Performing Piety: Singers and Actors in Egypt's Islamic Revival

Part One. The 1980s: Celebrating Piety

( part one ) The 1980s celebrating piety C elebrities reflect, reinforce, and have the power to transform the social, political, and cultural context in which they live.They are icons and trendsetters. Stars are not only entertainers, but also idols, models, and educators. They celebrate and legitimate certain lifestyles. Celebrities thus have a great impact on public consciousness and debate. Celebrities and celebrity culture have a cultural pervasiveness and have become integrated extensively into daily life (Turner 2004, 17).The huge importance of celebrities for everyday life is expressed in the concept of celebrification . Initially developed by Gamson (1994) to indicate the use by politicians of Hollywood presentational skills and codes, the concept has been widened by Rojek (2001). According to Rojek: “Celebrification proposes that ordinary identity formation and general forms of social interaction are patterned and inflected by the styles, embodied attitudes and conversational flows developed through celebrity culture” (2001, 16). Celebrities have been studied as personifications of inauthentic media constructs and as superficial fabrications. Celebrity culture has been analyzed as a “pseudo-event” entirely staged by mass-mediated popular culture (see also Turner 2004, 5). Marshall (1997) and Turner (2004), though, have analyzed celebrities and celebrity culture as prime locations for the construction of cultural identity and as forms of cultural power. Celebrities not only influence lifestyle, fashion, consumption patterns, and cultural identity, but have also increasingly become touchstones for discussing political, social, and moral issues (Van den Bulck and Tambuyzer 2008). Celebrities are involved in political activities, fund-raising, and welfare, a development that Turner (2004) labels the “celebritisation” of politics.Celebrity culture is also an arena in which media and public engage in ethical discussions and negotiations. In the media, celebrities are no longer merely analyzed as “trivial” representa- ( 14 ) The 1980s tives of popular culture, they also figure in public discourses on ethical selfmaking and social engagements. The Egyptian stars are a clear example of this development. By veiling, distancing themselves from “immoral” arts, and promoting veiling and pious lifestyles, they have become a central means for discussing moral and religious issues in Egypt. Most of the Egyptian performers with whom this book is concerned are celebrities. The literature sometimes distinguishes among celebrities, stars, and personalities. Stars are mainly related to the film industry and personalities to TV, whereas celebrity is a more generic term. Most of my Egyptian informants were stars, although it is not up to me to decide whether they belong —or used to belong—to the A, B, or C level within the Egyptian star system , and some have returned as veiled TV personalities. Most of them have been able to retain fame even after veiling, retiring, or (re)turning to the production of pious arts. According to some journalists, these activities have even added to their renown.Whereas I will use insights from celebrity studies, this book is not intended as research on celebrity culture as such. I will not delve into the historical process by which celebrities have become powerful as role models; rather, I will work from that assumption to investigate what changing messages and models they provide for emulation by discerning audiences. I am particularly interested in the ways they have come to celebrate piety and how they use their fame to spread a pious discourse and lifestyle. I will thus provide a specific example of the “celebritisation of piety.” Rojek (2001) distinguishes several approaches in the field of celebrity studies. These are subjectivism, structuralism, and poststructuralism. Subjectivist accounts of celebrities focus on the personal characteristics of stars and locate their fame in their unique talents. These studies often take the form of biographies of celebrities. I will also use a biographical approach and start every chapter with a life story of one of the stars. The performers’ own narratives will be reconstructed based on personal interviews and media sources. However, I will focus on their religious transformations rather than their professional careers. I will briefly describe the way they have become star performers and provide some information on their professional lives, but I will particularly outline their spiritual journeys. For that reason I use the notion of spiritual biography instead of life story.The spiritual stories of the performers and their careers, though, are interwoven: their professional lives show radical ruptures and transformations upon their repentance and veiling. The performers ’ narratives on religious transformations will be deconstructed, and the devotional imagery will be analyzed. Their biographies will not merely be treated as unique expressions of individual personalities...