Arab Media & Society

In Hawamish (Margins, 2003), a transfer of official directives veers off course. Set in government offices, the sketch begins with a top official (probably a minister) who tells his staff that free expression is to be encouraged. The official announces that so long as expression is responsible and fair, there are no longer any forbidden topics.[12] The official gives the orders but at each stage, subordinates gradually alter the directive and cast increasing abuse on journalists and writers who have been voicing the criticism. The final character in this bureaucracy blames journalists and writers for acting irresponsibly and discourages, rather than encourages, the practice of free expression. The satire here is ambiguous and sophisticated. On one level, it appears to ridicule middle- and low-ranking functionaries or citizens, suggesting there is little chance of change in Syria. But while the regime’s higher echelons escape direct blame in this process, the system over which they preside is criticized for producing an authoritarian outcome.

A fine example of a visual approach to critiquing the bureaucratic chain of authority comes in Akhtam (Stamps, 2004). The sketch tells the story of an idiotic public servant (Yakhur) who is promoted in leaps and bounds, literally, by a scheming director general who has purposely selected this pliable “jackass.” The employee jumps in and out of his new chairs with each promotion, which is accompanied by a short, close-up shot of his personnel file getting stamped. The employee’s stratospheric rise appears to tire him out, and he asks and gets a 15-day leave. The director-general is then ousted and replaced by the employee, who used his vacation to go abroad and obtain (i.e. purchase) a higher degree, returning with what was needed to take over his boss’s position. Quick camera cuts, characters leaping in and out of frames, a forte of the 6’3” Yakhur, and the visual stamping motif render sketches such as this one heavy on images and movement, not drawn-out dialogue. These works present a nasty picture of a system populated largely by victims and average citizens, some corruption “entrepreneurs,” and conniving characters at the top, whether in the public or private sector. It is the kind of upside-down system in which a bureaucrat in a village misleads a colleague by pretending to take bribes—if his superiors discover that he is clean, he will be out of a job (Li-llah fi Khalqihi Shu’un, God Has His Reasons, 2002).[13]

The show’s aggressive criticism and innovative visual satire helped Spotlight garner a mass audience in Syria. Thanks to its large pool of writers, fresh material and collective nature, Spotlight managed to keep the public’s attention as it experimented with new ideas, while achieving a form of interactivity with Syrian society. When it truly succeeded, it either related to people’s everyday concerns, held those in power to account, or both. The popularity it has subsequently enjoyed has informed youth culture in today’s Syria: moments from particularly funny sketches have been relayed by fans via mobile phone, while Syrians who witness a surreal or otherwise darkly comical incident have employed the phrase “it was like Spotlight” or “they could make it into a sketch for Spotlight” as a reaction. In a few instances, public sector officials have even been transferred or lost their jobs because of what has aired. One such incident took place after Hajjo requested an ambulance from the Ministry of Health for the sketch Is‘af Yunis (Yunis’ Ambulance, 2004). The vehicle he got was hopelessly run-down but was actually still in service. The revelation that ambulances were in such a sorry state was a public relations disaster, and resulted in a department head being axed. When Hajjo made a similar request for a later musalsal, another state official showed up with two ambulances—both in perfect condition—and told Hajjo with a smile, “The (new) director sends his greetings.”

Even more astonishing is the story of the sketch Tufula (Kids, 2002).  The piece tells of a young girl who claims that one of her schoolteachers has struck her. Her father, a mukhabarat officer, summons the faculty for questioning and abuse, but it turns out that his daughter is merely playing an April Fool’s Day joke. Based on a real-life incident that differed only slightly in its details, people in the rural region where it took place were happy to see an example of the mukhabarat’s exactions brought to public attention, and there were reportedly professional repercussions for two people involved. Whether or not a writer is inspired by an actual incident, the creators of both Spotlight and ‘Al Makshuf have revelled in transforming stories from real life into material for sketches. During the making of ‘Al Makshuf, the show’s executive producer presented actor-writer Wihbi with a tape recorder so that he would not forget what people were telling him about their daily lives and experiences. The way both sketch shows have been firmly grounded in the local realities of their audiences is another reason for their popularity in Syria.

Reform and its discontents

In this way, Spotlight certainly raised the ceiling of free expression in Syria. Key to achieving this is the show’s portrayal of a late- or “post”-Ba‘thist Syria in which the country’s dialects, regions and sects are no longer taboo. Al ‘Azma had certainly done, for example, the Druze dialect of southern Syria, but in many Maraya sketches, he is the only one speaking the idiom while other actors are artificial Damascene transplants in the rural setting. Spotlight’s lead actors have been a hodgepodge, coming from places like Latakia, Tartus, Aleppo, Suweida, Dar‘a, Homs, Zabadani, Mashta Al Hilu, and the Yabrud region, as well as the capital. Individual actors often showcase their own dialects in Spotlight, whereas on other shows, they would likely be speaking a more standard “Greater Damascus” dialect construct. Maraya is blander on this front; it took Spotlight to introduce the sub-dialect of Slaybi, a neighborhood of Latakia, into the national TV-watching vernacular. The fracturing of the generic Syrian citizen in mass-media cultural production—a trend led by Spotlight—might suggest less rigid state control over public discourse, and a weakening of national affiliation. On one level, the Ba‘th Party’s ethic is one of “We all are Syrians,” one that discourages any focus on differences. On the other hand, the gain in resonance when shows treat Syrians as diverse individuals, from specific regions and sects, can also signal a growing Syrian nationalism and certainly reflect the state’s moving away from its other, Ba‘th-influenced focus, on a pan-Arab identity.

Meanwhile, the target of criticism has been raised by Spotlight. The producers of earlier comedy sketches and shows would not dare to criticize anyone higher than the level of director-general, but in Spotlight this has been raised to the level of government ministers and the sons of important officials. In Bodyguard (2001) we see four burly men in dark black suits and sunglasses, lounging outdoors at a villa, and sipping mate. This South American tea is consumed heavily in several rural regions of Syria, but here it is intended as an indexical marker of the ‘Alawi sect, from which Syrian President Bashar Al Asad’s family hails.[14] Cue loud heavy metal music, and a twenty-something man walks out of the villa. The bodyguards at the pool spring into action, following him in a second Mercedes, the kind used by the mukhabarat. The young man, later identified as being from Latakia—the capital of the ‘Alawi region—is clearly the son of an important official, and his behavior shows it. When he stops at a green light while waiting for his girlfriend to forgive him for a trivial matter he blocks all the cars behind him, including an ambulance. But this critique of Syria’s officialdom is not just play; it has a realist edge to it. True to form, Spotlight’s cultural producers try not to miss details, and mukhabarat characters usually speak distinct rural dialects, as many do in Syria. When Spotlight episodes premiered during Ramadan during the first half of this decade, viewers were often on the edge of their seats, wondering how far a given segment might go. At times they were rewarded with what was certainly the most daring prime-time lampooning of power in a police state, at least in the Arab world.

The mukhabarat are pilloried in many sketches and might be portrayed as bumbling or venal, or both. More significantly, secret police and low-level mukhabarat in certain sketches are protagonists and not props, and the occasional piece shows them as victims of the system. In Li-Min Al Shabah? (Who Will Get the Mercedes?, 2002), an informer is enthusiastic about gaining access to a fancy car, if he wins a contest to write the best “report” on a disloyal citizen. When he is unable to turn up anything, he and his wife scour their own relatives for possible material. The informer finally breaks down and regrets his actions, but the sketch ends with his wife recording her husband’s complaints about the regime so that she can win the prize. There are bureaucrats and security officers who cannot leave their past behind; they cannot tolerate retirement without there being people to harass or situations in which they can flex their muscles. Another recurring theme involves mukhabarat personnel and officers who have received orders to “lighten up” with the public and these characters struggle mightily with the new circumstances. In a few instances, they hit themselves rather than their victims, since they must relieve their tension in some fashion. The whole notion that the mukhabarat have eased up is treated head-on in The Old Days (Ayyam Zaman, 2005), in which two middle-aged men complain that these days, fruits and vegetables have been ruined by hormones and/or have lost their taste, compared to the days of their youth. As they complain about this general state of affairs the conversation turns to the secret police and how in the old days, a person taken in for questioning would be lost without a trace and might not even return. One of the men vociferously laments today’s “weak” mukhabarat until one of them actually appears and politely asks the man to accompany him for questioning. The man challenges and insults the mukhabarat character until he finally hoists up the irritating and fearless man and carries him off. This prompts the remaining man to turn to the camera and exclaim, smilingly, “Now THAT’S what it was like in the old days!” There is no doubt the Spotlight creators knew this level of criticism would shock, however liberal the rhetoric of Bashar Al Asad’s inaugural address. And indeed this kind of sketch has enraged top officials for its very, very dark humor about Syrian society (and the regime, by implication).

In 2002, the then-vice president, ‘Abd Al Halim Khaddam, was reportedly livid after the airing of Mudhakkirat Mughtarib (Diary of an Emigrant). In the sketch, Yakhur delivers a voice-over of a letter he writes to an unseen friend in Canada. The piece describes daily life in Syria with the bitterest irony imaginable on prime-time television—Yakhur’s upbeat narrative juxtaposed with visuals of his character’s encounters with political-social oppression and life-draining bureaucracy. The character even stops at a newsstand and picks up the satirical weekly Al Domari, a symbol of Al Asad’s initial policy of openness, but silently grimaces at the unseen content, hinting that the newspaper was more about defamation and innuendo rather than principled criticism. The sketch ends with Yakhur heading to Canada to join his friend.[15] In the same vein, Tumuh (Ambition, 2002) makes a damning criticism about the role of the Syrian state in defeating the dreams of its young people. The sketch begins with a schoolteacher asking what children want to be when they grow up, at which a 10-year old boy whispers his answer to her. While we never learn what this goal is, it is sufficiently “sensitive” to prompt the boy’s father to intervene, and sternly stamp all trace of ambition out of his young son. In the end, the father is pleased that he has destroyed the boy’s individuality and drive, the not-so-subtle but very cynical message being that the son can now become a “model” citizen in authoritarian Syria.

But it is not just the state that is the object of Spotlight’s humor. The third year of the series sparked controversy when several sketches tackled religion. For example, Al Anisa Shakira (Miss Shakira) lampooned the female religious movement of the Qubaysiyyat, while Shaykh Salti’s title character was a charlatan who similarly took advantage of pious young men. These sketches led to negative public reactions and saw actress Amal ‘Arafa apologize for her role in the former piece. Meanwhile, the latter led Mufti Ahmad Kaftaru to summon Rida, who played the shaykh, for a session to discuss the controversial treatment. The following years saw officials from the state, Ba‘th Party and the mukhabarat continue to take their lumps in Spotlight, but the show’s creators acknowledged that the arena of religion was not to be revisited.

Playing the margins

What helped put Spotlight in such a leading position was the show’s two-pronged contribution to Syrian sketch comedy, in both form and content. In terms of form, the

show jolted the musalsal industry in several ways. One was its comedy collective aspect, as those involved reveled in demolishing the dominant protagonist strategy of Al ‘Azma.[16] As the formula caught on, top actors had no problem accepting small parts on Spotlight, or appearing in only a single sketch or two, to take part in a show they believed in and which was a popular success. A second tactic was director Hajjo’s effort to upgrade the production values of sketch comedy and approach the cinematic, through the use of location shooting, lighting contrasts, night-time scenes, props, and long pans balanced with quick cuts; a third was a variety of scripts and writers, producing a show in which the traditional and the experimental happily coexisted. On yet another level, the diversity of sketches let the show’s producers serve up both mass and elite comedy, in a show in which slapstick could trade off with something grounded in social realism, but often in a hipper, more modern treatment. As for content, Spotlight’s comedy noir take on today’s Syria certainly captured the post-2000 moment—cynicism about the regime’s ability to reform and a grudging hope that something might work—while pleasing the general public as well as much of the intellectual elite. To enjoy the show, the average viewer did not need to know that Spotlight’s enthusiastic innovation was an attempt to bring the best of theatre and cinema to television sketch comedy. The use of specific regional dialects (heavy on the ‘Alawi) reflects the migration to television of what was earlier only permitted in cinema, beginning in the late 1980s, or in theatre, such as in the wild mid-1990s play Al Naw (Sea Storm), a quasi-improvisational effort in which two actors rotated daily in playing the protagonist.[17] Meanwhile, the cutting-edge political criticism is a legacy of the biting 1960s’ Masrah al-Shawk, which featured Lahham, Nihad Qal‘i, Rafiq Sbay‘i and the director’s father and part-time Spotlight actor and writer, ‘Umar Hajjo.[18] These theatrical and cinematic elements were now shining through in the genre of prime-time television, which is often less willing to take chances, whether this means being experimental in form or caustic in content.

Industry figures will argue for some time over whether Spotlight was as controversial and critical as it could have been. Some cite the show’s strong points while others argue that it was somehow co-opted by the authorities, or failed where the state-produced cinema of the 1980s succeeded.[19] Leading drama and comedy producers in Syria have often faced the accusation that they are engaged in tanfiseh, a term that approximates “letting off steam” or relieving excess pressure: anyone who pushes the margins on television is thought to have a green or yellow light from the powers-that-be to ease popular discontent by taking on taboo topics, whether or not this takes place due to direct contacts with a member of the regime. In its defense, Spotlight has certainly pushed the envelope but some insist that the show is in fact guilty of tanfiseh, since it skewers lower- to middle-ranking figures but not the actual rulers or those ultimately responsible for corruption, waste, and mismanagement in Syria. But these observers often miss what is unique about Spotlight—its determination to take on new avenues of critique and social commentary using innovative comedic, dramatic and production techniques. Perhaps the show’s title sums up its individuality better than anything else. Spotlight literally is the show that puts characters under the spotlight, as clever lighting contrasts shed light on enthusiastically crafted comic figures. In its mission to uncover and expose aspects of Syrian society that involve corruption, exploitation and mismanagement with the dark humor they deserve, Spotlight remains unrivalled in Syria.

The skill with which Spotlight has variously combined innovative sequences, vivid characterization, and biting criticism is best shown by the sketch Tarikh Harami (History of a Thief, 2002).  In it, we see a prehistoric cave-dweller (Rida) with a wife and young baby who must be provided for. When he tries to steal livestock, he is discovered and chased by the other members of the community. The next scene is in the Roman period, and begins abruptly with Rida jolting awake from a dream, which we discover is the previous segment. He turns to his wife and tells her about the dream, then confesses that he is guilty of illegal enrichment and fears that Julius Caesar will order his arrest. The knock at the door then comes, as Roman soldiers wait outside to haul him off. This is followed by the same waking-from-a-dream, confession of corruption, and arrest sequence, in the Islamic era, followed by a Bedouin setting, and then a modern, urban (Damascene) home.[20] In this final segment, the man, who is trying to import a shipment of spoiled foodstuffs, receives a brief telephone call and then tells his wife that “the deal has gone through and the goods have arrived,” meaning punishment for illicit acts comes in every age but the present. But tellingly, the final scene which originally ended the sequence was cut by the censors.  In it, the phone call brings a knock at the door and the news that the individual has been named a government minister. The sketch does not name names, but then, does it really have to?

Marlin Dick is a freelance journalist residing in Lebanon. He writes on politics and culture and has translated Arabic literature and Syrian, Lebanese, and Palestinian films.