Page 230 - Religion, Media, and the Public Sphere

deliberately retro) animated sign-on for the Egyptian Radio and Television
Union, Economic Section, which produced the program. This consisted of an
image of the well-known Radio and Television Building, which occupies a
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prominent space along the Nile Corniche. But before the program could actu-
ally begin, another advertisement was inserted into the ®ow. At the time this
was an innovation—in the early 1990s when I recorded the segment the practice
was criticized by my informants. Now it is quite common. In this case the in-
serted advertisement was for that year’s sponsors of Fawazir Ramadan, Noritake
China, and the Fitihi shopping center in Jidda, Saudi Arabia:
[a ponderous, authoritative voice, with visuals of the product]: Name of the
manufacturer—Noritake; type of product—¤ne quality china; name of the
manufacturer—Noritake; place of sale—Fitihi Center, Jidda; . . . [repetition of
the same lines] . . . The Fitihi Center in Jidda presents LE 30,000 in cash prize
money for Fawazir Ramadan. Good Luck.
This was followed by a surreal introductory dance segment—the longest part of
the show—which had Nelli dressed in a luxuriant variety of out¤ts (always
the subject of pre-Ramadan speculation in fan magazines). She danced with a
sparkly-blue overall-clad male ensemble, a Turkish Pasha, a ®eet of baby car-
riages pushed by chic women, and various other assemblages of glitzy male and
female dancers. All the while she sang about "alam wara# wara# wara# (world of
paper, paper, paper). Dressed at the end of the introductory segment as a gypsy,
and speaking in a heavy “gypsy” accent, she told the riddle to a different char-
acter each night. In this episode the riddle was directed to the captain of “The
Love Boat”—a direct reference to the American comedy series. The riddle itself,
like that of the caricature riddle “Beans Are My Friend,” was easy (the answer
was a boat ticket). Nelli asks the riddle and then enacts it as a stowaway on the
Love Boat, ending the spectacle dancing in a ballroom with the captain. Then
she returns to her gypsy persona and restates the riddle:
At the beginning of the dance, Gypsy to the captain:
There’s a piece of paper in your life captain—not a passport or a map or a card.
Your trip doesn’t start until you’ve gotten one from everyone who has one. Get it,
captain?
At the end of the dance (and in a slightly more poetic style):
The train travels and pulls into the station,
The Love Boat arrives at a foreign port
Even a plane landing on the ground, sweetie.
There’s no difference between ¤rst class and some trashy passenger.
What’s more important? The chairs, or getting there?
Hintish bintish [i.e., “presto” . . . ], try and guess. Do you get it, or not?
On the surface the playful anarchy of “World of Paper, Paper, Paper” was a
gentle joke about bureaucracy. But the corporate sponsorship and frank mate-
rialist attraction of the prizes puts the program in the same category as the
“Beans Are My Friend” fazzura. Only the scale differs—a local chemical com-
pany sponsors the caricature riddle that broadcasts the “Beans Are My Friend”

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