10 things you won’t see on TV during Ramadan

1. Drug references

Egypt is a country famous for its piety and conservatism. Television is watched by millions of young people — especially in the Muslims’ precious month of fasting and intensive worshipping — who might be influenced by content that suggests or shows use of narcotics. Particularly as we don’t really like age ratings because they’re too mainstream. So if you stumble onto one or two or four television series in Ramadan in which most of the events are about recreational drugs or the recreational drugs market in Egypt, written with the shallowest possible take on the story, it’s your fault.

2. Belly dancing

Belly dancing is a favorite genre of entertainment for lots of Egyptians. A lot of intellectuals even refer to it in arguments about the (true) cultural Egyptian identity that was threatened with being wiped out under Islamism. A lot of these intellectuals fail to notice the patriarchal context in which this art is invariably presented: The amusement tends to come from the male joy of watching a female figure performing seductive moves. Maybe this is where religious conservatism will — inshallah — manage to protect women and their bodies from being used in that way, and stop scenes of nightclubs and half-naked women dancing for drunk customers of hitting the screens at random times when anybody could be watching. Or maybe religious conservatism won’t. It will also be your fault.

3. Sex outside marriage

It doesn’t happen in real life so it doesn’t make sense to see it on TV. Ramadan or not Ramadan, this is nonsense and you should totally forget about it. Especially if you expect to watch it being discussed in the light of concepts like personal freedoms or postmodern liberties or any of that crap. We promise you that if any examples of sex outside marriage make it onto Ramadan television series they will only be extremely flat gossip like stories of adultery.

4. Violence

Well first of all, you probably know how peaceful things are in Egypt, right? But art is about imagination so a lot of writers like to imagine that there is a person from a poor neighborhood in Egypt making a living out of practicing violence. They even made up a weird name for this job: baltagy (thug). Anyway, we as a society wouldn’t tolerate the appearance of such stories on our television screens, and even if we did we wouldn’t allow more than four shows a year with the same plot.

5. Money

Ghada Abdel Razik will have it all.

6. Police

No need to put any extra load on their already confused job description. If necessary Ahmad al-Saqa will hopefully act in exactly the same way he has been acting since he started his acting career. Just like the police.

7. Cleavage

People have different definitions of it. But Ghada Abdel Razik will have it all.

8. Comedy

I know I might have failed you on some of the prior promises — especially if you’re reading this article during Ramadan — but comedy is one thing that I can sincerely promise you will not find on Ramadan television. And seriously, if you do find anything you see on television generally funny, it’s definitely your fault.

9. Upper Egypt

We refuse the shallow dramatic exploitation of Upper Egypt as a place of family conflicts and power struggles acted out by actors and actress who can’t even do the accent(s). Upper Egypt is a place where poverty, bad education and the government’s failure to carry out its responsibilities are all around you. Recent political changes show how vast masses of Egyptians living there are being manipulated by political players for selfish gains. So we will not continue to make shows about family conflicts and power struggles.

10. Nothing

You’ll find nothing on television next Ramadan, because that’s the point. Ramadan has always been a time for businessmen investing in media and production to make money out of nothing. Because the majority of the population are eating at the same time for 30 days, and a lot of people are extremely tired the whole day, not working because they didn’t eat anything, Ramadan (the month of worship) is a perfect time for lots of people to sit down in front of their television screens and watch nothing. This year, the nothingness will be extra useful, because it’s the first Ramadan after a long year of turbulence, instability, uncertainty and political teasing. It’s beneficial for everyone to just sit down and do nothing for 30 days and just let the new president do his thing.