapoor
Isaac is an art curator who’s working with Emily; he’s the husband of Amir’s work colleague Jory. He decides to support Emily’s career even though he knows that her paintings may offend people, as she’s a white woman from a non-Islamic culture who uses Islamic imagery in her art. Isaac thinks that Emily’s work is innovative and lucrative—and he encourages her to keep using traditional Islamic patterns in her paintings, knowing that this will also benefit his career as an art curator. At a dinner party at Amir and Emily’s apartment, Isaac (who’s Jewish) and Amir (who’s of Pakistani descent and was raised Muslim) get into a heated debate about Islam. Amir is critical of the problematic values (like antisemitism and wife-beating) that he believes the Qur’an espouses, but Isaac is adamant that Islamic culture is beautiful. He intermittently brags about being well-traveled and well-read, making it clear that he wants to seem worldly and sophisticated. At the same time, however, Isaac is overtly prejudiced toward Muslim people, admitting that he’s suspicious of South Asian people in airports. He even calls Amir a “closet jihadist” (Islamic terrorist) when Amir leaves the room. The dinner party culminates in Jory and Amir finding out that Isaac and Emily are having an affair, which leads to a fight: Amir spits in Isaac’s face, and Isaac says that this behavior is why “you people” (meaning Muslims) are called “animals.” Isaac, like Emily, seemingly wants to enjoy and benefit from the specific aspects of Islamic culture that he wants to acknowledge—all the while dismissing or actively discriminating against actual South Asian/Muslim people.
Isaac Quotes in Disgraced
The Disgraced quotes below are all either spoken by Isaac or refer to Isaac . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Scene 1
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I think it’s a little weird. That you want to paint me after seeing a painting of a slave.
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Scene 2
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About me being a white woman with no right to be using Islamic forms? I think you’re wrong about that.
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You know what you’re going to be accused of… […] Orientalism.
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The Islamic tiling tradition, Isaac? Is a doorway to the most extraordinary freedom. And which only comes through a kind of profound submission. In my case, of course it’s not submission to Islam but to the formal language. The pattern. The repetition. And the quiet that this work requires of me? It’s extraordinary.
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The work you’re doing with the Islamic tradition is important and new. It needs to be seen. Widely.
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Moor? Haven’t heard that word in a minute.
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So there you are in your six-hundred-dollar Charvet shirt, like Velázquez’s brilliant apprentice-slave in his lace collar, adorned in the splendors of the world you're now so clearly a part of… And yet... […] The question remains […] Of your Place.
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It’s a nightmare at the airports.
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Those agents are working hard not to discriminate… Then here’s this guy who comes up to them and calls them out…
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I picked up the recipe when I was on a Fulbright in Seville.
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I was horrified by it, okay? Absolutely horrified. […] That we were finally winning. […] It's tribal, Jor. It is in the bones. You have no idea how I was brought up. You have to work real hard to root that shit out.
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Fucking closet jihadist.
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The expression on that face? Shame. Anger. Pride. Yeah. The pride he was talking about. The slave finally has the master’s wife.
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Isaac Quotes in Disgraced
The Disgraced quotes below are all either spoken by Isaac or refer to Isaac . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Scene 1
Quotes
I think it’s a little weird. That you want to paint me after seeing a painting of a slave.
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Scene 2
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About me being a white woman with no right to be using Islamic forms? I think you’re wrong about that.
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You know what you’re going to be accused of… […] Orientalism.
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The Islamic tiling tradition, Isaac? Is a doorway to the most extraordinary freedom. And which only comes through a kind of profound submission. In my case, of course it’s not submission to Islam but to the formal language. The pattern. The repetition. And the quiet that this work requires of me? It’s extraordinary.
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Scene 3
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The work you’re doing with the Islamic tradition is important and new. It needs to be seen. Widely.
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Moor? Haven’t heard that word in a minute.
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So there you are in your six-hundred-dollar Charvet shirt, like Velázquez’s brilliant apprentice-slave in his lace collar, adorned in the splendors of the world you're now so clearly a part of… And yet... […] The question remains […] Of your Place.
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It’s a nightmare at the airports.
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Those agents are working hard not to discriminate… Then here’s this guy who comes up to them and calls them out…
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I picked up the recipe when I was on a Fulbright in Seville.
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I was horrified by it, okay? Absolutely horrified. […] That we were finally winning. […] It's tribal, Jor. It is in the bones. You have no idea how I was brought up. You have to work real hard to root that shit out.
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Fucking closet jihadist.
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The expression on that face? Shame. Anger. Pride. Yeah. The pride he was talking about. The slave finally has the master’s wife.
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