In the 70’s Arabic movies revolved around a simple love story. I’m going to talk about Arabic media and relationships because that’s what I’m concerned about. Egyptian movies -which were the media representation of that time- basically represented (pure love) very sincere, honest, and too good to be actually true! It was the kind of love that the two lovers where ready to sacrifice their own lives for the sake of it, the very popular Arabic phrase (ma2darsh a3eesh men 3eerek) meaning (I can’t LIVE without you). Love ‘back then’ was the logical introduction for marriage and the love stories (most of the times) ended up with a beautiful marriage ceremony. I think those ideas matched the norms and believes back then, I’m not saying its 100% right ,but it used to happen, and I’m suggesting that it should have been deeper and more realistic. However now a days relationships got so complicated as well s every thing else, I am confused in this case, I think it’s like the question of which one came first: the egg or the chicken? I don’t know which really comes first :the idea is society created and the media represents it a (case that exists), or the media people want to squeeze the idea in the audience heads so they represent it and try to convince people it could happen, well I think both ways work.
but recently what have made it even more complicated is that we started comparing western relationships to eastern ones ,as if they are the same ,and I think that we know ,but don’t want to admit that both are totally deferent and can’t be compared, because each have their own culture. Recently (Arabic movies) have turned to (American movies with Arabic actors), including all the ideas that we didn’t have but are expected to have because it’s 21st century or what so ever! I think the complication came from the random merge that happened to many cultures recently. All Relationships are an important thing to be discussed in media because almost all people share the need for emotional commitment and sharing, and I think any movie or program of media that emotionally evolves the audience gets to be effective. So, having a love story or a nice relationship in movies is not the problem, but how it’s being presented, how intense and repeated, is what makes it acceptable or not.