Imad Abdel Razeq reviews the film "The Night Baghdad Fell" (in Arabic) and sees the only problem with it is in the casting of a not-so-funny character. Oh, I can live with that.
He wasn't bothered one bit by the sexual politics of the movie, about its retarded view of Arab masculintiy, about which I ranted here. In fact, he thinks the movie is great and deep in its use of sexual relations to talk about power and domination. You know, this is how the Cairo street talks, he tells us.
But the sad truth is that he misses the point (could it be because he agrees with it?) that the view of power and domination in sexual terms is offered only from a very narrow masculinist perspective where domination of women (and "lesser" men) is the only form of dignified sexuality. As the director said, in "our" culture, the man is the "fa3el"(the doer) and the woman (and certain men, I'd add) is the "maf3oul behe" (the receiver of action).
I'm not really surprised at this reaction, but I still want to scream.
It's a shallow shallow movie, its only redeeming feature is that a feminist like me can use it to make a point. After screaming.
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