“As-hab wala A’az”, a hiccup or new directions for streaming services in MENA?

Netflix’s first Arabic-language original movie, Perfect Strangers (Arabic title As-hab wala A’az), has raised controversy around culture, religion, representation, and gender. However, from a video streaming services perspective, it ignites questions about relatable content and audience consumption of local vs. foreign content.

Video-on-demand (VOD) streaming services have stepped into the Middle East and North Africa market only recently: Netflix launched in 2016; StarzPlay owned by Lionsgate in 2014; Saudi STC’s  Intigral launched Jawwy TV in 2018, and Amazon prime in 2021. OSN has been in the TV business since 2009, but it rebranded and developed its streaming and video-on-demand offerings in 2020.

The growth witnessed in the video streaming business is eye-catching, especially as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is reported that 90% of Internet subscribers in MENA already watch Over The Top (OTT) television and about half are subscribers of paid streaming services. According to Statista, the region recorded a growth of 141% of its number of unique users of streamed video content during the month of April 2020 only, and a 60% increase in the average monthly consumption by user, from 12 hours in May 2019 to 19 hours in May 2020. MBC’s group Shahid rebranded in 2020 and recorded 11 million hours of content watched in one week in April 2020, when most people in the region are under lockdown.

Critics, mainly Egyptian, noted that the Netflix movie is at odds with ‘Arabs’ reality’; they said it is against Arab family values, an offense to religion, it clashes with customs and culture, and they blamed actors for embarking on an inappropriate production.

Netflix released As-hab wala A’az in Jan 2022 while the variant Omicron has kept several people at home with the same great appetite for entertainment content. Further to selecting some of the best actors in the region, the movie kept its plot and script unchanged and introduced slight adaptations, including culinary dishes and Arabic dialects as spoken by the actors (Egyptian, Jordanian, and Lebanese). Critics, mainly Egyptians, have noted that the movie is at odds with ‘Arabs’ reality’- note the singular of reality; they said it is against Arab family values, an offense to religion, it clashes with customs and culture, and they blamed actors for embarking on an inappropriate production. 

Many called for the movie’s ban, and Egyptians were loud enough to provoke local and regional media coverage. This is no surprise; in the Media Use in the Middle East survey  published by Northwestern Qatar, Egyptian respondents are the most supportive of regulation and censorship of cultural content.  For instance, 93% of Egyptians reported that they want the government to do more to protect their children from certain entertainment content (followed by 80% of Emiratis and Qataris); 89% of Egyptians find that it is appropriate to delete scenes some people may find offensive; 88% of Egyptians said that films should be banned if some people find them offensive (followed by 79% of Saudis), and 84% agreed that entertainment content in the region should be more tightly regulated for romantic content (followed by 79% of Qataris and 78% of Saudis). Additionally, more than eight out of ten Egyptians said they prefer to watch films that portray their own culture, and they agreed that more entertainment media should be based on their own culture and history.

In the OTT market, practitioners appreciate the audiences’ attachment to local content. Relevance to cultural content emerges as one of the factors contributing to the region’s growth and success of the streaming VOD business. A content analysis research with over 30 interviews with leaders from multinational and regional entertainment companies and telecom operators shows that local content and relevance to a local audience emerge as key factors of growth and success in the video streaming business (Allagui, forthcoming). Viu’s Rohit D’silva said focusing on local content is a strategy that paid off; Viu is Hong Kong-based, it launched in the Middle East in 2018 in eight countries of the Middle East and now counts more than 20 originals for the Middle East market. StarzPlay’s Co-Founder Danny Bates said, “consumers want some level of content that they're quite familiar with.” StarzPlay has started as a Hollywood content provider in the region thinking foreign content has the greatest potential; however, with more than 90% of customers being Saudis, StarzPlay realized a significant growth potential with Arabic content. Thus, they turned their focus to localized content development and acquisition strategy, including Turkish content that Bates said works and translates very well in the region.

Netflix subscribes to the same expansion strategy through developing local content “by Arabs for Arabs,” said Ahmed Sharkawi, Netflix’s representative in the Middle East. Then, has Netflix fallen short in showing its understanding of its Arab audiences, since As-hab wala A’az is not Netflix’s first production that sparked the audiences’ criticism? Some audiences were also critical towards the Jordanian shows Jinn, AlRawabi School for Girls, or Egyptian show Paranormal. They condemned the shows for their misunderstanding of religion and Arab culture, their lack of local authenticity and relevance to audiences.

The critics describing Arab culture as singular are incongruous with the realities of audiences in MENA, rich with diverse customs and degrees of tolerance. As-hab wala A’az provides a critical moment for streaming services to choose their paths in this streaming revolution.

The critics describing Arab culture, religion, or authenticity as singular are incongruous with the multiple realities of audiences in MENA, rich with its diverse customs, practices, and degrees of tolerance. The massive audience in the region continues to attract content producers, advertisers, distributors, and streaming platforms, all keen to connect with the pan-Arab audiences in their commonalities and diversities. By starring some of the best Egyptian and Lebanese actors, Netflix’s As-hab wala A’az has attempted to connect with audiences through celebrity culture, one of the strategies that movie remakes draw on.

Remakes can be standardized or have adaptations to geopolitical, cultural, moral, aesthetic, or other contexts. After the depression, remakes have enabled to cover up some of the losses, as remakes present cost-effective advantages. Over the last decade, and especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, remakes have become a trend in some markets while also charging women with progressive roles.

Remakes are not a common industry practice in the Middle East, while they are a “significant part of filmmaking both as an economic measure designed to keep production costs down and as an art form,” note Forrest and Koos. Aside from economic advantages, recycling movies can have several reasons, including technological innovation, computer digitization, project attribution to a specific star, or audience revival. Connecting with sizeable Arab audiences with new media consumption patterns (always on, engaged, willing to pay for content, high consumers of global content) presents a lucrative opportunity for the streaming platforms that operate in a highly competitive market, since the pandemic.

Video streaming services have an opportunity to elevate the creative content in the Middle East.  In addition to producing local and relatable content, other significant factors determining the success of OTT and streaming services include understanding the trends and considering the audiences of different generations, different habits, and preferences. By committing to this endeavor, content creators have an opportunity to stand aside from cliches and gendered dubbed productions predominant on Arab screens and foster freedom of expression to address agency and socio-cultural transformations in the region. As-hab wala A’az provides a critical moment for streaming services in the region to question localization and choose their paths in this streaming revolution.