-
An Upper Egyptian in the American Press
- SAIS Review
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 20, Number 2, Summer-Fall 2000
- pp. 207-216
- 10.1353/sais.2000.0029
- Review
- Additional Information
- Purchase/rental options available:
SAIS Review 20.2 (2000) 207-216
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Film Review
An Upper Egyptian in the American Press: Journalistic Misreadings of Sa'idi in the American University
Walter Armbrust
Sa'idi in the American University (Sa'idi fi al-Jami'a al-Amerikiyya), 120 min., in Arabic with English subtitles. Directed by Sa'id Hamid, produced by al-'Adl Group, 1998.
It is rare for American or European journalists to write about Egyptian films. When they do so, they often flatten all differences within genres, and sometimes generalize far beyond what a limited number of examples, or sometimes even just a single film, can support. Take, for example, an Associated Press (AP) article about the 1998 comedy Sa'idi in the American University entitled "Egyptian Comedy Angers Israel." Here are the first few lines:
A hit film that pokes fun at Westernized Egyptians has managed to anger Israel and the American University in Cairo as well as point up deep differences in this Arab country's society. Sa'idi in the American University tells the story of Khalaf, a bumpkin southern Egyptian who wins a scholarship to study at the university whose students--many from Cairo's upper class--are known for their Americanized attitudes. 1
The article makes a great deal of the film's alleged pointing up of "deep differences" in Egyptian society. Never mind that Egyptian films have always focused on such differences, and never mind that this particular film, like hundreds of Egyptian films before it, actually [End Page 207] advocates social harmony between "Westernized" elites and the rest of Egyptian society. This and other articles in the U.S. press on Sa'idi in the American University fit into a larger pattern of "Egypt watching" for the purpose of trying to predict when the country's social contradictions will become so great that the entire thing will blow up in everyone's face. The range of topics covered by American journalism is depressingly narrow; it looks for a few marketable themes: social turmoil, Islamic "fundamentalism," sectarian tensions, poverty, and overpopulation. While all real issues, these are by no means sufficient bases for conveying to readers in the United States what Egypt is like. Coverage of Sa'idi in the American University fits the larger pattern: the film was interpreted as an element in an anti-Semitic wave allegedly sweeping through Egypt. Such anti-Semitism becomes the "cause" of Arab-Israeli conflict rather than policies that might be framed in terms other than "ethnic hatred." The film was, however, a more complex phenomenon than American journalistic accounts would have us believe.
Sa'idi in the American Universitytells the story of Khalaf, a student from Upper Egypt (the term sa'idi refers to someone from Upper, that is, Southern, Egypt in Arabic) who, by virtue of achieving the highest score in the country on the national college entrance exam, receives a scholarship to attend the expensive private American University in Cairo (AUC). The humor in the situation comes from the juxtaposition of local stereotypes. Sa'idis are stereotyped as very traditional, unintelligent, and obsessed with honor--an internal "other" opposed to the modern national Egyptian identity. 2 AUC students have the reputation of being morally suspect and culturally compromised cosmopolitans, more comfortable in foreign languages than in Arabic. 3 Unsurprisingly, the narrative revolves around Khalaf's attempts to do the impossible, namely, to become accepted in the ultra-rich and inauthentic world of the nominally Westernized. Khalaf's breakthrough comes during a student demonstration on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Israel. One of his friends draws an Israeli flag on a sheet; when spotted by university security personnel, the young man is immediately apprehended. He throws the flag before the security officers are able to grab him. Khalaf catches the flag and ignites it. The students cheer and the impossible happens: a country boy from Upper Egypt has breaks into the elitist world of the AUC.
The film was noticed far beyond Egypt for three primary reasons. First, because of the flag-burning scene. Second...