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‘It’s about valuing their audience’: why Ghostbusters called in a Muslim ‘cultural consultant’

The spooky comedy franchise may seem an unlikely place to find an ethnicity and faith adviser, but productions are increasingly aware of a duty to make sure communities are truthfully represented

Perhaps less well-known, but now gaining ground in film and TV, is the role of a “cultural consultant” – advisers taken on by productions to help them navigate the choppy waters of sensitivities around ethnicity and faith. Varda, an actor who has appeared in Byker Grove and who is also credited story consultant on TV soap Hollyoaks, says his main job was to iron out any inaccuracies in the details of Nadeem’s character, as well as inconsistencies and errors ascribed to his ethnic background. Islam itself doesn’t play a significant part in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire – Nadeem and his grandmother belong to a fictional demon-fighting sect called the Firemasters – but Varda says he still had to make sure a few “faith-based references” were correct.

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