By Israa Suleiman
I’m a huge Ahmed Helmy fan. I just love the guy, and I feel jubilant when a new movie of him comes out. However, I’m not sure I feel the same anymore, which is why I’m going to discuss a few things about his latest movie, Laf W Dawran, and to be specific, criticize three important scenes in it.
One can’t help but see the patriarchal notions that surround the movie. The first scene has Baioumi Fouad, Sabreen and Mimi Gamal talking about Fouad’s future plans for marriage. Fouad then explains once he gets married, his wife must quit her job. Obviously, the two women talking to him ask him why. He then replies, bravely, with: “Because she is a princess, and have you ever seen a princess work?”
What Fouad said didn’t annoy me as much as Sabreen and Gamal’s reaction to what he said. They were embarrassed by what seemed to be a crafty rhetorical question. It was like what he said made total sense. But can we just rewind for a second to what Fouad said? Seriously, Laf W Dawran? Seriously? A PRINCESS DOES NOT WORK? HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A PRINCESS WORK? Ugh. Why should I, or any girl, follow this princess? Why should I stay at home, kill my dreams, ambitions and independence in order to be THAT princess? The word princess doesn’t even mean princess in that movie. In all fairness, the princess is just the word Laf W Dawran uses to hide what it actually means: patriarchy.
Another scene that makes the matter even worse is when Donia Samir Ghanem’s character tells Helmy all about her family and life, mentioning that her mother encouraged her to learn, and to become a good boxer. This scene triggers a number of jokes as Helmy’s character start mocking her for the fact that she knows what boxing is. Most of the jokes were along the lines of the sport will make Ghanem more man-like or masculine…so what? So what if she is masculine, or turns out to be? Egyptian Paralympic Rehab Ahmed won a silver medal in Powerlifting during the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games, should she stop as well? Can we finally stop enforcing these gender roles? Girls should not act in a certain way, girls should act in whatever way they want to.
The last scene was when Helmy’s character compares an Egyptian girl’s pajama to a foreigner girl’s pajama. Helmy, along with Ghanem and his family meet up with this Italian girl in Sharm El-Sheikh and stay at a villa together. Helmy then mocks Ghanem for wearing a man-like pajama (long sleeves and pants), while praising the Italian girl’s one (shorts). Helmy continues ridiculing Ghanem’s pajama, saying that it belongs to her brother.
In most Egyptian movies, us girls get ridiculed simply for being us, and I’m so sick of it being used as a way of making people laugh. We shouldn’t laugh. When we don’t dress up and get all Barbie-d up, then we’re ugly and men wish we were more like “foreigner” girls. When we do dress up, we end up being the subject of (sexual) harassment and get blamed for what we’re wearing. I’m tired of you, Egypt, but I won’t let you get to me. I’ll keep doing what I want to do, and you girls, please do the same.
WE SAID THIS: Oh, and I’d give the movie 6 starts out of 10.