'TV becomes haven for S. Arabians'

Women are driving in Saudi Arabia. Not on the streets. That would be illegal. But on a recent episode of “Hush Hush,” a new comedy on Saudi state television, a lilac sedan comes to a halt and a woman climbs out of the driver’s seat. A group of goofy, lascivious men (three stooges in red-checked kaffiyehs) try to pick her up by offering to repair the car, the New York Times reported Sunday.

From beneath a black hijab and opaque abaya, glints of the woman’s contempt show through. “Who says my car broke down?” she says coolly. “I’m waiting for my friend.” A matching Barbie-pink car pulls up and two women glide away, leaving the Saudi dolts deflated and agog.

It’s a fantasy, of course, a comic trial balloon. “Hush Hush” was created for Ramadan, the Muslim holiday season that ended this weekend, and the state-sanctioned sketch makes the case for female drivers in a jokey way that heartens modern-minded viewers without provoking traditional ones. The woman is never shown actually driving; the camera cuts away before she grasps the wheel. It’s the kind of ellipsis that American television once used for homosexuality; you didn’t actually see it but you knew it was there.

Even on state television gentle social satire about Saudi life is permissible and also welcome during Ramadan, a monthlong religious celebration when people pray, fast all day and then feast throughout the night, the paper said.

It’s a festive season that also serves as a sweeps month: TV ratings peak because people stay home and watch with their families, avoiding foreign shows to focus on Arab television. Especially in Saudi Arabia, which has the highest advertising rates in the Middle East, Ramadan prompts an avalanche of new dramas, comedies, talk shows and game shows.

Taboos and a vigilant religious police force control public behavior but they don’t shackle viewing habits nearly as much. Through satellite dishes and the Internet, Saudis have access to the wide and wanton world: racy Turkish soap operas, violent action movies, sexy Moroccan pop singers and episodes of “Gossip Girl” and “CSI.” Their own programming tests the fault line between modernity and tradition; in a rigidly controlled country television is the arena in which small rebellions can be staged and festering tensions addressed.

No show has sparked more debate ― and threats ― than “Omar,” a sweeping 31-episode drama about the life of the seventh-century Caliph Omar ibn al-Khattab, one of the Prophet Muhammad’s companions and a founding father of the Islamic empire. “Omar” is Saudi television’s most ambitious project, a $30 million, cast-of-thousands Koranic epic in the style of the 1965 classic “The Greatest Story Ever Told.” Only in this case it’s the first time this oft-told story has been dramatized for television.

In Saudi Arabia, as in much of the Islamic world, it is considered a sin to depict a likeness of Muhammad, and until now, at least, it was unthinkable to show the face of a sahabi, an original confidant. (NYT)