I do love Arts, yes all arts, do not ask which arts or how and when you loved them, you need to be me to understand! But bare with me I'll try to explain.
I'm from a generation that had only Radio and Movie theaters plus Theaters; As my father was not from the royal family neither had connections to them, his financial resources were very limited, he could not afford going to the Opera as often as they change their show, but he did manage to let us see and hear opera Aida or weekly movies like Gone with the wind, and this helped my imagination to understand what it was a step mother or better say a bad step mother, as I did see and meet step mothers that treated their step kids with humanity kindness and affection you might not see it in REAL MOTHERS! But this is not the point, but the point was that thanks to the limited arts I've got the chance to see I could understand and imagine what it was singing, dancing, acting and all other sorts of ARTS!
At a point in time my only entertainment mean was the RADIO! In the world of old old Radio programs you had News, Dedicated Programs to Kids, Youth and what so ever, and most important stories acted or told over the radio just like the most famous 1000 and 1 nights of Ramadan! By the way Ramadan of 2016 will be in a few days so HAPPY RAMADAN TO THE WHOLE HUMANITY!
Back to the point with my limited resources of all kinds of Arts I grow up appreciating Arts all arts! I could not see life Ballet, but with my limited contribution to real Ballet world I could imagine the whole dance! I could hear the music and dance with my mind or sing with the singer and so on!
As life and entertainment developed Television become available so I could rest my imagination to a more real world the world of real art! And by real art I do not mean the art was real but just I could rest my imagination watching the real dancer or singer! I does not mean their dance or singing was really artistic! However, many of them were true real artists like Farid El Tarash or Taheya Karioka!
Over time as I grow up I could place real faces to the voices I used to hear over the Radio like Zouzou Nabil the most famous Shahrzad the her sound was tied to the famous Ramadan Soap 1000 and 1 nights!
Watching real movies on TV taught me who Zaki Rostom was and Faten Hamama then Omar El Sherif!
However, the limited variable choices available on Egyptian movies made it difficult to follow who that start was and the other option was the American and French soaps, not real soaps but chain of short movies with the same actors around same theme, mystery, or suspense, comic or imaginary like spider man, or superman, new actor that over time seeing him almost daily I could learn his name by heart and expect his actions so at a point of time I found soaps interesting teaching me who Farid Shaouki was or Soher Babeli is, then a never ending soap Payton Place -I saw over 200 parts of it not to count the missing parts- and Egyptian TV tried to imitate this type of soaps where each episode is a short story with beginning and end has nothing to do with the next episode however, missing the suspense of what happens next made this type of soaps very short life to live and extend over the continuous series of soaps that spread from weekly to half monthly to monthly ones!
Here comes the main issue of this article, the continuous series of a lengthy soap for Ramadan we need it to be 30 episodes no matter what they discuss or the purpose behind this series is it to discuss an important issue or just a way of living for actors to have more and more income! And here comes many issues first of them is the actor's pay check the more famous and popular the higher his pay check but here the producer will play the longer the series the more he can reduce of the daily pay check what counts is you will be working 7 day not one day so I can reduce several thousand you still have a fat check! But 15 days series will double the reduction and so is the full month series! No matter of the boredom raised due to slowing down the pace the series was written originally it was supposed to be a 15 days series now we have to double the time but the subject was not expanded accordingly! And it becomes very very boring, without a true subject or a clear target or message to the public!
I recall movies had a message a mercy message or teaching you justice and how God would not bless injustice so many movies with a message or even just pure suspense mystery who did kill this victim or why the victim was killed even pure imaginary movie about Dracula or an evil ghost, or a ghost seeking justice after someone killed a person and got away with his crime so the ghost come for revenge! Just pure entertainment adults watch the movie to kill time but having to watch a soap for 30 days of Ramadan without a true meaning for what you watch it is just a fill up time no entertainment in it no teaching no any other meaning but to fill the space of time for 30 days of Ramadan, then worst come to movies of the feast movies full of dancers; upon the fasting of Ramadan we should not watch exciting movies or dancers this will spoil our fast so once the fast is over we are allowed to see women dancing half naked shaking their breasts and buts and we fell relived from the constricts of fasting this is pure cheep entertainment!
Oh God Please help us sustain this narrow minded mentality of Cheep arts just to get our moneys!
This is not arts it has nothing to do with real true arts, so help us God
May God keep blessing Egypt and Egyptians and his peace be upon all of you!
