Undressing for the Arabs

Television in the Middle East is changing. A new breed of channel is offering viewers Western pop music, come-to-bed cleavages and Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?. Samia Hosny reports

An attractive brunette, cleavage bulging out of her bustier, lies on a bed in a Paris hotel. With big dark eyes, she gazes suggestively at the man across the room. A sequence of erotic shots follows, as the story of an illicit liaison unfolds.

If this were a Western music video, it would be unremarkable - albeit a little out of date. But the video in question accompanies an Arab hit song, "I Live For You", and the woman with the sultry expression is a Lebanese singer named Elissa. In its cultural context, it is striking.

Such entertainment would have been unimaginable in the Arab world a decade ago. But the advent of satellite broadcasting has opened up a new world of programme choices and visual messages that are stretching the boundaries of a conservative culture to the extreme.

Along with Elissa's blatant eroticism, there are now Arab versions of Pop Idol and Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, not to mention a game show where the prize is your weight in gold bars - and a weather girl called Carla who specialises in low-cut outfits.

There are, of course, more restrained programming options for Arab viewers too: a rambling video message from Osama bin Laden on al-Jazeera, perhaps, or the Saudi programme The Universe Around Us, where the veiled presenter announces: "Weather forecasts may be useful to us but we should bear in mind that only God can predict the future."

Perhaps unsurprisingly, such shows are losing out to the latest slew of racy satellite entertainment.

The imagined modern world of video stars such as Elissa - who is, incidentally, a Christian political science graduate - is the antithesis of Arab traditionalism. But this cultural clash is being fomented by a dozen of the more than 70 Arab satellite channels. Their audience is growing. Estimates vary widely, but anything between 20 and 60 per cent of the total Arab population are now regular viewers of satellite TV. The highest concentration of viewers is to be found among Palestinians living in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and in Saudi Arabia. And even in countries with low satellite TV ownership, such as Yemen, hotel owners install the equipment and rent out rooms for boisterous "video clips" parties.

The Egyptian commentator Husayn Abd al Quadir has dubbed the output of such entertainment channels "the weapons of singing destruction". "They are driving men crazy!" he wrote in the Egyptian newspaper Akhbar al Youm. But though traditionalists nod, they can do little to prevent the programming, broadcast from liberal Arab enclaves.

Attempts to ban the sexy singer Nancy Ajram from performing on stage in Bahrain failed. Supporters of the ban set fire to cars and threw stones before they were arrested. Nancy announced triumphantly: "I sing to take people away from politics that separates people and causes chaos in society."

Liberal intellectuals in the Arab world agree with Elissa and Ajram. "I don't think this form of entertainment has any negative effect. I see it as coming to age," says Ibrahim al Ariss, a Lebanese journalist for the pan-Arab newspaper, Al-Hayat. He lambasts Muslim fundamentalist critics. "Those who banned Lebanese singers on some Arab channels are themselves the embodiment of offensive values... A single terror act is more harmful than a song," he added. "The culture of killing and cheering the killing causes the biggest damage."

At the forefront of liberal programming now are five Lebanese private channels. One, Future TV, boasts Lebanon's Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri as its main shareholder. Another, Heya (Arabic for "she") is aimed solely at women and hosts debates that question the role of females in Arabic society. At its launch, Heya's main evening programme, Too Daring, featured women who had challenged preconceived notions of acceptable female conduct - such as a model who posed nude for artists.

It is hard for Westerners brought up in a culturally-free environment to understand the impact of these channels on an average Arab viewer, whose imagination has been, until now, shielded by a mix of self-imposed cultural conservatism and censorship imposed from above.

On Lebanese Murr TV, named after its Christian owner Gabriel Murr, viewers can watch non-stop music videos, both Western and Arab. Elissa's provocative video is increasingly typical. Mayssam Nahas, a blonde, Ursula Andress look-alike, appears in her music video "All the Longing" as a femme fatale lying on the edge of a pond fantasising about a Western-looking man. She wears a wedding dress revealing a substantial cleavage and long lean thighs. The climax is reached when her dream comes true: she jumps into the pond to land in the arms of her fantasy man. There follows a kissing scene between the soaking wet lovers. Shots of drenched female singers seem to be in.

Another novelty, in Arab terms, is the franchising of Western programme formats. One of the most popular is Pop Idol, bought from Britain's Fremantle Media by Lebanon's Future Television, who renamed it Super Star. Viewing figures for the show peaked at 20 million earlier this year, and 4.8 million voted in the first contest, which was eventually won by a Jordanian singer. Over the five months that it showed, emotions ran high. Lebanese fans stormed a Beirut television studio when their contestant lost out in the semi-final; Jordanians thronged the streets of Amman and let off fireworks to fete Diana Karzon, their victorious 19-year old compatriot.

So could interactive television lead, unwittingly, to new political awareness in the region? Al Ariss sees it as a primitive democratic exercise. "In repressive, patriarchal Arab societies everything is pre-determined for individuals at birth, even what we eat and drink. So this form of entertainment is the only opportunity for people to express their views," he says.