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"No Woman, No Drive": Telfaz11, the Saudi Arts Movement, and National Identity in the Twenty-First Century
Abstract
On October 26, 2013, the Saudi production company Telfaz11 released “No Woman, No Drive,” a four-minute video set to Bob Marley’s song “No Woman, No Cry” and which satirized Saudi Arabia’s restrictions on women driving. Within hours of its release, the video had gone viral and earned millions of views. The success of the video brought unprecedented global attention to the video’s star, the Saudi-American comedian Hisham Fageeh, Telfaz11, and the art movement in the Kingdom. Although the movement has received little attention among Western scholars, it has provided a platform for Saudi men and women to discuss how to define their national identity and how best to address the challenges facing their nation today. These artists aim to create a fresh vision of arts and society that is both relevant to the daily lives of young Saudis and that transcends pan-Arab models in genres as diverse as comedy, cartoons, film, painting and sculpture. Members of the royal family (an entity related to but separate from the state) helped created a social space for the movement to thrive but left it up to individual artists to take advantage of these opportunities and to reimagine Saudi national identity. Based on research in the Kingdom from April 2013 until January 2014, including interviews with the staff of Telfaz11, Fageeh, and a host of other leading Saudi artists and critics, this paper will argue that the Saudi arts movement reflects the nexus of four forces: 1) the internet 2) the emergence of art galleries, theatres, YouTube, and other spaces that are accessible to both men and women simultaneously 3) smart phones 4) the King Abdullah Scholarship Program. It also argues that the movement helps us better understand Saudi stability in recent years because it provided a space where Saudis could discuss and resolve the generational clashes, questions of national identity, and political disputes that have plagued other Arab societies since 2010.
Discipline
History
Geographic Area
Saudi Arabia
Sub Area
19th-21st Centuries