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The Yacoubian Building ... The Filthy Image - or is it the True one - of our society

And finally i went to Yacoubian Building, the celebrated movie based on a famous novel carrying the same name ... this is the Da Vinci Code big hit equivalent in the egyptian media. Well ... it's no secret that the egyptian media industry is more westernized - inside out - than any other thing in our society ... but this movie has made one big leap in that area by breaking one of the biggest taboos in the egyptian/arabic society: homosexuality.
I don't remember i ever heard the term itself "homosexual" except few years ago, and mainly from american movies, needless to say "imagining" that these ppl existed on earth! Even religious speech about the people of Lut, comes with more hinting and concealed words than using the word "homosexual" ... even when used in casual writings, the word "homosexuality" is replaced with "the doing of the people of Lut" ...
Ok, one might think that i'm for putting things in their right terms and sex-education and bla bla bla ... i do believe that "adab" in speach by using concealed words is an attribute of a healthy human being, coz by the time, using more open and plain words makes it sorta "usual" to you ... ACCEPTANCE if you know wut i mean ... let's see .. if you tell a kid "the doing of the ppl of Lut" ... he's probably gonna automatically recall the stories of wut happened to these ppl and their condemenation by God ... wutever ur religion is ... that should automatically give the message of resentment to his subconcious towards the whole issue ... but using the word "homosexual" doesn't really refer to anything ... moreover, the suffix "sexual" might be appealing to the subconcious, afterall "sexual" desire is a part of every human being .. and by the time, the term gets more and more accepted. Rest my case? ... i'll talk more about "subliminal messages" laterz coz i've been told about this a while ago and currently checking some articles about it.
Ok ... moving back to the movie ... the Yacoubian Building literally comprises a wonderful mixture of some of the weirdst SCUM of the earth ...
1. a drunk womanizer who still hangs on to his family name and his inherited "pacha" title ... in one scene he says ... "Allah, why don't you give me a discount? 20% ... 50% ... 100% ... you are merciful" ... i really dunno wuts the purpose of this scene ... show us that every scum does know God? so? was this "repentance" ? and then another hour of the movie drinking and sleeping with his office girl? DUH!
2. a homesexual journal director who goes hunting men in the street ... the gravity of this character is that it is played with such a professionalism that you'd actually LIKE it ... all the ppl were laughing all the time in the cinema .. at his movements, the way he speaks ... yeah, he is a freak of nature to most ppl, but subconciously you are "accepting him"... you "like" him .. while the normal reaction of a balanced human should be resentment!! He is shown in a late scene as a victim ... his mother was sleeping with another man and he found no one to turn to but the nubian servant who raped him when he was only a child ... so, his homosexuality is all projected on a miserable childhood! and he comes up with a funny theory trying to justify his sin ... "you know wut is surely a sin? adultury ... a man sleeping with a woman outside marriage is "haram" ... and this is to avoid confusion is relativness etc. ... but wut about men? DUH! men doesn't get pregnant!" ... ok .. that scene was HILARIOUS!! ppl around me were rolling on the floor ... while actually it is a misery ... ! I believe this is one of the most dangerous effects of this movie ... while all ppl are talking about is how it is a break of the taboo, they never realize the consequences of giving such a message out ... the movie just leaves you to your own thoughts, it does not show any reactions regarding this character ... in fact, there's one scene when the Pacha meets the gay man on the stairs, coming home with his precious catch - the policeman he picked from the street - and the pacha just makes some funny comments hinting at his homosexuality ... another face of an "acceptance" message.
3. a pretending-to-be religious man who owns a series of stores and seeks to enter the parliment through bribery and finally revealed to be drug-dealing (note that all the movie he was on the path of "Allah said and his messenger said" )
4. the christian tailor (who also swears with the "living christ" all the movie) who persuades his young neighbour who works in a clothes store to get the owner of the store to buy some of his tailored clothes by seducing him ... and later tries to persuade her to make the pacha sign a partnership contract after seducing him and making him drunk so that he, the tailor, could take over the flat after the pacha's death.
5. the Pacha's sister who is always insulting him and hitting him for being the drunk womanizer he is, and finally kicks him out of the house, raises a law suit against him to rob him off his money, office .. etc .. and finally breaks into his office with a bunch of police officers accusing him of adultry.
The only two positive characters that are worth noting are:
6. Taha, the son of the building keeper who fails to join the police academy despite his high grades, only for the sole reason of being the son of a building keeper ... he then joins another faculty, where he gets engaged with an islamic activity group, unshaves his beard, wears a white gilbab ... the typical stereotype of the "islamic terrorist" despite the fact that the movie never shows any signs of terrorism intentions except may be the military camp they had ... the movie doesn't even expose any sign of "corrupted" thoughts ... that is if the author doesn't consider wut the imam said in his soromon of the government that encourages tourism by providing alcohols and dancers - which is very true btw - as "corrupted" thoughts!! ... anyways, taha gets arrested by national security during a demonstration, he gets tortured and sexually abused and gets out determined on taking revenge from the officer who ordered his torture ... and he does ... only to end up with a scene where he and his abuser are lying dead side by side covered with blood ... was taha a victim? he sure was ... but the last scene gives you the impression that they were both wrong ... the islamist and the abuser!!
7. the poor young girl, taha's fiance, who is sexually harrassed by every employer she works for ... in one of the early scenes, her mother summarizes how she'll end up when she said "everyone is free to do wutever he wants with his clothes, the important thing is that you keep your clothes on" ... and later confirmed by her cousin "preserve yourself without annoying anyone" .. in another never to be put better sentence describing how such a girl, and we have millions of them, lives: "you are pretty? there are many of you ... you have a diploma? diplomas are hanged on every wall" ... the most brutal truth that can hit you about your society ... a society that considers you as a scumbag as long as you are poor ... if you are a girl then you are used as a sex object ... for 10 pounds ... you r a human trash!

Ok ... the movie is highly depressing ... when you think about it as a highly realistic microscopic "photo" of the society, you'll only get frustrated .. and probably kneel in gratefulness to Allah that you have enough money to sit on the other side of a PC reading this, and surely not in Yacoubian Building!