CAIRO - "They will come to learn in the end, at their own expense, that it is better to endure competition for rich customers than to be invested with monopoly over impoverished customer,” Frederic Bastiat, the French classical liberal theorist, once said. How the Egyptian film audiences have become such an impoverished audience with the over-use of not just stories, but the stars as well! However, it's not just in Egypt, but Hollywood is also becoming a joke for their lack of stories and by flooding the screen with remakes and sequels. This year sets a record with 51 sequels ready to hit the screen. This has also been a consistent problem in India's Bollywood as well. In Egyptian cinema though, that lack of originality is not just the issue, but rather it is the lack of new faces. The entertainment industry, specifically television and cinema has become something of a monopoly; certain stars see the screen as their home, whether people want to see them on it or not. I guess we shouldn't have been so surprised to see how the now-deposed Hosni Mubarak had such hard time coming to grip with the fact that he didn't really own Egypt. But I guess some stars should come to that realisation that they don't own a part of the screen. Every year, whether in cinema or on television, we see the same set of stars. On television, there's almost always a soap opera for Nour el Sherif, Salah el Sa'adni , Yahia el Fakhrani, Yousra, Elham Chahin, Leila Elwi, and so on. They are all, of course, mostly followed by the same writers and directors. When it comes to cinema, every year there are films for Mohamed Henadi , Adel Imam, Ahmed Mekky, Ahmed Hilmy, etc. usually having two films like there were last year, and so on. This type of monopoly is not just unfair to other people in the industry, but to the audience as well. This is not just seeing the same story over and over again, but to also see the same people on the screen over and over again as well. Considering that many people in Egypt are illiterate, the three major sources of popular culture are music, film, and television. While the music industry is an entirely another different kind of beast, the association of Egyptian popular culture with film and television, as well as the connection between the two is pretty clear. Of course, we all know how Egypt has produced the most films in the Arab world (and probably the most television serials), so the identification of Egypt with Arab popular culture itself is well-established. Could it be that these stars, thus becoming the “faces” of Egyptian and Arab popular culture, have begun to think that they are the popular culture? If so, this is even more of a reason for a shake-up. With the so-called “black list” of those who were against the revolution, many of these people also happen to be the same ones who have really overstayed their welcomes. While this latter point is less applicable to those artists, which spoke out strongly in favour of the revolution (Sherihan, Ahmed Hilmy, Mona Zaki, etc.), many film stars have tried to present themselves as being “of the people,” thus increasing their identification with the popular culture. However, when the time came to show their support for the will of the people of Egypt, some of these artists (Tal'at Zakaraya, Adel Imam) showed their true colours. One might argue that “no, there have been many films in recent years that starred relatively unknown young actors like “A'zz As7ab” (“Best of Friends,” 2009) “Banat wa Walad” (“A Girl and A Boy,” 2009), “Alwan Tabi'ya” (“Natural Colours,” 2010), and so on, but most of these films don't actually get the same production value as those featuring other big stars do. However, Hollywood films, or more specifically, independent films, which might be produced with less money sometimes succeed precisely because they thrive more on creativity and so become better films than those with high production costs. But we have seen that the youth of Egypt can accomplish anything; they just need to be given a chance to do so. They can't just be set on the sidelines anymore; instead of having of all these big-time directors saying “we have been talking about this in our movies,” why don't they step aside for a while, and let the struggling, emerging artist work at their craft? Or better yet, perhaps sponsor one of these emerging artists, hopefully without too many stipulations on their work, and freedom of creative control. That would be more of a “thank you” than whatever you can express in any films they might make. The youth of Egypt have shown what can they do, and will probably turn out better movies than those mostly seen at the theaters today. This is not to discredit or disrespect old timers; there's a lot of directors who Egypt should be very proud of, like Yousri Nasrallah , Mohamed Khan, and others. But there are still those who seem to have control of the industry, and when there is a new emerging artist or filmmaker, it seems to always turn out that they're related to someone in the industry i.e. nepotism. The cinema has become a family business, just like the Gamal Mubarak thought he had the right to be the next president of Egypt, they seem to think their offspring have the right to be given the chance over people who might and probably are more talented.
