Abdullah Al-Mazhar

Makkah newspaper

There was a time when I was absolutely convinced that each Egyptian had a small bar in his house and offered alcohol to guests when they visited. I did not reach this conclusion about 60 million Egyptians overnight. I was led to believe this because of Egyptian films, because all of the heroes in Egyptian movies seem to have small bars in their homes.

I was almost convinced as well that every Kuwaiti lived in a palace, regardless of whether they were rich or poor, good or bad. I thought all Kuwaitis were rich and that half of them owned companies while the other half worked to steal from the first half. I thought Kuwaiti women often suffered from swelling to the face, lips and other parts of the body. I formed this perception and stereotype about Kuwaitis from Kuwaiti dramas.

Later, I discovered that Egyptians do not have bars in their houses and that Kuwaitis were like us – they are of different financial circumstances.

The view that art is a mirror of society is not true all of the time. Some TV programs or films might truthfully reflect the life of people but this is not the rule. I suggest that producers of TV dramas should stop claiming that the programs that they produce reflect a true image of society, because this is not the case. We know and they know that they are after only one thing and that is money.

I tried to imagine the stereotype non-Saudis have formed about the Kingdom from Saudi TV, but I could not reach any conclusions. I hear voices in my head similar to the ones produced by computers in which there are many errors.