The Other Member of Our Family

Moroccans love television. It is an established fact.

In fact, they love it so much, that I can barely think of a moment in my time here thus far when it was not turned on. If my family is awake, then the TV is, too. I am not exaggerating.

My greatest exposure to the last member of our family has been during meal times, when he joins us and selfishly tires to drown out our already-loud conversations. In fact, it is our brother the television which announces that it is time to break our fasting, by interrupting our regularly-scheduled programming to take the strains of “Allah akhbar” which echo from the city’s minarets and pump them directly into our living/dining room.

Moroccan television is, to say the least, never boring. It is filled with loud noises, ubiquitous laugh tracks, and disturbingly catchy theme music (I often find myself humming the 2M channel’s promotional theme music throughout the day and, much to my dismay, cannot erase it from my head afterward). Oddly, though Moroccan satellite TV seems to have hundreds of channels (and everyone has satellite TV – looking out over the city’s skyline is like gazing upon a sea of satellite dishes), every family seems to only watch 2 channels – 2M and 1, both of which show very similar types of programming in Arabic (and, sometimes, news reports in French). The shows all seem slightly shorter than American shows (perhaps due to decreased ad time) – the longest seem to end in 20 minutes, and some go no more than 5 or 10. This is actually really convenient for someone who has no idea what any of the characters are saying – when I lost the plot line, I know that I only have to wait a little bit before something new will come on and hopefully make more sense.

Most of the popular programming fits the standard sitcom format – larger than life characters with obscenely overdone facial expressions, ridiculous voices, and absurd plots – at one point a few characters were blow-drying a rooster. I’m not sure even a complete understanding of the Arabic language would have helped me to figure out why. There’s also a candid-camera type show (or is it just sketch comedy?) where a man dressed as a woman (complete with a flowery hijab) goes around and generally makes people feel awkward. Another involves this 20-year-old kid who goes around on the streets of various Moroccan cities asking people questions and getting humorous answers. As the night wears on, the shows slowly drift more toward soap opera fare, where everything becomes super-serious and melodramatic. Perhaps my favorite part of all of these shows is their music – especially when they adopt very unfitting American tunes for use in the background (think Eminem at really serious moments…).

Of course, the many-named sport of soccer/football/qarat al-qadm is extremely popular, as is the case basically anywhere outside of the United States. And late at night, we get a lot of foreign movies dubbed in French or Arabic – so far I’ve caught part of the animated Tarzan and a Jet Li kung-fu film. Also, they import lots of American television. Yassine and I spent some time at his apartment watching “Made” and “Pimp My Ride” on MTV. Both shows were completely in English and seemingly unedited, but with Fus’ha Arabic subtitles – some of which I even understood! The weird thing is when you begin to consider how contradictory it is for a culture that asks women to cover all parts of their body besides their faces and hands to also watch an Arizona girl try to become a pageant queen, or, for that matter, to see scantily-clad women dance around in a music video by Pitbull or Shakira. But hey, that’s globalization for you!

My favorite find thus far, however, occurred last night over our midnight dinner. So essentially, when the 12-year-old boy first stepped out on the small stage with his Quran, sat down, and began singing verses, I thought that it was simply some wholesome religious programming. Then I noticed some adults sitting in front of the stage with pens and paper who seemed to be judging the poor exploited boy. The announcement at the close listing various numbers to which one should send texts confirmed it: American Idol has reached Morocco, and it is crazy. That’s right, Moroccan Idol (not the real name – I couldn’t understand the actual title) involves bringing a dozen children (both boys and girls, all seemingly under 15 years of age) and forcing them to compete with each other over who can best recite religious verses, according to the families all across the country who are eating their second Ramadan dinner to the background / foreground noise of the television set.

The national idol indeed.