Karima use to be fat, but she is fat no more, instead she is now simply bloated with an obsession. She watches all of MBC’s imported weight-loss programs, the re-runs too. She took to heart the culinary advice of ‘western media’ well-wishers and replaced boiled eggs and hummus with Quaker bars for breakfast. On her way to the perfect form Karima has idealized the newly emergent pantheon of Arab female singers dressed to kill on satellite T.V. stations. Karima is on a roll, not the cream-filled kind, but the good roll, the kind that transforms a woman’s body from a Karima to a Rachel Ray to a Kate Moss state in no time.
Who wants to be Kate moss? The answer to this question is the same answer one might give to the question of who likes short shorts. Without having to go to the docks, the Middle Eastern female population (now wholeheartedly into short shorts) has begun importing the Western ideal of beauty. As if the Arabs are not dependant enough on western goods and technology they now have to jostle their women into this mincing mix. Ten years ago weight-loss concepts were unheard of in the greater Mid-East, Arab men were content with marrying skinny girls only to watch them grow fat before their own eyes. To many of these men this was actually a good return on investment, much like the cow-breeder who labors to feed his cows in order for him to feast his eyes on the sight of them getting fatter and juicier. This analogy is not meant to be a vitriolic critique of the Arab woman’s overweight issue, in fact, there is no Arab woman overweight issue, at least not in the ‘Richard Simmons’ sense. Men in Arabia have always liked the blubbery mode of existence of their women, a woman that is deprecated as fat in a country such as the US is what men in a country like Morocco call ‘a real woman’. Ten years ago there was no need for an Arab couple to have a heart to heart conversation in which a man would say something like “hey woman you better replace your shawarma dinner with falafel or else I’m gonna leave your fat ass for a skinnier muzza”. An Arab man coming home from work would not say upon entering the house “hey honey look what I got you; a watermelon, some new detergent and…tata… a Jane Fonda workout video”.
It is not the Arab men who are directly importing these weight-loss fantasies, however, it is the women, the men are simply enjoying the by-products of these imports in the way of the scantly dressed blonde women workout videos and the music clips showing asses in all shades of color. The women are indeed the prime demographic target of this campaign. I am not alluding to any grand conspiracy theories about west polluting east, we have our own home-made pollutants thank you very much, but what is worth mentioning here is the fact that the west has managed to intersperse doses of its home-brewed weight-loss tonic into various parts of the world (like the Middle East) that previously didn’t give a dog’s doodoo about issues such as weight-loss or gain. The west’s superiority in producing the inanimate has now become evident in its production of the animate as well; just like the Arab men are striving to own a BMW or a Cadillac the women are now aspiring to possess replicas of the ‘Angelina Jolie’ look. The dangers of the latter objective, however, are far more obvious, because the craving for Angelina’s body is usually accompanied by a sick and twisted mania that has already trapped in its clutches thousands of western women; a fixation predicated on the woman’s constant desire to be someone other than who she already is, an insurmountable need to measure self-worth through the standards of others and an ambivalent desire for a woman to have her cake and puke it too.
It doesn’t take much for one to discern the catastrophic impact that the weight-loss obsession had on western societies, from bulimia and anorexia to the Dr. Phil studio visits less than perfect women in western societies have been culturally coerced to vent (whether physically or mentally) their antipathy towards self-image. The obsession with weight loss has been so severe in western countries such as the US to the extent that it compelled an entire society to alter the way it looks at the concept of corpulence, such societies (where fatness is most foul) have resorted to the use of terminologies such as ‘PHAT’, full-figure or voluptuous to paper over the ignominy of calling someone fat. I always thought that a backward society’s greatest strength lies in its flexible ability to observe the more advanced societies and learn from their cultural debacles, the backward Arab societies will be damned if they decide to pedantically espouse the traditions of the western standard of beauty after seeing time and again the detrimental effects that such norms can have. The modern Arab woman today bears a resemblance to an infant with an underdeveloped schema, failing to recognize herself in the mirror of the native society and constantly struggling to find meaning and worth through a new razzle-dazzle lens.
The most conspicuous signs of the social renovation that the Middle East has undergone recently are the commercial billboards that have sprung up like wild bushes on city streets, billboards displaying the anthropomorphic images of the new standard; larger than life size icons of perfectly shaped western women selling style and grace, something for the sweaty, hijab-wearing and overweight Arab woman to learn from and emulate, ‘Step aside Fatima and take your hands off your husband’s shlong, Jennifer is here’. Just in case the ideals of the western standard fail to invade the Arab household, its scent and fashion sense definitely will. Now more than ever Arab women are driven to consume more cosmetics not just to simply look or smell a certain way but rather to fit into a greater medium of a more meaningful existence.
‘well they did a study to find out what foods are best for losing weight, and it turns out that a normal diet supplemented by chocolate éclairs eaten three times a day is perfect’
Neil Postman, Technopoly
Above and beyond the weight-loss obsession itself there stands an autocratic and systematic order that is constantly endeavoring to establish itself as the one unquestionable and non-refutable standard whose followers are right, intelligent and beautiful and its opponents garrulous, fat and stupid. The imported western standard of beauty comes intact with an indispensable scientific and technological peripheral that acts as a protective shell guarding it from doubt and disbelief, a scientific carapace designed by ‘a’ panel of experts who labor assiduously to make the standard and all of its applications absolutely believable. The single most notable role of these experts is to create labels such as ‘scientifically proven’ or ‘use as directed’ , labels that we later use as flares to light up our way in the darkness of our own confusion and self-hatred. The effectiveness of the technological and scientific shield depends on it being a standard in and of itself. The new science or scientism mentioned in Neil Postman’s ‘Technopoly’ is indeed a religion and a belief system that is absolutely essential to follow and impossible to rebut, the science referred to in this context is not the science of Galen and Copernicus that helped bring the world out of darkness but rather a mere quasi-scientific scheme of proclamations and diagnosis that is frivolous in essence but very addictive in nature. People have to believe beyond a reasonable doubt and without questioning the scientific sources of information that eating three éclairs a day or spreading tomato ketchup on their belly will help them lose weight or grow more brain cells.
No one can deny the importance of being healthy, most religions, societies and worldviews are in support of keeping fit and staying healthy, yet obsessing with keeping fit is a completely different story. It is one thing for someone to want to be fit and another to make being fit and beautiful a yardstick that measures self-worth and social aptitude. Women today don’t simply want to look like Jennifer Aniston and Lindsay Lohan, they want to be them, they want to surgically alter their appearances to keep up with them, and they want to track the news of when their babies and court dates are due. The obsession with being fit has now grown into an obsession with the images and the media that sell the obsession to us in the first place; the billboard signs and ‘The Insider’ celebrity news. The introduction of the western standard of beauty to the Middle East has cracked open a Pandora’s Box of social prurience that the Arab culture is not yet accustomed to, keeping fit will not be possible without the constant pumping of J.Lo’s images into the airwaves to remind women of who they need to emulate and to remind the men of what their spouses should look like. I don’t believe that the risqué images of an underdressed pop singer or the R rated scenes in a movie are bad for society, we all need a little bit of ‘ShowTime after-hours’ on our T.V. just as much as we need spice on our plates, but for us to stock up on the spice when we don’t have any food is…well…stupid. The advent of the brazen western standard of beauty in the Middle East has inadvertently placed the cart before the horse; it has empowered Arabs with the freedom to be fit and semi-nude before acquainting them with the most rudimentary forms of freedom like liberty from tyranny and freedom of speech. The west has reached to where it is now after centuries of pre and post renaissance reformation and struggle, the Arabs, on the other hand, while still in social and political darkness are jumping spots to focus more on nurturing a sassy female population than on establishing good governance, they are in effect placing more emphasis on ‘don’t you wish your girlfriend was hot like me’ than on ‘I have a dream’.
