This paper argues that since the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states do not offer any means of official political participation—neither to their citizens, nor to their foreign migrant populations—other forms of informal political spheres are being created, especially within the arts. Budding GCC film and art industries are beginning to perform the role of civil society, where sociopolitical issues are being broached in creative ways. Even though these cultural productions are largely constrained by the overarching systems under which they operate, they nonetheless open up new channels for social commentary—sometimes subtle, but at other times more direct. In this paper, I examine some of the locally produced films and artworks that bear overt or covert political statements about everyday life in the Gulf states, from commenting on the predicament of domestic workers to making observations about the Gulf’s increasingly fractured political climate.