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Jan 25, 2023

A Gay Subtext in a Movie from Saudi Arabia

 


The trailer for the Saudi movie Al-Khallat (2023) showed what looks like a gay scene: a young man is hugging a flamboyant older man, who tells him that "everyone in Asia" will know.

No way!  Saudi Arabia is the most homophobic country on Earth.  The signs must mean something totally different there.

The movie has four interlocking segments about deceptions that go wrong.  In the fourth,a father and young adult son are staying in a fancy hotel.  (Only four names are given on the IMDB, so I don't know who they are.  The top photo is of a random Arab hunk.)

Son goes downstairs to a club called Cloud Ninety-nine (in English), and sees his favorite Soccer Player wearing a mink coat and multiple feminine rings, talking to girls who aren't wearing hijabs -- scandalous in the conservative Muslim country -- and drinking -- completely illegal!  

Nevertheless, he tries to get a photo: one with the two of them together, so "everybody in Asia" will know that he's met the sports great. "Ok, but not with any girls or booze in the background, or I'll be disgraced forever."


Before he can take the non-girls, non-booze photo, Son is swept into a private room with Soccer Player's entourage, sits next to him, gets pawed and hugged and encouraged to drink and dance with girls.  He refuses, his adulation of Soccer Player waning, and finally rushes out.  Soccer Player follows.

Meanwhile, Dad wakes up, goes downstairs, and sees his son chumming it up with the Soccer Player.  He is horrified, thinking that the boy is drinking and dancing with girls, and snaps a photo to use while condemning him.

But Son is innocent.  He breaks away from the tempting Soccer Player and returns to his father.  They use the picture to blackmail him: give up girls and booze, ask Allah's forgiveness, or the photo goes viral and his career is over.  They also want 15,000 riyals ($3000) to cover an earlier plot complication.

Obviously it was unintentional, but we can find a gay subtext in the Soccer Player's feminine affect and his interest in "corrupting" the Son, in spite of the corruption involving dancing with girls.

4 comments:

  1. I am a Saudi man, and I watched this movie, and I really had this conversation about what is the message that the movie wants to convey?. But not in the way you wrote in the post, but in another way, which is that the player was attracted to the boy and wanted to show him off and perhaps spend a sexual night with him. What prompted me to think is that this is common for us in Saudi Arabia; We actually in popular terms have a much larger queer culture than in America I'm sure of that. We are not, in fact, homophobic (not because we are liberals, for example), but it is a very complicated matter that began in the eighties with the spread of pornographic films among young people and the fact that society was very religious at that time and it completely separated women from men. And since then there has been a very popular gay subculture that you might compare it to the subcultures in America maybe you would compare it to the hippies, the relief, the punk, the punk, the rap and the hip hop cultures. Yes, as I tell you, we have openly gay singers, and since the nineties, cassettes and albums have been spreading for them. Also, in all Saudi schools, without exception, there were common homosexual relationships, and much more love relationships than what existed between men and women (more like love relationships in the time of the ancient Greeks or Rome). Yes, the issue should not reach the parents or the judicial authorities because it will become a serious religious issue - The punishment at that time will be 100 lashes, often with a whip, or imprisonment. There is no death penalty - but if he is far from the eyes of censorship, do whatever you want and this is not reprehensible among young people and adolescents. On the contrary, everyone is trying to get a beautiful boy to become his boyfriend. I think there are many and complex reasons for this. But in general, in Saudi Arabia, if you are positively gay -Top- , there is no problem with that at all. Rather, you will be an example of masculinity, but if you are negatively gay -Bottom-, here you will be bullied and belittled from your masculinity, and so on, but it will never come to killing you because you are gay. I have lived in a community of schools and neighborhoods and I am fully aware of our culture as Saudis on this matter. And this is what made me think that this movie touched on this topic, because the producers of that movie and the series of films and shows related to it are always famous for their bold presentation.

    If you want more information for serious research and writing on the subject, contact me on Twitter - @nobodycu1

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  2. This post attracted me a lot and I came back to comment on it with some additions.
    We are tired of the hypocrisy of Saudi society and its dictatorial government. More than 30% of Saudis are gay, and there is no Saudi school in which homosexuality has not been practiced hundreds of times. There is no Saudi male person who has not been harassed by Saudi male persons.
    But the people claim virtue and it is far from it.

    We have the most makers of homosexual content in the entire Arab world or perhaps the entire Middle East (of course, through sites that support the publication of personal content only, and not through independent sites or porn companies).

    For comparison only with Egypt, for example, whose population exceeds 100 million people, while the population of the Saudi people does not exceed 30 million people. Nevertheless, the gay porn industry in Saudi Arabia and the possibilities of interaction with it are much more than what exists in Egypt, and despite that, we find that the Saudis suffer from hypocrisy towards This issue.

    In fact, the Saudi government is very hypocritical, since it is tyrannical and totalitarian, and we do not have parties, parliaments, or organizations; It is difficult for homosexuals to live and confront the government that tries to gain the approval of the American Republican Party by imposing its ideologies at times and tries to win over the American Democratic Party by opening many sexual freedoms even though it claims to be an Islamic country and at the same time fights homosexual activities around the world! .

    There is no greater contradiction in the world than that.
    This matter has negatively affected homosexuals inside Saudi Arabia, as they face a people who love homosexuality in the majority of them, but they fight and suppress homosexuals as well, and this is a psychological disease and hypocrisy that is very harmful to homosexuals in Saudi Arabia who cannot freely express their voice because there are no supporting organizations.

    All we can do is try to convey the true view of homosexuality within the Saudi people, and that it is complex and contradictory, not simple and clear, and takes a strict stance either for or against.

    We hope that all bloggers in free and developed countries and all organizations will look deeply into Saudi society and its dealings with homosexuality, specifically since the 80s, through the Gulf War, the satellite revolution, then the Internet, as well as homosexual porn.

    The truth is that I literally fear for myself from blogging and writing about this subject, because its consequences will be dire, but we have no choice but to hide on the Internet and write some ideas, even if we live in foreign countries.

    I am very sorry for the length of the topic.
    But for more than ten years, I haven't found a blogger interested in looking at LGBT communities around the world like I found your page this time, and I'm very glad for that.

    In addition, I give you some links that may give you some insights into gay cultures inside Saudi Arabia, and you may need to use the browser translator: i will put it in another comment.

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    Replies
    1. This comment was so extensive that I decided to accept it anyway, but I usually don't permit the offensive terms "homosexual" and "homosexuality." The proper terms are gay, lesbian, LGBT, queer, MSM, and sexual minority.

      Delete
    2. Thank you, in fact I may not be very good at terminology and which may or may not be appropriate.

      Delete

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