A neglected wife sexting a stranger, a recently married man having multiple affairs and a likeable gay man finally coming out to old friends.
These are the main storylines in Perfect Strangers, the first Arabic-language film produced by Netflix, which has topped the platform’s most-viewed charts in Arab countries as far apart as Morocco, Egypt and Saudi Arabia since its release on January 20.
But the remake of the Italian film, which sees dinner party guests share the messages they receive on their mobile phones over the course of an evening, has caused an uproar in Egypt, prompted calls to ban Netflix and unleashed a backlash against Mona Zaki, its Egyptian star.
In socially conservative Egypt — like elsewhere in the Arab world — a swath of public opinion has long been suspicious of what is considered to be a western conspiracy to spread moral corruption.
Mostafa Bakry, a pro-regime member of the Egyptian parliament, recently presented an “urgent statement” to the assembly, speaking against the movie and calling on the government to block Netflix. He portrayed the film as an attempt by western enemies to “destabilise” Arab countries.
“When a movie like this comes along, an exact copy of an Italian film without any deference to Egyptian and Arab moral and values . . . when it defends homosexuality, when more than 20 obscene words are used . . . when I see this I totally realise that the Egyptian and the Arab family is being targeted,” he said in a television interview.
Al-Azhar, a prestigious Islamic religious institution that is influential across the Sunni Muslim world, has also weighed in. Without naming the film, it said in a statement that “rebelling against virtue and turning against the sound values of society . . . is not freedom, liberation or creativity, but corruption [and] the weakening of society”.
In most Arab countries, movies are censored before distribution to ensure they do not promote breaches of mainstream family values, but Netflix can stream content into people’s homes without being vetted.
While the film does not have any graphic scenes, many see it as an attack on Arab social norms. For instance, the gay man in the film is not shunned by his friends and a father tells his 18-year-old daughter over the phone that she is free to decide if she will spend the night with her boyfriend. Netflix has not commented on the uproar.
Defenders of the film have noted that Egyptian cinema, an industry with a long and rich history, has previously dealt with marital infidelity and featured gay characters. But those films generally underlined the importance of mainstream family values.
The shock this time, some say, comes from the “normalisation” of behaviour seen in Arab societies as aberrant. “It’s not good to show something but offer no solutions,” said Ghada Youssef, a retired banker. “No one’s conscience awakens, no one retreats from their ways and no one is punished at all. The film should have had a message.”
Ghada Shahbender, a scriptwriter and human rights activists, said the public opprobrium reflected in part the emergence of “clean cinema” in Egypt, which avoids offending conservative values.
“All the secrets revealed by the film exist in Arab societies and across all classes, but there is this duality which makes people refuse to acknowledge it,” she said. She also argued that since the rise of the internet in Arab countries public discourse about the arts had been driven by popular views on social media rather than “elitist” critics.
The wave of anger has been particularly directed towards Zaki, who has mostly played “clean” roles in the past but shocked her fans by appearing as a wife who exchanges sexy texts with a stranger.
Other stars have hastened to her defence and the actors union has issued a statement warning that it “will not stand by and take no action against any verbal attack or attempt to intimidate an Egyptian actor as a result of work to which they have contributed”.
Defenders of the film have said those who were offended only needed to cancel their Netflix subscriptions. Some prominent voices have also argued that a more important factor is the film’s artistic merit.
“It’s totally wrong to evaluate a film from a moral perspective,” said Elham Shahin, a major Egyptian star, on a talk show.
Netflix’s ‘Perfect Strangers’ causes uproar in Egypt
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