This paper explores the way that public discourse about female figures in the Egyptian and Syrian revolutions transgress local, international, and even ‘revolutionary’ norms. They may exemplify popular sentiments or be subjects of mockery or (s)heroism. Sama el-Masry, Bouthaina al-Shaaban and Hala Diyab, for instance, respectively exemplify anti-U.S. and anti-Ikhwan sentiments, and represent the most powerful female political figure in Syria and the loyalists’ comedic Ariana Huffington imitator. (S)heroistic figures include those violated physically, or whose existence may have been snuffed out, like Samira Ibrahim, the subject of virginity tests by Egyptian security officials, the falsely accused “sex-jihadist” Rawan Kaddah who is actually a victim of rape and torture, and Razan Zeitounah, the civil rights lawyer who worked alongside jihadists and was kidnapped along with her husband and two others in December of 2012. These female points of comedic/ironic or tragically embodied/disembodied symbolic (s)heroines form a relief, or media ‘buzz’ to offset an overwhelmingly male depiction of the politics of the revolutions. While my broader project includes a range of women, their actions, practices, and representations, and what they signify in the current political moment, in the panel presentation I will focus on Sama El-Masry, the bellydancer who has promised to reveal the secrets of the Muslim Brotherhood and produced several videos highly critical of the United States’ role vis-à-vis Egypt which are simultaneously transgressive, bawdy, and nationalist.