Reflections : Jaras TV, For Whom The Bell Tolls

To start with, I have to state that TV is not my thing. I watch news, documentaries, music and the occasional movie or comedy series .Arabic satellite channels are not something I follow, mainly because I don't really care if Haifa is on good terms with Nancy, or if Tamer Hosni really did go to jail, again! These are things you read in one page of a daily newspaper and are not really worth dedicating hours and hours of transmission time for. It seems to me, however, that this is not the case with most people around me.I have noticed, AND I AM NOT TRYING TO SOUND INTELLECTUAL HERE, that people follow these channels religiously. I can't tell you enough how many times I tried telling my colleagues that I don't care who did what to whom on Star Academy, and what so and so was wearing for the prime, but they keep volunteering the information anyways. And for the last couple of weeks, I have been hearing the word Jaras at work more and more, that I had to ask what the hell is this Jaras, when I was informed that this is one of the newest satellite channels that people are following. Then the phenomena expanded beyond the office walls and people were asking me, did you see this or that on Jaras, and no was my obvious answer.

TILL LAST NIGHT. Girls in the office have said repeatedly :" Jaras will be opening the Nudity file!, Jaras will be opening the Nudity file! Don't forget , it's tomorrow." And as I rolled my eyes in astonishment, I asked what they meant. They told me that this channel will be exposing all the artists that are being overly underdressed on tv, and hearing from people what they think.

I pretty much doubted that this would be a decent show, and did not HONESTLY make the effort to watch it, but my husband was out last night , my kids were sleeping and I was left alone with nothing good to watch on Orbit, I scanned the channels and lo and behold, what do I find other than the infamous Jaras TV and the long anticipated Nudity File!!!

To think that someone is criticizing the amount of nudity on Arabic channels would strike you as a very positive thing, but to watch the show is a totally different experience. In short, the program disgusted me! Not because there were all those pictures of barely clad singers and dancers, but to feel the shameful attempt at gaining audience , through selling honor and principles. It was such a cheap show, they had all the pictures , zoomed them a zillion times and put these red circles on the spots that they were supposed to camouflage, while all they did was attract people's attention. They even went out of their way and created a new title , Nudity Beauty Queen, and were asking people to vote on who should carry the title. The were actually cheesy enough to keep promising people of more nudity pictures of artists, and when asked why they did not show Haifa, the presenter said it in a very proud voice, that people should wait till tomorrow and they will be awarded with the best pictures that they are waiting for. The show was terribly disturbing to me , I hated the fact that people were really impressed by it, that people could be this blind not to see that this program was only exposing nudity for cheap popularity and that hypocrisy has dominated even the TV. Did this show teach our young ones to be protective of their image, and to respect their bodies? No it did not, did it teach young artists that they can be famous without being slutty? no it did not. Did it stop people from ogling the nude images or did it just open their eyes to new sources for their personal archives? What did this show really do? It attracted millions of arabs to their screen and made sure they will come back for more.. Mabrook Jaras, your bells have tolled on the right ears!