How does Arab culture and values differ from western culture and values?

II) Ramadan 2024: the social taboos and the state

The Arab entertainment industry has said it is willing to be more inclusive in the future but unlike its Western counterpart, it isn’t going to pull any films or episodes either. So headlines like this will not be popping up in the Arab World anytime soon.

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But ok fine, Arabs have a female John Wick, but can television also show us some differences in culture and values?

Ok, so right off the bat, we do see some differences.

Mohamed Ramadan - BUM BUM [ Official Music Video ] / محمد رمضان - رايحين نسهر

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The Arab World may be home to 400 million people but the population is poor and so often don’t have time to sit idle making television viewership quite low but even if it wasn’t low, they lack the disposable income for purchases so the Arab advertising market is small. Now Arabs do have television year-round, but it’s incredibly hard to make a profit except for one month: Ramadan. Why?

During the same Ramadan, an Iraqi series The World of Miss Wahiba also entered hot water. The series is about an Iraqi nurse navigating life in the country in the 1990s during sanctions and the aftermath of two wars. The first season was released for Ramadan 1997 but banned by the Baathist Party for not making it look good so it wasn’t until Ramadan 2024 that a second season was released and now it’s in hot water for even including the Baathist Party.

Alright, that’s it for this answer

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You have the empty party songs from musicians like Mohammed Ramadan.

So through television, we can see differences in societies

For Ramadan 2018, a Kuwaiti studio released a sketch comedy series name Block Ghashmarah and one episode was dedicated to stereotypical jokes on Black Arabs/Sudanese. As Arab is a cultural identity, not racial, Arabs have a variety of ethnic backgrounds which spurs stereotypes and the Sudanese, who are Black, are…. Depicted as lazy, feeble-minded and superstitious. So for an entire episode, several Kuwaiti actors donned blackface and mocked the Sudanese.

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Another set of price rollbacks, also pushed by Meselhy “to ease the burden on citizens,” were advertised on rice, oil and imported Sudanese meat on February 29. The price of unprocessed rice went down from LE31 to LE29 for a kilo, a liter of oil from LE98 to LE70 and fresh Sudanese meat dropped to LE320 from LE480.

In 2003, the Americans invaded Iraq and established a Federal Republic which just celebrated its 21st birthday. The Republic strongly discourages the entertainment industry from referencing the Baathists. Now this could have been forgiven but there is a character named Mahdi and this angered conservatives as his name resembles the messiah in Islam, also named Mahdi. So in a twist, the television drama spurred national drama with one set of Iraqis angry to see Baathists on their television set and another set angry to see a character named Mahdi on their television set as well.

This may sound strange as the image of Arabs is that of backwards stupid fanatics and so many would be wondering why Lamia Kan hasn’t been stoned to death yet or why Hala al-Turk and her co-singer aren’t wearing hijabs or even niqabs. It may be surprising but Arabs are human beings and so like other human societies, have similarities and tastes that are understandable, they are a different society.

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In Ramadan 2021, the show 2020 Arab viewers were treated to 31 episodes of Lebanese police captain Sama and her hunt for a notorious drug lord in the country. Arabs watched as actress Nadine Nassib Njeim engaged in gun battles with drug traffickers and ultimately killed the bad guys.

Henceforth, Mahdi (a main character by the way) has been written out of the show and all scenes including him have been removed.

Al Jazeera published a scathing critique of the event and saw it as not an isolated incident but a disturbing pattern.

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Western entertainment has had religious characters before and portraying them negatively is the norm. An example that springs to mind is the American film The Mist (2007) where an experiment goes haywire and monsters overrun a town. Survivors hide out in a supermarket where a devout Christian woman, Mrs. Carmody, whips up a religious fervor arguing God is punishing the town while a group of naysayers led by the main character, David, plot their escape. While this is a Western staple, outside of Egypt, this is unacceptable in Arab media.

For instance, the Egyptian government organizes a market known as Ahlan Ramadan

Arabs are more statist. If the American or French government banned a television show and then forbade the actors from ever working again, this would see unified uproar and opposition.

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Unlike the US, the Arab World doesn’t have a history of anti-racism activism and so there has rarely been criticism of how other ethnicities are depicted on the big screen in the past. Arab societies are nationalistic (yes, tribalism is a myth) and even xenophobic to a degree and so those perceived as outsiders are often portrayed negatively. The 2018 episode is unique because for the first time, an actor apologized.

Western societies value multiculturalism and the establishment of inclusive safe spaces. This sees the stigmatization of racism and other forms of bigotry.

Arab societies are more sensitive to religious depictions.

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Like I said, this is complicated but by just talking about television we’ve learned several things

A scene from the series, one critique was that it depicted Kuwaiti women as vapid and spoiled

This is also why you tend to see Arab societies be more open to generalization and collective punishment. Moroccan women are negatively stereotyped as promiscuous and so frequently you’ll see a Saudi campaign to deport all the “prostitutes” from the kingdom.

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I) Ramadan 2018: the blackface incident

The story is about an upper class woman who runs a school with her wealthy husband only to discover he has been leading a double life, allowing the series to provide comedy, drama and a sense of mystery using sensitive topics such as polygamy which provoked certain sectors of Kuwaiti society who pushed for the government to take action which it did. Just before Ramadan ended, the state banned the series from airing and informed the Kuwaiti actors that they would never again be allowed to work in the Emirate (they could abroad though).

The series was a hit and Njeim would reprise the role in Ramadan 2024 with a second series/season named 2024. This time however, the studio cut the season to 15 episodes.

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Western societies are individualist, irreligious, and multiculturalist.

Character dealing with party officials in the original 1997 season

Arabs also have the same crop of celebrities that Westerners have. Using music quickly:

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However the Federal Republic was less aggressive than Kuwait. As the series doesn’t glorify Baathists, it’ll forgive it for including them but Parliament did ask the showrunners to re-release their series and remove every scene that had Mahdi. The studio agreed.

Egypt, has seen an importation of the Western staple though and so nowadays, its Ramadan season will see several Carmody-like characters. However, Egypt is not at the point yet where it would be open to a depiction of God or a prophet, another common feature in Western media.

I bring this up because as I often write on Quora, the world isn’t a vacuum. Societies are shaped by many factors as one can now see with Arab television culture which is influenced by religion + economic factors.

You have the taboo such as the singer Lamia Kan who published a song titled Dominant that was about an overbearing girlfriend

For instance if you like action then you have 2020 and 2024

Obviously this isn’t the case for every Arab or Westerner. While the West frowns upon bigotry, there are users on Quora whose answers are just a series of white supremacy. While the Arab World doesn’t care about bigotry, there are Arabs who call it out and urge other Arabs to stigmatize those who hold bigoted views and refuse to reform.

In 2024, a Lebanese-Kuwait series, One Wife is not enough was released. While some series (like Block Ghashmarah respect social mores, or lack of taboos), sometimes series seek to provoke debates and that’s what the series did.

حلا الترك و مشاعل بنيتي الحبوبة | Hala Alturk & Mashael - Bnayty ElHabooba

So an Arab family that typically spends $300 on necessities every month, gets to spend only $250 in Ramadan which means that for once, they have a spare $50. This has spurred Arab television studios to plan their entire year around Ramadan and also shapes how Arab series are structured. Unlike Americans who have a weekly format (“Tune in next Friday at 8PM to find out what happens next!”) Arabs instead commonly have a daily format with some series have 30 episodes for every day of Ramadan.

Since Ramadan is the “prime month”, every year Arabs excitedly wait for the listings to be revealed and decide what series to watch for the month. There are websites that even compile lists for this purpose like Vogue Arabia which released an English language article telling readers the must watch series of Ramadan 2024.

Stock image of Arab family watching television

The Mist scene, Mrs Carmody (center) denouncing other survivors

Finally you have the child celebrity who makes family-friendly content and then reveals a dark past later such as Hala al-Turk who ironically published a song titled I love you mama only to later reveal her mother had stolen a portion of her earnings and so she cut off ties.

Culture is shaped by many factors (Arab television culture being the product of religion + economics)

Days after I visited the Talaat Harb branch, Supply Minister Ali Meselhy announced that the price of an 800 ml bottle of mixed oil, a cheaper option than pure cooking oils, had been reduced to LE65 from LE70 in all Ahlan Ramadan exhibitions and outlets across the country.

Lamis Kan - Mesaytara (Official Music Video)| لميس كان - مسيطرة #lamiskan #mesaytara #مسيطرة

Yes. We’d need a whole book for it so let’s focus on just three controversies in two parts.

For decades, Black Iraqis like the man above have been excluded from the entertainment industry with roles going to lighter-skinned actors in blackface instead

Arab societies, however, not only expect the state to enforce social mores but actively encourage it too. It was the Kuwaiti public that demanded the Emir take action, not the other way around. This may be due to the collectivism in Arab societies and the individualism of Western societies.

The two actors in blackface

The series will be familiar and most can probably think of a domestic alternative to it.

In the Ramadan spirit, states and companies offer discounts meaning that it’s possible to have money left over

Growing up in the United States, I grew accustomed to the American television culture where TV studios would produce programs and release them at “prime time”, typically a weekend night. This was pretty different from the television culture my parents grew up with in Morocco as Arabs don’t have “prime time” television but rather “prime month” television.

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Arab societies are monoculturalist, nationalist, religious and statist.

Arab societies value monoculturalism and reject the concept of inclusivity which means that unlike in the West, one will have minimal reputational damage for being a racist or a bigot.

For Ramadan shapes how Arabs treat TV