Abstract
For the last thirty years the comedian ʿĀdil Imām, has been the most popular star of the Egyptian film industry. On the one hand his films claim to be bold: they take the side of the ordinary Egyptian, denounce corruption and suppression, and stand up against nouveaux riches, police, power and government. Simultaneously ʿĀdil Imām has also supported the regime, especially in their fight against ‘Islamist terrorists’. The support ʿĀdil Imām offers the regime is often seen as contradictory to the social and political criticism apparently present in his films.
In this thesis I am therefore asking to what extent ʿĀdil Imām’s films really are critical. By analysing his films starting from 1991 and up to present, I have attempted to show that his political and social criticism, although it is bold and confrontational, always is morally and nationalistically based, and that his films by criticising, not the system but, deviations from it, contribute to, and uphold dominant cultural and political concepts and thus don’t challenge hegemony. My argument is that the ideology in his films is modernist and based on a specific value-system. In accordance with this value-system positively charged ‘traditional’ values are combined with western knowledge and education. Deviations are accordingly criticised for lacking one, or both, of these two factors; either sound traditional values or knowledge. I claim that this enlightened but also thoroughly conservative discourse constitutes a ‘cultural hegemony’ in Egypt, and that the way ʿĀdil Imām’s films contribute to this hegemony can serve as an illustration of Gramscian ideas on how a modern state’s power is upheld through consent rather than force.