It’s hard to miss the huge billboard ads on the Ring Road and 6th of October Bridge. Massive movie advertisements momentarily whisking our attention away from the road. It is in that moment I realized something I haven’t really thought of before, “Why are all these movies only led by male protagonists?”
The last time I went to see an Arabic movie was back in 2013 and one would think with feminism on the rise and women dominating the silver screen in Hollywood that females would have bigger roles in TV, but unfortunately this still does not apply in Egyptian cinema.
Yasmine Abd el Aziz in El-Dadda Doody — Via Layaly
I bought a ticket for Tamer Hosny’s new movie El Badla and it came as no surprise that women to this day, still play the role of the-cute-and-sexy-love interest. Seriously? Are women destined to only play romantic partners and arm candies in movies till the end of time? When was the last time we had a woman playing a lead role in big movies other than Yasmine Abd el Aziz, who happens to play very stereotyped roles only made for the eyes of children?
We have to admit that we have a crisis in the movie industry in terms of gender. Let us take a look at some of the Egyptian movies that came out this year:
Via El Konafa
Guess what they all have in common? They are all led by male protagonists. The industry is dominated by men, regardless of having amazingly talented women of all ages who are just as good, or even better than their male counterparts.
There was a time when Egyptian actresses dominated the screen and male actors took secondary roles. Examples such as Leila Murad in the 1940s where she earned 12,000 EGP which is the equivalent of 40 million EGP today, and Nadia el Gindi in the 1980s who was Adel Emam’s biggest competition.
It also comes as no surprise that women are now paid way less than men when it comes to the Egyptian film industry. Egypt Independent states “The return of actresses to starring roles is good from a production point of view, especially as actresses are only paid a quarter of the sums paid to male actors.” Yes, you read that right, so according to the magazine, hiring women and providing them with more jobs is cheaper and thus we should make more female lead movies to save money.
Ruby, Dorra Zarouk and Nelly Karim (from left to right) in Segn El Nessah — Via Veto Gate
When asked about the lack of female-lead movies in Egypt, Kamla Abou Zekri, who directed some of the best female-lead movies and TV shows in Egypt such as Segn El Nessah, Bent Esmaha Zaat and Wa7et el Ghroob, said “The absence of women in major cinematic roles in Egypt has to do with the decline in society’s attitude towards women. Women today are not as appreciated as they once were. In the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s and even the ’80s, women were dominating the lead roles in movies, actresses such as Faten Hamama and Soad Hosny were in high demand, but now, demand for women-lead movies are at an all-time low due to the changing mindset of our society.”
So the only question to ask is, “What happened to our society? Why the sudden shift from an almost equal ratio of male and female-led movies to women-led roles being non-existent?”
