Emirati Hijab, Camel Humps & Apocalyptic Islamists: Gendered Conflict in Emirati Animated Sitcoms Emirati animated sitcoms emblemize the cultural traits of the society, thus a window to its worldview. These sitcoms conceptualize how the United Arab Emirates’ residents are represented in a sarcastic fashion to entertain Emirati viewers as their primary targets. Shaabiat Al Cartoon (SAC) (2006), is one of the early and most successful Emirati sitcoms in portraying the tapestry of the UAE’s ethnic and linguistic diversity. It is one of the most watched TV shows during the month of Ramadhan, and it enjoys the widest psychographic range, a loyal fandom and Internet forums to discuss its episodes and characters. Ultimately, making it an essential
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A competition between four women occurs, where they demonstrate who has the bigger hijab hump, ending with one of the characters’ exaggerated hijab hump reaching an airplane, to explode and burn her scalp. This comical storyline does not discuss the religious connotations, however it depicts a satire of the hijab hump style, and illustrates craftily how it is taking over the UAE’s women fashion scene. Consequently, it undermines its aesthetical value. Remarkably, only women are shown discussing the topic throughout the episode. Although the animated sitcom is created by men and played mostly by them, not once what a man thought of the ridiculous sizes of the humps is expressed. Conceivably, they did not want to appear as imposing their opinion, but only the women’s opinion counted. This suggests that the women’s beauty competition was not for the pleasure of men, but for the status earned amongst the women …show more content…
Their use of code-switching positions them as socially different from their community’s norms and appeals to aspects of their identity (Bassiouney 2014). The code-switch in this instance is a second-order indexicality, by using a mixed code to index the socio-economic status of the family, their unconventional attitude and most importantly, the young girl’s Western-education and her subtle liberal outlook. That is underlined by having blonde hair bangs, fair-skin, and intra-sentential switching between her Dubaian dialect and English, despite having Emirati parents from both
A competition between four women occurs, where they demonstrate who has the bigger hijab hump, ending with one of the characters’ exaggerated hijab hump reaching an airplane, to explode and burn her scalp. This comical storyline does not discuss the religious connotations, however it depicts a satire of the hijab hump style, and illustrates craftily how it is taking over the UAE’s women fashion scene. Consequently, it undermines its aesthetical value. Remarkably, only women are shown discussing the topic throughout the episode. Although the animated sitcom is created by men and played mostly by them, not once what a man thought of the ridiculous sizes of the humps is expressed. Conceivably, they did not want to appear as imposing their opinion, but only the women’s opinion counted. This suggests that the women’s beauty competition was not for the pleasure of men, but for the status earned amongst the women …show more content…
Their use of code-switching positions them as socially different from their community’s norms and appeals to aspects of their identity (Bassiouney 2014). The code-switch in this instance is a second-order indexicality, by using a mixed code to index the socio-economic status of the family, their unconventional attitude and most importantly, the young girl’s Western-education and her subtle liberal outlook. That is underlined by having blonde hair bangs, fair-skin, and intra-sentential switching between her Dubaian dialect and English, despite having Emirati parents from both