Newsletters

2012: Year of THE 99!

January 2012

FREE Copy of THE 99 Origins Story – BEGINNINGS

November 2011

THE 99 movie reviews are in! See for yourself.

October 2011

WHAM! BAM! ISLAM! And THE 99

September 2011

THE 99 - Characters

SAMDA THE INVULNERABLE
SAMDA THE INVULNERABLE
Real Name: Aisha Mokhtar
Home Country: Libya
Age: 8
Height: 91 cm
Weight: 31 kg
Eye Color: Brown
Hair Color: Black
Base of Operation: THE 99 Steps Foundation, Seville, Spain

. . .

Read more . . .


Subscribe to Newsletter

Archie and Jughead, U.S. Envoys

April 25, 2006
They may do far more good in the Mideast than they ever did in Riverdale
By ROYA HAKAKIAN
April 22, 2006; Page P11

Zealots do not laugh. The closest they come is to grin while they stand in profile staring into the distance. Laughter undermines zealotry.

Hitler smiled early on, but rarely after he became Der Führer. Ayatollah Khomeini smiled, but since he never made eye contact with his audience, his sinister smiles alluded to a wisdom too great to be shared with mere disciples. Laughter could unhinge a person, loosening him into defiance against submission. It's no wonder why all things stern -- flags, weapons, uniforms and street marches -- abound in a zealot's universe. He may promote seriousness as prime virtue, but to the perpetuation of his rule it is dire necessity.

This is why the impending release of Archie Comics in the Arab world is quite revolutionary, albeit the only revolution Archie Andrews has ever known is that of a lovely girl's hips. By 2007, Archie and friends will be available in Arabic. Naif Al-Mutawa is the Kuwaiti entrepreneur behind the endeavor and a recovering Archie reader who believes Archie and his friends provide wholesome positive role models for young boys everywhere. He vows that his company, Teshkeel Media, will do a strict translation of the famous Archie comics. He may have to do away with the beach issue, but the Arabic version will remain true to the original English. Archie will not be Islamicized, though doing so could finally resolve his 65-year-old dilemma, since under the Sharia law he could marry both Betty and Veronica.

Beyond Miki, the Arab vernacular for Mickey Mouse, and a handful of other celebrated Disney characters and Western superheroes, Arab teenage boys face a paltry reading selection. Unlike the subculture status of comic books in the U.S., Arab comic strips, usually subsidized by governments and produced by the region's leading artists and writers, are generally considered high art and are quite reverent. Void of lightheartedness, they're deemed as pedagogical tools.

They come in two varieties: The Islamic kind, which lack tantalizing visuals, since the portrayal of the actual heroes -- the prophet and his inner circle -- is prohibited; and the secular pan-Arab brand, which is mostly in the service of the leaders and the local propaganda. Among the best-quality secular strips ever made in the region are Iraq's production of Saddam Hussein's biography, in which the invincible hero single-handedly defeated evil in every form.

Such strips may even pay a token tribute to feminism by creating strong female characters, but they do not challenge the ubiquity of Islam or popular conformist views and ultimately instruct the teens that being a good Muslim is good citizenship. One of the starlets of these strips, the United Arab Emirates' Zakiyya, the brainy one, is just young enough to appear without a headdress, but not too young to be without unfavorable opinions about Israel and the U.S.

How will a world with values so starkly set receive so oblivious a boy as Archie? He may have passed the American Comic Code, but in the Arab culture an indecisive, apolitical young man who lets a girl lead him by the nose violates every definition of a robust male. "There is bound to be a local mullah," two leading experts on Arab comics, Fedwa and Allen Douglas, contend, "who, jockeying for power, will declare Archie satanic, corrupt, or feeble, and issue a fatwa against the strip."

But in the likelihood that Archie's novelty as an American product will gain him popularity, one can almost be certain that he will do far more good in the Middle East than he ever has in fictional Riverdale. In a culture that views American youth as the embodiment of decadence -- racist, immoral beings rolling in sex, drugs and alcohol -- Archie will be a jolting surprise. His ordinariness will do extraordinary service in creating better understanding among the two peoples. Americans may find no better ambassador than an innocuous glutton such as Jughead to give a glimpse into the lives of their teenagers. As national representatives, Riverdale residents are quite lackluster: They are commoners who sell ice cream, and hang out in corner diners and, in general, have petty preoccupations far from superpower concerns. What 9/11 revealed to the world about Americans -- a vulnerable, feeling and fallible nation -- the strips will communicate without the tragedy.

The introduction of Archie along with several American superhero strips by the Kuwaiti Teshkeel Media also serve a greater local purpose. For centuries, the Middle East has thrived mostly on literature, namely poetry. At a time when the strictest interpretation of Islam would allow few art forms to exist, literature was a grand refuge. But a complex world demands a repertoire of expressions, and a continued reliance primarily on literature now has become one of the region's greatest cultural handicaps. Iranians addressed this handicap in the 1990s by turning to cinema. In the same decade, Qatar gave birth to its vision of uncensored media by creating al-Jazeera. And now Kuwait will open a space for drawing and illustration.

But let the burden of advancing global harmony not fall squarely on Middle Eastern shoulders. Mr. Al-Mutawa has also invented THE 99 :superheroes based on an Islamic archetype who bear an uncanny resemblance to their Yankee counterparts. Will Americans be able to get past such beloved relics as harems, Sheherazade, flying carpets and seductive veiled women and embrace these highly modern Arab-generated arts as fervently as they have the traditional and the exotic?

Ms. Hakakian is the author of two books of poetry in Persian and the memoir "Journey From the Land of No: A Girlhood Caught in Revolutionary Iran" (Three Rivers Press, 2005).


 

Follow Us

    

Download Wallpapers

Jaleel The Magestic

Loading
HOME     CONTACT US     PRESS     LEGAL     DISTRIBUTION     STORE

All contents and Copyright @ 2012 Teshkeel Media Group KSC, unless otherwise noted herein.
All rights reserved.
Endemol Sanraa Facebook Youtube THE 99