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Khalli Balak Min Zizi: Taking Egypt to Therapy

May 13, 2021

Like every Ramadan, the Egyptian television industry has wheeled out the usual tray of saccharine treats, the over-consumption of which sedates the viewing public for the entire holy month. The industry has refined its formula for melodrama and continues to export it to the entire Arab world, and I’ve come to associate the genre with the same desserts that, in the same region, litter dinner tables after sunset. They leave audiences satisfied and bloated—almost like a daily fix. These melodramas obscure the contradicting and controversial layers within real-life problems (like poverty, heartbreak and injustice); the human condition is, therefore, reduced to vague tragedies, where a sanitized and unrealistic ‘good’ is pitted against an equally sanitized and unrealistic ‘evil.’ Exaggeration is the mallet with which these shows flatten humanity to bite-size morsels, meanwhile, executives opine, social commentary is far too sour for the Egyptian palate. This time around, however, a notable exception has disrupted the slew of melodramas and cheap comedies—the dramedy helmed by Karim el Shinnawy and Mariam Naoum, Khalli Balak Min Zizi. Note: This article will only mention plot developments made in the first three episodes of the show…


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