CM Shaking it up

On a lighter note, just for the moment, Cairo Magazine has a nice piece on Arab pop star controversies:

In the current culture wars that are roiling around the topic of Arabic-language music videos, both sides have a tendency towards hyperbole and bombast. For example, the Islamic students who protested on 7 March at Alexandria University against sexy music videos slammed them as “porno clips” for their “nudity.” This despite the fact that the sexual content is more suggestive than overt and relies heavily on traditional belly dancing moves (or when it doesn’t, never broaches those lines of sexuality).

Those are the "Nancy-Haifa Culture Wars" to you, my friend. 

The author, Ethan Weitner, goes on:

 

Still, there are a lot of provocative video clips on TV these days that show young, pretty female singers singing, dancing, having relationships with men, and frequently dressed in significantly less than anything you’d expect to see on the streets of Cairo. Even their proponents aren’t trying to defend them as being anything other than eye candy. “Look, Ruby really can sing. But it’s impossible to imagine [singer] Haifa Wahbe just with the audio. You need the visual,” admits Amr Adeed, the managing director of Egypt’s largest private FM station, Negoum FM.

I can imagine Haifa Wahbe with just the audio.  But good lord, why would I want to?

 

In the age of widespread satellite TV, it is increasingly possible for even low-income families to get Arabic-language programming from anywhere in the Arabic world (as opposed to stodgy state TV), meaning that more culturally fluid and diverse countries like Lebanon and more Western-oriented hubs like Dubai can export pop stars like Nancy Ajram or Haifa Wahbe (both Christian Lebanese) through labels like Rotana and networks like Melody TV (both based in Dubai) to Imbaba or Shoubra Al Kheima.

The piece claims that

Reason magazine’s Charles Freund is the leader of the group asserting the “revolutionary potential” of music video clips, which he claims are not about the sex. Rather, he argues, they are about “Arabs shaping their identity” in a medium that allows the protagonist to be modern, cool and Arab at the same time.

Hey, it's not like a "group", in the sense of we actually know each other or agree about stuff.  There is a secret handshake, but it would look kind of silly if I showed it to you...  Anyway, with all due respect to Charles, who does great stuff on the topic, why don't Aardvarks get any respect?   How come I don't get to be leader, or mentioned?

Finally, there's this:

Egyptian state television is reportedly in the process of making “sweeping reforms” to its policies towards showing the clips of certain pop stars in order to protect the morals of Egyptian youth after noise in the press about provocative clips (which there has been pretty much every year since satellite TV and music videos first appeared). But this may only be further proof of state TV’s irrelevance to the world of Egyptian teenagers.

 

I'd have to agree with this.  Yes, indeed-y I would. 

OK, back to your regularly scheduled wanton violence against protestors and the dismal referendum day. 

Or, to be more precise, that's for you.  For me, off to yet another meeting which should manage to waste much of my morning, until I can finally be free to grade more papers and exams, do final proofreading of my book, write an essay with an alarmingly impending deadline, and bottle-feed the charming Baby A.   Sleep?  What's that?

Comments

[praktike]

What's the story with this Naglaa character and the horse video?

[Abu Tabakh]

Good thing there are no Carl's Jr. outlets in the Arab world....

[lebanon.profile]

Hey, hey, hey,
Haifa is Shia. Give credit where it is do.
The diva is definitely not Christian.

Abu Tabakh,
We do have Carl's Jr. in Lebanon, except we have it under it's Midwestern name: Hardee's.
Oddly enough, Hardee's is using Carl's Jr.'s branding: the big smiling star on a red background. There are Hardee's all over here.
It would be great to see the Paris Hilton commercial on LBC. But I doubt it will happen.

[praktike]

"It would be great to see the Paris Hilton commercial on LBC. But I doubt it will happen."

Yeah. Too tame.

[yinshuisiyuan]

Meanwhile, in Texas...

[Stefania]

I'm gonna put the news of the repression against Egyptian demonstrators on my blog

[Nur al-Cubicle]

Referendun ratified by the populace with 86.86% "Yes" and 53.46 voter turnout.

But what's this? The newspaper Al-Wafd (center right), sent two of its editors out to vote, which they did: one in seven polling stations and the other in six with the same voting card. No questions asked.

[SP]

Voting early and voting often, I see.

Gotta love how the conversation with these boys here always goes back to half-naked Lebanese singers...;) Go on, make your arguments about how it's all for the greater cause of research into the prospects of liberalisation etc etc

[Penta]

SP: No, we're horny and male.:-) We're comfortable enough to admit it.:-)

[Nur al-Cubicle]

From the voting guide at L'Orient-Le Jour for Saturday's legislative elections in Lebanon:

4/ If you write down "Catherine Deneuve" or "Haifa Wehbé" on your ballot next to the name of a legitimate candidate, then your ballot will be considered null and void. Same goes for writing insults, a line of poetry from Rimbaud, your lucky number or what kind of mood you're in.