Syrian serial babble
October 16, 2006
Syrian director Hatem Ali.
I was just about to write a heartfelt post about my deepening crush on Syrian director Hatem Ali (more on him later), or rather on all the work he does, when I came across this piece from AFP. It's your typical "we need to write something but we don't know what" piece which supposedly covers social or cultural aspects of a given place. In the past few years, Ramadan television serials have been quite the rage as a topic in various media; read all about it, they say, this is what Arabs (and sometimes even the more generic Muslims) are watching. Serial babble, basically.
In general, I've found that reports and comments about Arab drama (or satire or comedy) have been pretentious and condescending. Last year, for instance, numerous writers praised the series "Hour al Ayn" because it tackled terrorism and showed its effect on Arabs. Well done, good boys, you Arabs are actually capable of real Western values – or so went the surprised refrain if you read between the lines. To name but a couple of such articles, The Guardian featured a front page article about this "phenomenon" calling it "Watching beautiful maidens" as did The Daily Telegraph, in "Anti-terror Ramadan TV drama stirs the Arab world" - which mentioned at the end of the piece that "the Koran makes no mention of 72 virgins and does not encourage suicide bombing or self-martyrdom." (Notice the choice of words: doesn't encourage. But let's not digress.)
This year is no exception to this new trend, and reporting on what Arabs are watching this Ramadan ("racy" Syrian soaps, apparently) is de rigueur. The AFP piece to which I link above is astounding in its invalid generalizations. First of all, I will quote you the most eye-catching sentence in the piece: "Corruption -- against which the Syrian authorities have struggled in vain for years -- is not the only focus of the country's new brand of soap operas." After you have finished laughing hysterically, you can move on to other statements on what is new this year, such as "Syrian directors have not shied away from crossing other previous red lines, such as portraying the love lives of women and showing liberated young females in nightclubs".
Obviously, the writer has never watched Syrian serials before. Previous red lines? Off hand, I can only think of homosexuality and child abuse as subjects that have not yet been covered explicitly. For years, we've been watching (with increased national pride, I must admit) the quality of Syrian television series increase, as they make for more and more pleasant viewing, and tackle a multitude of subjects, racy or not, covering every aspect of modern life. "Taboo" subjects such as corruption, the abuses of people in power, life under dictatorships, absurd lose-lose regional situations, the intimidation of the "mukhabarat" (secret service), the practical enslavement of employees, soldiers and other "lesser" people by regime cronies? They've been covered for years in the satirical series "Mirrors" and more recently in "Spotlight" – not to mention the legendary theatre and television pieces by Dureid Laham and Muhammad Al Maghout. And they've been omnipresent in every serial, drama or comedy, to reflect their omnipresence in the life of Syrians.
Love, sex, adultery, treason, drugs, violence? It would be difficult to begin naming the serials in which they come up, and they include subjects like AIDS. Same with religion and the extremes to which some people go (not in terms of terrorism, but in terms of everyday life). The harsh realities of life in a country with a closed economy, when any potentially lucrative project remains the sole prerogative of regime members and friends, and when people are struggling to make ends meet while obscene wealth is flaunted in front of everyone's eyes? Been there, done that.
And then you've got the highly enjoyable serials depicting life in the "good old days," when men's honor related to their words and their mustaches (not to mention the women in their household), when neighbors lived like friends, and when social and religious norms were imposed by the neighborhood's leader and enforced by the strongman (the "abaday"). Last year's serial "Salhieh Nights" was one of the most beloved, and most rerun, serials in past years. It's unlikely that this year's offering (of what is sometimes called "touristic drama" as it advertises a country's culture and lifestyle) will achieve the same popularity, although the current "The Street's Gate" is on every television screen in shops I pass in the evening, as nobody wants to miss a single scene.
When even our Egyptian friends couldn't get enough of serials like "Salhieh Nights," it's a tribute to the remarkable quality of most Syrian serials, a fact reflected in the multiple sales of most serials to practically every Arab satellite channel there is. There have certainly been notable exceptions, including the execrable "Nizar Qabbani" last year which I think was practically insulting to our great poet's memory and legacy.
I've covered in detail Syria's excellent television production in conferences and have written papers about it, so this is a subject I have been following for some time. In my opinion, there are specific reasons why censors allow certain obvious allusions to pass unedited, which I can only summarize now as "power plays" (perhaps these papers deserve wider dissemination, for this subject is actually fascinating and very representative of the regime's hold on the country and its relation with the people). In short, it is not because the censors don't understand the allusions, or pretend that it's not about them. They know full well what it is, but they revel in the fact that they can allow this or that broadcast, resulting in a perverse pleasure in seeing this criticism. (I assure you it makes more sense when I give more details!!)
The AFP writer is partly correct to state that "Gazelles in a Forest of Wolves" refers to Mahmud Zohbi, the previous prime minister who "committed suicide" after having been stripped of his duties; in fact, this particular serial covers the abuses of his son Mufleh … and those are obviously reminiscent of the abuses of every single other son, daughter, wife, brother, sister, cousin or even cousin twice removed of a regime official or crony, past and present.
But back to Hatem Ali, about whom I initially wanted to say a few words. Of all the Syrian directors, he is my favorite at the moment, and I am mesmerized by his awesome filming, the stories and scripts he chooses (real art imitating real life), the actors he places perfectly, and the music that complements it all. This year's serial, "Throughout the Days," is even better that his last serial and it is a true social study and commentary on life in a big city like Damascus, with all its questions, passions, contradictions.
Hatem Ali is the crème de la crème of a very fecund circle of Syrian directors, producers, writers, and of course actors (Ali occasionally casts himself in his serials – last year, he played a judge) who have taken the Arab world by storm. Without any doubt, Syria's seventh art sector has overtaken Egypt's, by far (at least with regards to television). You only have to channel surf through the dozens and dozens of Arab satellite channels to realize that the Syrian accent is predominant, and that people can't get enough of our series.
I'd also like to salute the excellent Syrian actors gracing the screens of these satellite channels; while I admire several and they are too many to mention, I admit I am quite partial to Bassam Koussa, who (with others like Khaled Taja) has the additional quality of being one of the first 99 Syrians who launched the Damascus Spring with the first "Statement of the 99." Talented, principled and brave – now that's a combination to be proud of. Indeed, Syrian television serials have shown that when Syrians are given the chance to work and to speak, they shine.
