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Nourhane Sharafeddine
“Hello to the newlyweds, we’ve brought you sweets on a tray. Tell us, how did that first night go? Show us the proof of honor.” It is with this sentence that a mother congratulates her daughter on her marriage in front of the family and the whole village, demanding proof of the bride’s “honor”—that is, proof that she was a “virgin” on her wedding night. The mother does indeed get this proof; the daughter makes a cut in her hand and smears the blood on a white sheet to prove her “virginity.”
This is a scene from the Lebanese-Syrian series A’a Amal, a show that boldly addresses women’s issues for the first time.
A’a Amal exposes the maliciousness of media institutions
In this series, a joint Lebanese and Syrian production written by Nadine Jaber, directed by Rami Hanna, and produced by Jamal Sannan, the journalist Yassar—played by Maguy Bou Ghosn—sheds light on the difficulties faced by women in the media field, even the most successful and influential among them.
The media appears as a means to shed light on women’s problems but also as a means to exert pressure used to blackmail them. This is what Yassar had to go through when photos of her and her daughter were leaked, accusing her of being a “sugar mama” who associates herself to young girls and spends money on them. She is also “accused” of belonging to the LGBTQ community, as the patriarchal system that loves to praise the concept of the family and sanctify women’s roles within it simultaneously deplores families of women who reject patriarchal mechanisms.
But whether the media is supporting or attacking women, the priority lies in the trend, in the money that the owners of these media outlets are receiving. If women decide to take a neutral position to protect themselves or their families, employment contracts are often cancelled or these women are punished on the pretext that their opinions are in opposition to the media outlet’s trend—as occurred with Yassar.
These measures foster division among female media professionals by stoking “jealousy” and unfair competition, despite the fact that these women may be working on totally different content. A’a Amal hints at the notion that women are each other’s enemies by having a female colleague of Yassar’s leak the photos of her. Coincidentally, she is also a media personality who presents herself and her work in a stereotypically faithful manner. Her assistant keeps calling her “Barbie,” in reference to her beauty.
In a parallel world, a Muslim family is living in what appears to be a remote Lebanese village. This is a detail that doesn’t add much to the plot and doesn’t impact the show’s dramatic escalation. It sparked audience criticism about the stereotypical way that hijabi women are usually portrayed in soap operas: they are usually depicted as abusers.
The veiled woman appears as a “second wife” after the first wife is unable to conceive. But even she is always being threatened with a “third wife” because she hasn’t conceived “the boy,” and the man also used the “third wife” card when Wife 1 and Wife 2 are fighting.
The “third wife” thus turns into a threat, any notion of humanity stripped from her. The creators of the series do not mention her except in the context of reward and punishment; if the two wives “disobey,” the man threatens them with a third—a third who never appears unless the two women stray from his “command.” The “third wife” is painted as someone unwanted but who would ironically undoubtedly want this husband, a man who only ever mentions her as a threat or refrains from mentioning her as a reward.
Lebanese journalist and critic Rabih Farran belives that “some soap operas portray rural and veiled women—and Muslim women in particular—as violent, which reveals the writer’s ignorance. It is a false stereotype that completely fails to take reality into account, because violence against women is not limited to a specific religion or sect but is unfortunately common to all sects. We need to have more neutral characters who are not made to symbolize any particular religion or environment.”
The show 2024: Selectively protecting women
Despite the stereotypical images and patriarchal fallacies reproduced in some female roles, it is still important and necessary to bring up women’s issues.
The 2024 series is a continuation of the previous 2020, written by Bilal Shehadat and directed by Philip Asmar—a joint Lebanese-Syrian production. The first part of the series tells the story of Captain Sama Akl, played by Nadine Nassib Njeim, who makes it her mission to take revenge on her brothers’ killers, a terrorist militia that also lives in a remote village.
In the first part, Njeim wears the hijab to conceal her identity after she enters the house of Safi al-Deeb disguised as a domestic worker. Al-Deeb—the head of the militia—is played by the Syrian actor Kosai Khauli. Ironically, Njeim wears the hijab in her new life after she gives up the identity of captain and becomes a poor woman looking for a way to secure her livelihood, before she falls in love with Safi al-Deeb who proved his love to her by refusing to kill her.
Security forces helped Sama hide in a remote village with her daughter for three years to protect her, while Safi al-Deeb’s child is captured, and the former kills himself.
In the new season, Sama is allowed to return to the city after security services in Lebanon arrest Nazem al-Deeb, the militia’s mastermind. His son returns from abroad to take revenge on Sama and kidnaps her daughter, so she takes it upon herself to get her back.
The funny thing is that the security apparatus which fails, in reality, to punish violent people, harassers, and rapists, which failed to put an end to the brutal campaign against media personality Yassar, which failed to protect the woman whose husband killed her in A’a Amal, succeeds in protecting Sama and her daughter from danger and places them in a shelter. The difference between the two series sheds light on which category of women will be protected by security forces—the women who have some form of power or solid relationships with security forces, making them superior to the violent party, while weaker women are left to their fate.
Rabih Farran explained, in this context, “It’s a good thing to be addressing women’s issues. We have strong female talent, but scripts are not usually in their favor, because screenwriters are what’s lacking in Lebanon. Scripts strip actresses of their prestige, and the weaker the script, the worse—and more common—the show. We need new stories we haven’t yet tackled, we need stories that have already been told to be shown through a different lens, we need new actors to create dramas that appeal to everyone, that address all segments of society and meets all conditions.”
Despite the stereotypical images and patriarchal fallacies that were reproduced in some roles played by Lebanese actresses during the current Ramadan season, it is still important and necessary to bring up these issues. They are a big part of lived reality that is absent from our TV shows, just like most issues that make women’s lives more difficult.
