Sensitive Men, and Masculine Women

Our parents taught boys to become men, and girls to become women. It was greatly unacceptable for one to act like the other gender, and if parents find out that their son, or their daughter is gay they would do anything to stop this as soon as possible, or end up kicking them out of the house.

The backbone of culture in Qatar is the religion: Islam. It is forbidden in Islam to imitate a women in action, dress and/or behavior, and similarly prohibits women from imitating men in their way of talking, dress and behavior. Before the Internet and television, it was easier for parents to raise their children and teach them about their gender roles. Parents saw the media as a threat to their children. With the Television and Internet around children it gives them a chance to adapt the gender-specific norms from the other gender. (Leaving aside the psychological or birth-deformations factors). Source.

People in Qatar believe that this is nature: Men are supposed to be masculine, and women should be sensitive and feminine. Even religions believe and encourage the same thing, in Islam and even in Christianity.

However, some people are starting to let go of these values and it became acceptable for men to be sensitive and feminine, and women to be masculine. Jawad AlAli was negatively sanctioned and disrespected by men when he first came out in 1998 because of his “sensitive” songs and the way that he was singing that was very “feminine”; women however liked his songs because they wanted men who were a bit sensitive and actually care about them. This is similar to what happened to Justin Bieber when he came out.



Then came Abdulqadir AlHadhood, who was also very sensitive and feminine in his songs, and was negatively sanctioned and made fun of because of his feminism. Both of these singers were made fun of in tv shows, and on the internet, however, they both became famous of their GOOD songs that people started to like eventually.



Original Song: Thbt Ashkra (I know I'm in love!) - Lyrics in English



Hassan AlBallam, parody: saying that he is doing the housework and is the housewife of the house, while she is watching the news, in a program called "WiFi" that was broadcast on MBC.


Parody Song: Dkht Ashkara (I know I'm confused!)



Not only sensitive men were negatively sanctioned, in fact, masculine women were even greatly sanctioned by both men and women! Therefore we have more people hating and sanctioning masculine women. Shamma Hamdan, an adolescent who participated in the Arabs Got Talent show on MBC, shocked the people from all over the Arabic countries because of her first appearance in the show, where she showed up dressed, styled and acting like a man.



People voted for her, because she was a good singer, but she dressed differently in the latter episodes, where she had some make up and wearing female clothes.




I respect all of the artists I mentioned above, and don’t want this post to be a negative critique about them, but I’m trying to show how some people has changed their opinions about acting like the other gender.

Abdulhaleem Hafiz (The Nightingale)

Music is an international language that everybody understands; using the right notes, time, and rhythm you can even make an alien feel what you express through music. Music in the past had meanings and expressions behind them. The authors of “The Bollywood Reader” Rajinder Dudrah and Jigna also agree to this, and say that music today is only categorized under ‘Entertainment.’

After reading the Bollywood Reader and knowing about the importance of the song-and-dance-sequences in Bollywood movies, I remembered Abdulhaleem Hafiz, one of the most amazing singers in the 20th century that touched the worlds’ emotions through his songs and movies.

Abdulhaleem came from a very poor family in Egypt, and was rejected when he came up with his songs “Ya Helo Ya Asmar” (The Olive Skin Beauty), because the people did not accept this new genre of music that was very emotional and deep in 1951-1952, and plus they did not respect him because of his social class. He then succeeded in 1953 when he re-sang the song and “Safeeni Marra” (Confront Me Once) in 1953 on the day of declaring the Republication of Egypt, and gained some recognition. The song was a great success in 1953. He then became an actor in 1955, to make drama movies, with lots of music, and embedded music video clips that expressed his deeper emotions.

During the 1950s, Arabic movies had lots of songs embedded through them, just like Indian movies. However, they were more realistic, and not as funny, but more emotional. I personally believe that these were somehow more important than the movie drama itself because of the feeling that was added to the movie. Songs were used to express deep, emotional, happy and sad feelings that couldn’t have been described through the camera and the script. The ideal way to express those feelings was through these songs which would typically last 4-5 minutes each. These songs later become very popular love songs, for example, some of the most popular Abdulhaleem songs: “Betlomoony Leeh?” (Why do you blame me?) and “Awwel Marra” (First Time), which were happy love, yet deep, love songs who are the top hits, and first introduced in his movies. Some songs extracted from the movies were stretched longer and were deeper than ones in the movie; this is because 1) people went to concerts to listen to some songs, and expected songs to be long with more music than words (and a full orchestra) in the 1950s, and 2) because songs used to be longer than 10 minutes, and it was the expected genre. Lets compare a song called “Ahwak” (I Admire You), from the movie “Banat AlYoum” (Today’s Girls):


You can read the lyrics in English here. Reading them might not be so emotional, but try reading along.

Film:


Concert:


Abdulhaleem was diagnosed with Schistosomiasis and he knew his farewell was very close. As the symptoms increased people observed that his songs became sadder, and mainly about farewell. The emotion he put in his songs were so real to the point they touched whoever heard it. I believe that this is what made him famous: his disease, and motivation to keep singing, and the wonderful music he has left us today.



Abdulhaleem Hafiz, 1929 – 1977.

Product Placement in the Arabic Music Industry

Product placement is advertising through non-traditional ways, especially by appearing in different cultural products of the media such as films, Television series, ...etc. In Hollywood, product placement is most famous for being used in almost every movie nowadays. On the other hand, in the Arab world, product placement in films is not a technique that is used as much. However, product placement has been highly associated with Arabic music industry for years. Product placement in the music industry has proved to be highly effective to the point that Rotana, one of the leading production companies in the Middle East, requires any singer that signs a contract with them to include product placement in his/her music video. Here are some examples for product placement in Arabic Music videos.  

Sony Xperia in Elissa's latest music video for her song "Ajmal Wahde"

Infiniti car in Elissa's latest music video for her song "Ajmal Wahde"

 

LG phone in Nawal Al Zoghbi's music video for her song "Aghla Al Habayeb"

It is also very common that certain companies would sign endorsement deals with famous singers or actors. For years, the most obvious endorsement deals were Coca-Cola's and Pepsi's deals with various super stars such as, Amr Diab, Nancy Ajram, Haifa Wahbi, Carol Smaha, Tamer Hosny, Cairokee, and many others. These deals end up in the production of different cultural products such as: programs, music videos, and films. All of these cultural products end up being an extended advertisement for these companies.

   

Coca-Cola's logo, cans, and red color all over Nancy Ajram's music video of her song
"Oul Tani Keda"

However, Coca-cola's presence in Nancy's music video isn't as ridiculous as Pepsi's campaign, as they produced an entire film and made sure they colored it blue. Bahr Al Nojoum or Sea of Stars is the name of the musical that Pepsi co-produced. Bahr Al Nojoum is the first Arabic promotional feature film. With no proper storyline, a lot of famous superstars, Pepsi made sure their logo would be on screen as long as possible. Here's a short clip from the film.

 

On the other hand, Coca-cola was smart enough to bring it's program, Coke Studio to the Middle East. A program they first launched in Brazil, then took to Pakistan, India, and lastly the Arab world. Coke Studio focuses on mixing two completely different genres of music in one song. The program puts more effort in presenting the audience with good music than rubbing Coca-Cola's logo in their faces. It's definitely a program that includes product placement, however, it respects it's audience way more than Pepsi's musical. Here's an example.

   

Qatari Weddings

For this active blog, I chose to write about a traditional Qatari wedding I attended this weekend. The wedding was especially interesting because it had elements of tradition, but also introduced new concepts and broke through some cultural barriers.

Usually, Qatari weddings are segregated events. The males celebrate with the groom and his family in a “Majlis,” where they enjoy a variety of traditional dishes, desserts and endless supplies of tea and coffee. The males also preform a traditional dance with the swords, known as “Al 3ardah” to mark the marital celebration.

On the other hand, the females celebrate in a fancy hotel ballroom where they enjoy showing off their soiree dresses, taste in jewelry and beauty skills. Usually, the girls arrive wearing the traditional “abaya”, but once they are past the security check point and their smart phones are confiscated, they head to the nearest washroom to touch-up themselves and put away the abaya to reveal what’s underneath.

In the ballroom, one can expect to see catwalk of all the latest designer dresses and trends. Young girls, dolled up, gather with their girlfriends and strut their stuff. Meanwhile, older women are seated with their friends to enjoy some time together. This is every girl’s time to shine! Many mothers take this opportunity to scan the available bachelorettes for their sons, and the girls know it!

An array of beautiful, carefully selected flowers line the dance floor stage and
“Kosha” where the bride and groom will later be seated.

Another common trend seen in weddings is the presence of a male singer, who performs live, but is located in different room in the hotel. He sings traditional and new wedding songs that are simultaneously broadcasted into the ballroom. The girls take to the dance floor and perform.

One can argue, that weddings are the perfect opportunity for girls to demonstrate resistance through performance. They utilize this an opportunity to show their love for fashion and beauty. This is what one of the young girls attending the wedding had to say, “Weddings have become a fashion statement. Literally, girls will go all out and splurge so much to look good on this one night because they know everyone is watching and judging.” This is a perfect example of a situation where the performance takes place behind closed doors.

The wedding last weekend was different because the bride and groom entered the ballroom together and the groom stayed in the female-populated room for more than an hour. Although women are warned that a man is about to enter and do cover up, it was shocking that the groom stayed for that long. Also, a male band entered the ballroom and sang “Zafeh” songs to the bride. Some older women took to the stage and danced with them, while others showered them with 1 Qatari Riyal bills to request songs.

This scenario is not common in Qatari weddings, but with globalization and the modernization of the state, more and more girls are stepping out of their shell and trying to deviate from the parent culture.

Since the study of subcultures is usually dominated by men, making it difficult to find analysis on female interaction. This can be portrayed in the example of the wedding because all action takes place behind closed doors. Women tend to be more cautious in public, whereas they feel comfortable showing off their styles and dance moves in private spaces. Also, Ken Gelder argues that females are usually on the consumer end of the spectrum, and that can be seen in how they have created their own subcultures by adopting those that are more common and mainstream in the rest of the world, but not in theirs.


For obvious reasons, I couldn't take my phone or camera in to take pictures and therefore do not have any original photos to share.

Language

Symbols in human cultures occur in different formats. Language is one of the most distinguished symbols in a culture it differs from culture to culture. Cultures and societies relay mostly on language for immediate communication. Observing my own culture and surroundings I can say that Arabic is the language in my culture and society, but lately English came along and put down strings of importance that made people want to learn and speak it fluently in order to keep pace with the vast development that is going on. With the development of Qatar English language is becoming even more important than before. Importing a large number of expats, contracts that are made with foreign companies, ..etc. made a need of having a language that is international in order to communicate with others.

Having English as a second language in Qatar made people aware of the importance of learning different languages. But some people took it a step further with exaggerating or overdoing it focusing on learning English. Some think that it enhances the social status of the individual, makes them look smarter, or even more accepted in the society or higher classes. That took their focus away from learning Arabic maybe just relaying on it being the mother language thinking that it is enough. That affected this generation the most having them not knowing their language properly and even not the very basics, some even don’t understand or speak Arabic because of the foreign education. For example the alphabets I went and tested a couple of graduates and students by asking them if they know the Arabic alphabet in order. One of them said yes, so I asked if I could test her and I asked her about two letters what comes before the other and those letters look alike so she answered I don’t know your question is too specific. But all who I asked were people who were educated in English and international schools which focus on English leaving the Arabic as a secondary subject. I continued asking them about if they faced any problems with their Arabic language? Most of them answered yes since we are local graphic designers we are expected to design bilingual graphics and we face a lot of problems when it comes to the Arabic part. Those problems I a face my self and during socializing with my extended family sometimes I add English words not realizing that the older generations such as my grandparents don’t understand English. In my opinion English language is breaking a barrier between our culture and other cultures, as well as creating a barrier within our culture.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCOP44K3_C4