Cowboys and Arabs...?

I get satellite TV In my new apartment, which, besides being a distraction most of the time, is occasionally quite cool because I get to watch American movies with Arabic subtitles, Arabic news media, and maybe best of all, hilarious Egyptian commercials. The latter of these run the gamut from almost American-seeming commercials like a shampoo commercial with an Arabic version of "My Favorite Things" to low-budg montages set to bumping Euro-trash dance music of gawdy Egyptian female singers performing for frumpy Egyptian men whose dramatic gesticulations would seem to indicate their only purpose is a comedic one. Some of these commercials especially draw my attention though, in large part because they seem at first glance so normal to my American eyes, but which have weird Middle Eastern twists to them that catch me off guard.

I just caught one such strange commercial for yogurt that featured an Arab man in a full white galabaya and gulrah (the white head scarf thing with the black circular thing securing it that you see a lot of Saudi Arabs wearing) returning home from work to his wife and two kids, a la 1950's American family stereotype--except in traditional Arab garb. He and his very western-looking wife find their two Egyptian kids scampering around wearing outfits like--get this--Native Americans. The mom gives them the last yogurts in the fridge, but now Dad wants some too. Conundrum! What a zaney family, right?! Then suddenly, inspiration strikes the dad. He dons--wait for it--a cowboy outfit, complete with a handkerchief, cowboy hat, and lasso, the last of which he uses to round up one of the conveniently individual-sized yogurts that come in a variety of exciting and interesting flavors. The dad knows what Europeans and Americans have known for centuries: how do you take something from the Indians? As a cowboy.

There's a anthropological point about cultural translation of racism and historical rewriting, but I as I am happily divorced from that world of academia, I don't have to actually explore it. It is strange to think of how cowboys and indians are a trope (and an advertising gimmick at that) that have somehow made it over into Egyptian popular culture. I mean I suppose we've done that with all kinds of other cultures, be it Shao Lin Monks or Saharan Desert Bedouin, but it was still weird to see an Egyptian man wearing a cowboy hat and chaps.

Speaking of culture, here are some cool pictures from some of my recent wanderings around one of Cairo's more famous sites, the site on top of a hill that was the seat of royal power for many centuries called the Citadel:

Mohammad Ali Mosque which pretty much dominates the whole compound

Inside the courtyard area of the mosque. The fancy looking gazebo-type thing is where you would go to wash your hands and feet before praying if you were Muslim.

The Mosque's ceiling

The beautiful, polluted view of the city