Let's talk about 'Sex' - and the Middle East
There comes a time in every person’s life when they are faced with an embarrassing conversation about sex. In the Middle East, every conversation about sex is embarrassing – that is if sex is discussed at all. But the popularity of shows such as "Sex and the City," which people can see via U.S. channels by satellite, makes you wonder how much of that uncomfortable feeling around the subject of sex is innate and how much of it is imposed by a society that considers sex, religion and politics as taboo.
In some parts of the Middle East, men and women may like the characters of "Sex and the City" and even imitate their looks and lifestyle but to have a conversation about one’s sexuality is considered inappropriate. In an emergency, if a most basic health-related sex subject is to be opened, it forces people to lower their voices and even speak in code to minimize embarrassment.
More than 20 countries make up the Arab Middle East. Their traditions and customs are as varied and as colorful as their local dress, food and dialects. The contrast between the two extremes can be shocking and serves as a perfect example for the West to stop lumping every Arab under the umbrella of the “Arab World.”
Lebanon is a good example of the liberal pro-Western extreme, where a half-naked woman with Botox-injected lips can show off her silicon-filled breasts on the same street as another woman covered in a black abaya from head to toe.
On the other side of this extreme equation is Saudi Arabia, where a woman doesn’t even have the right to drive a car or even be present in a public place without being accompanied by a male “guardian.”
Abu Dhabi, one of seven emirates of the Gulf nation of the United Arab Emirates, won’t allow "Sex and the City 2" to be shown in its theaters, although the movie supposedly takes place in the emirate. The producers weren’t even allowed to film scenes in the UAE and ended up shooting most of the film in Morocco.
Simon Diep was Studio Manager at Sony for four years and has been in the entertainment and film business for over a decade. He said the ban is nothing out of the ordinary for the UAE and the entire region. Diep explained that movies are usually pre-screened for “offensive content.” Some are banned, while others pass the censors.
“Usually sexual scenes or what censors might deem inappropriate for the audience is edited out," Diep said.
In the case of "Sex and the City," simply cutting out scenes wasn’t going to solve the problem.
“The title and the subject matter are the culprit,” he said.
According to Diep, having posters with the word “sex” plastered on billboards across the country and in movie theaters “is just not something we see here.”
The first "Sex and the City" movie wasn’t shown either, so this rules out the fact that the new movie depicts Arabs in a not-so-flattering way, as some critics have indicated. But for someone who has worked in film in the Middle East for a long while, Diep said, “Everything and anything can be the reason to ban a movie from theaters.”
He says sometimes films are rejected and then accepted and there were occasions of films being accepted and then pulled off the market after stirring up controversy. He lists "Brokeback Mountain" as a movie that was banned in the UAE but shown in other Arab countries such as Oman, Bahrain and Lebanon. However, "The Da Vinci Code" was banned all over the Arab world but shown in the UAE.
“Some countries ban movies based on politics, others for religious reasons," Diep said.
He said "Superbad" was banned for “vulgarity” and “Pineapple Express" was banned because of the subject of drugs.
Interestingly, the movie "Don’t Mess With the Zohan" was banned from theaters because of its Israeli subject matter, but it was allowed to be distributed as home entertainment, Diep said. He is quick to point out that while these cases may sound extreme, the UAE remains one of the “moderate Arab countries” in its approach to movie censorship.
"Sex in the City" or not, Arabs live in a desert of extremes shaped by varying degrees of government practices. They range from limited freedoms, to controlled openness, all the way to closed-mindedness and flat-out oppression.
With the absence of real democracies in the Arab Middle East, it is a given that governments are in control. They decide what is good for their citizens, or subjects, if you think that most of the Arab nations are monarchies.
The view echoes a famous line from a Lebanese satire on this subject that says, “Don’t think, we will think for you. Don’t speak, we will speak for you.”
As for the "Sex and the City 2" saga, Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha can have their week in Abu Dhabi, but the real Abu Dhabi is turning a cold shoulder to all four and anyone who might protest their ban.
