Saturday, October 02, 2010

Ighra': is she a Arab feminist?

Her name is Ighra' and not Igraa as it is misspelled or mistransliterated in the New York Times.  My comrade/friend Hicham wrote this about this piece on his Facebook page:  "The Jumanah Haddad of Syria, colonial feminism at its best....Igraa wants to liberate the east from its pratriarchy by taking off her clothes in a movie and telling people in the west that this kind of talk could get her hanged...and you wonder why secularism and leftist discousre in the Arab world don't garner 10% support among the population."  Now Angry Arab speaks on this issue:  Yes, Ighra' was daring and i have seen her movies since my teen years.  She also wrote scripts for her movies (like I die Twice and I still love you).  But the problem is with the Western skewed definition of feminism of Arab/Muslim women.  Ighra''s movies have nothing to do with feminism: the notional that playing nude scenes to sell tickets and to titillate (titillate is from the Greek word that means to tickle) sexually frustrated men is about feminism is totally wrong.  It is in fact sexism because it is about pleasing men: the men in those movies (like in the Leopard) kept their clothes on why making love to the character played by Ighra'.  Furthermore, Ighra' may have been secular and supported th regime and was close to Mustafa Tlas (the buffoon Minister of Defense in Syria) but her movie plots and role were very traditional and sexist: and relied on notions of honor and chastity.  And her character (as a brave sexually free woman) always get punished in some way, or even killed.  So soft-porn is not feminism, and neither is hard core porn.  And why do people who clearly don't know anything about feminism write about feminism, but only when it comes to the Middle East.  Women should be free to do what they want, but their freedom should be defined by them and not by "men's culture"--as radical feminist call it.