Sabah Toujours: Fashioning a Lebanese Icon by ayaelsayassine

Sabah Toujours: Fashioning a Lebanese Icon

Aya Elsa Yassine

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts In Fashion Studies

MA Program in Fashion Studies Parsons The New School for Design 2020

Abstract

The topic of this thesis addresses the importance of songstress, diva, actress, and performer from Lebanon, Sabah (1927-2014), in the context of Arab pop culture. Sabah, as an iconic female figure and through the narrative of her dress, enables an understanding of aspects of life in Lebanon at significant periods of Lebanese modern history, from the Nahda (1870-1960’s), to the Golden Era of Lebanon (1950’s-1975) and the years post the civil war (1990-present). Sabah remains a powerful emblematic woman from the Middle East representing gay and queer culture, who was able to defy Western stereotypes through her convictions, fashion and beauty aesthetics, refusing to conform to the cult of the youth. Through my analysis of Sabah’s fashion for cinema, plays, music, public appearance and in her daily life, I argue that she was a prodigy in fashioning a unique and unconventional elegance, admired by all, despite age, ethnic and social backgrounds, gender and sexual orientations. Her extravagant outfits and glitzy hairstyles, created by adorning her body with modern accessories, paved the road to success and the expression of a love for life and optimism, despite the ongoing struggles in Lebanon. Sabah metamorphosed from Christian village girl who first intended to be a nun, to become the most popular diva of the Arab World. She flourished as an actress in Egypt in the 40’s and 50’s sharing the stage and screen with Egypt’s most renowned actresses and actors. In the 60’s and 70’s, she was able to launch her singing career, where her outfits revolutionized local and regional TV screens and performances on the world’s most celebrated stages. Sabah has been ever since--and still is--conceived by the LGBTQ communities in the Arab World as a symbol of emancipation. This discussion is also situated within the current and ongoing Lebanese ‘October 17 Revolution’ from 2019. While the 2

implications of this mass nationwide protest are yet to be analyzed, it is important to note that the uprisings brought to the surface interrogations on Lebanese identity, addressing intersectional issues of feminism, gender and identity. I suggest how Sabah’s fashion provides a symbolic and nostalgic element of hope towards this nation’s shaken identity.

Keywords: Sabah, Nahda, Arab Cinema, Cultural Identity, The Female Body, Gay Camp, Stars, Iconicity, Hollywood, LGBTQ in Lebanon.

Acknowledgements

Over the last two years, New York has been home to me. It has shaped my journey of self discovery, and it is at Parsons School of Design, The New School that I was able to freely channel my ideas and creativity. My heartfelt appreciation goes to my fabulous professor and thesis advisor Marilyn Cohen, with whom I have had the chance to study “Film and Fashion” during my first semester. This class has shaped my knowledge of the field through its introduction to groundbreaking views on fashion, film and feminism. I will forever cherish our conversation along the Museum Mile, coming out of a class from Cooper Hewitt. Thank you for being a great mentor, for your constant encouragement and patience. I met the lovely Rebeca Leal Singer in Marilyn’s class that same fall. This encounter grew into a beautiful friendship, Rebecca became my writing tutor and I looked forward to our sessions every week. Our Thursday night, drinks and walks home to my place in the East Village, discussing nail art, love, poetry and fashion, became part of our traditions as New Yorkers. Thank you for telling me that I am a good writer and for putting up with my writing anxieties. I’d like to also thank my friend Timmy Malkoun, for being a source of encouragement over the last ten years, and for carrying my shopping bags everywhere. I hope one day we get to venture into awesome projects together. I am grateful to Ala Bassil for being an amazing and loyal friend, she has accompanied me throughout my magical journey that started three years ago. Thank you for designing the beautiful cover image of Sabah as my graduation gift. To the city of Beirut, the beating heart of the Middle East, a city like no other, now I understand why my parents never left you. As you keep on inspiring many, I dream of brighter days for you and for all of us. This thesis could not have been possible without you. 4

To my family, the one I was born in and the one I have chosen, the following is but a small hommage of gratitude. To my brilliant mother Nada Adhami Yassine, you are a force of nature. Your years of fight and work for women’s rights and the civil society in Lebanon and the region have fascinated me ever since I was a kid. Thank you for teaching me that a woman can do whatever she wants and surely dress the way she wants, too. Thank you for passing on to Sarah and I, your love for fashion and cinema and dragging us to old movie theatres in Paris and Beirut, some of which do not exist anymore. I urge you, however, to revisit your list of “Must watch” and “Chef d’oeuvres” movies! To my dad, Salim Yassine, thank you for teaching me the love of books. It is true as you say, one is never lonely in the company of a book, “‫( ”ﺻﺎﺣﺑك ﻛﺗﺎﺑك‬S.S). I’m thankful for our trips around the world, and our little secrets, thank you for your sense of humor. Keep on dreaming, keep on writing, I and we love you. To my aunt Balkis, my childhood wouldn’t have been half as fun if it weren’t for you, Paris days are the best days. Thank you for bringing Sabah into my life, as you were a longtime fan of hers and for helping me with this research. Sarah, I don’t even know from where to begin. If I have ever accomplished any project it is thanks to you. Thank you for being my first friend and for teaching me how to play during the Verdun days, for introducing me to fashion and pop culture, although you might regret it at times! Thank you for passing on to me your love for urban spaces, cities, storytelling and flowers. Thank you for teaching me that a city is best navigated by foot, and to always look up while walking. What you do for Beirut is truly remarkable, we owe you a lot. To Shukri, thank you for being “smart enough to be in my life” as you once told me. Thank you for your unconditional love and patience. For making me rediscover Beirut, Hamra and The Corniche through your eyes. Thank you for the green sweatpants and thank you for teaching me 5

how to love and how to love life. Thank you for every single moment spent together. To many more trips around the sun, side by side.

To Nada, Salim and Sarah, I wrote this for you. And to you Shukri, a beautiful figment of my imagination.

Table of Contents Abstract

Acknowledgements

Dedication

Introduction

Theoretical Framework

Methodological Approach

Literature Review

Chapter 1: A Tale of Two Blondes

Chapter 2: Beirut and Sabah: Treasures from a Golden Era

Chapter 3: Beirut Camp

Conclusion

Figures

Bibliography

110

“The light was almost unbearable, and I saw the power, the existence, the presence of the flowers, they are little things and we are used to them, but like everything in life they are formidable things, we don’t know them, we discover them along our life. So, their presence, their power, the meaning it all came; like an epic story.” Etel Adnan, The Spring Flowers Own, Serpentine Gallery, 2011

Introduction

Alluring and prolific singer Sabah (1927-2014) was a celebrated figure and fashion icon from Lebanon. She lived a rich life in which her clothing had a story of its own. With an artistic trajectory spanning over 60 years, her costumes and big platinum blonde hair, along with her numerous marriages made her stand out in the Arab World. Releasing over 50 albums, acting in 98 movies and over 20 plays, she is recognized internationally across generational audiences, but little attention has been given to analyze her wardrobe and fashion identity. Sabah, “Morning” in Arabic, was born under the name Jeanette Feghali on November 10, 1927 in a modest Christian family, in the Lebanese village of Wadi Shahrour. Her uncle, the famous poet Shahrour Al-Wadi (nicknamed “Singingbird of the Valley”), influenced her greatly to sing mostly folk songs called The Mawal honoring the Lebanese heritage and its diverse landscape. One of the many nicknames the crowd gave her was “Shahroura” or the “Songbird” the bird known for its highly developed voice, floating over their village, and “Sabbouha” (from Sabah, morning in Arabic), or “Ustoura”, Arabic for Legend.1 My favorite nickname however is “Shams Al Shammousi” which means “The Brightest of Suns”. Sabah has become a figure of nostalgia for Lebanon.

Sami Asmar, “Sabah: The Curtain Descends Upon a Great Lebanese Singer & Cultural Icon”, Al Jadid, A Review and Record of Arab Culture and Arts, Al Jadid, Vol. 19, No. 68, 2015

International press such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Reuters, The Telegraph, BBC, The LA Times and even The Times of Israel, (Lebanon and Israel not having any diplomatic relations due to a long history of political conflict), all reported on news of her death paying tribute to her extraordinary life in articles titled “Sabah, Enduring Star in Arab World Entertainment, Dies at 87” (The New York Times), “Sabah, Actress and Entertainer Who Thrilled and Scandalized the Arab World, Dies at 87” (The Washington Post) or “Sabah, Lebanese Singing Legend, Dies Aged 87” (BBC News). Sabah had predicted long before she was gone that the gossip around her would continue after her death, saying “Even in my death people are still talking about me. I will call it a celebration not a funeral.”2 In fact, in some of the articles, it has been said that her date of birth was falsified and that she would have been 93 years old when she died. Regardless, Sabah was and remains a legend, an icon, a star, which I was given the chance to discover further and through the lens of fashion in this thesis. So why write about Sabah’s fashion? Because she was fearless in all aspects of life. Sabah’s convictions, and behavior including the way she dressed, were probably so innate to her that she might not have been aware of breaking so many taboos and being so ahead of her time. What is a fashion icon and how can Sabah be considered as such? In 2011, fashion scholar and The Fashion Institute of Technology’s museum director and curator Valerie Steele wrote about beer heiress and fashion icon Daphne Guiness. In her book Daphne Guinness, Steele defines an icon as “originally an image of a sacred person worshipped by his or her followers [having] an element of enthusiasm wandering on worship in the popular response to celebrities.”3 Steele then gives an example of

Sabah, Interview with Zaven, Beirut Future Television, Beirut, 2012.

Valerie Steele, Daphne Guiness (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2011), p.5.

commentaries she has come across on “the blog imthegirl.com referring to “‘style-icon-daphneguinness’: There are normal people and there is Daphne Guiness. Ms Guiness is the ultimate fashion fantasy where everyone wears couture 24/7 and has ridiculously perfect bone structure.”4 Through my online research, I have found identical commentaries glorifying and idolizing Sabah on youtube songs and interview videos. Because these are written in Lebanese slang, hard to translate, I chose to omit quoting them here. Sabah was considered larger than life; she was honored in her death with a public funeral service attended by friends, family, national officials and fans, paying tribute with a photo of a younger Sabah from the 1970’s, covered with rose petals (figure 1). Sabah's adoration for clothes and fashion artifacts was coupled with a love for life. Her multiple marriages to seven or maybe even nine husbands, often younger than her, and her uncountable plastic surgeries were in my opinion a natural fight to make her appearance conform with her youthful spirit. This clearly came as a rejection of societal rules; Sabah’s only way was to live her life the way she wanted, an aspect that will always be celebrated in the life of this legend who “scandalized the Arab World”5 by being unapologetically herself. Through my conversations with friends and members of the fashion, arts and culture scene in Lebanon, I came to the realization that the ghost of Sabah lives on through stories around her costumes, her exciting life and performances, and through leading a hedonistic life which was a recurring subject of controversy, yet admired by her audience and tackled by the press. Anecdotes

Valerie Steele, Daphne Guiness, p.5.

Diaa Hadid, “Sabah: Actress and Entertainer Who Thrilled and Scandalized the Arab World, Dies at 87”,T he Washington Post, November 26, 2014.

on her life and marriages were passed on from generation to generation, eternally preserving her legacy. While trying to research Sabah’s sartorial practices through costumes and dresses for the stage, I noticed that those were poorly documented. In fashion, “archives are often celebrated spaces containing uniqueness and rarity, staging the archive as both a place of creativity for designers and containing the tales and memories of its wearer. But also, the archive serves as a study environment for students and researchers to dive into historical worlds of creation, whether in writing or through visual and material archiving.”6 Besides a couple of Arabic publications on her life and songs, serving as mini-biographies or part of bigger books on the age of Arab cinema and music, there are no existing writings on Sabah from the lense of pop culture or fashion. This lack of attention and importance accorded to cultural history in Lebanon can perhaps be linked to the ongoing problems faced by the country. On rare occasions where the Lebanese reflect on issues of national identity, they do so from political, confessional and feudalistic standpoints. This thesis invites the reader to reflect on an innovative view on the Middle East; a civilized region considered as a public good, offering insight on fashion, culture and art, and not seen through political and ideological colonialism. While the study of pop icons and stars in Western societies is a recurrent topic discussed in the fields of fashion, film, cultural and gender studies, it is rarely tackled in Arab societies from a scholarly perspective. For this reason as well, I have decided to investigate Sabah as a pop culture phenomenon. It is worthy to note that there has been one exhibition, put together in 2011, on Sabah’s life and costumes at The Beiteddine Festival, where Sabah attended the show. Besides this exhibit, it seems surprising that no cultural institutions in Lebanon, such as

Aya Elsa Yassine, From my study on the Alaïa archives in the course “Archiving Fashion” at Parsons Paris, Summer 2019.

The National Museum or The Sursock Museum, the two biggest museums in Beirut, has yet produced an exhibition on her legacy. I realized that even a younger audience, mostly the 1990’s postwar generation in Lebanon, which I belong to, is well informed on Sabah’s life. The public, young and old, recognizes Sabah's unique use of fashion and charm and how she differentiated herself from any other woman in the Arab World. This audience considers her a national symbol of elegance and style and a secular figure in a country torn by politics and religion.

For this reason, this thesis aims to expand the discourse on fashion, iconicity and women in the Middle East through the image conveyed by Sabah and her fashion, while profiling moments in Lebanese history. It starts with the Nahda (1870-1950s), moving to the Golden Age of Lebanon (1950’s-1975) prior to the eruption of the civil war, and lastly to the events that shaped the postwar period from 1990 to this day. My wish is to one day publish this thesis, making it available to both the Western and Eastern reader and to perhaps, hopefully, inspire the curation of an exhibition devoted to Sabah.

Theoretical framework One of the purposes of my thesis is to demonstrate how fashion, from the lense of pop culture in the context of the Arab World, has been overlooked, and as a result, left the reader with misconceptions and stereotypical views of the region. Therefore, I wanted to situate my discussion within the context of fashion as a cultural phenomenon. I turned to Valerie Steele who has demonstrated that “fashion is a social phenomenon and embodied practice, touching on all effects of modern societies”7 adding “there are few (if any) societies in the world in which people wear no clothing at all, and none in which people do not fashion their appearances in one way or another, whether through hairdressing, cosmetics, tattooing, jewelry or some other form of adornment.”8 Hence, fashion is this popular culture phenomenon that reaches and affects everyone. If according to Steele, “throughout the world, people employ clothing and adornment to fashion an identity”9 the same applies to Sabah, who used fashion to express her unique identity, in Lebanon and the Arab World, transmitted to the audience throughout her performances and beyond. As fashion students, we are often faced with this ongoing debate around the frivolous nature of fashion, which has incited me these past years to reflect on the question “does fashion really matter?” I therefore started my inquiry on the topic of Sabah’s fashion from the standpoint of postmodern Western fashion theories. As Juliet Ash and Elizabeth Wilson reveal in Chic Thrills: A Fashion Reader, “it is important to acknowledge that fashion is often associated with negative connotations, such as frivolity and elitism [and that] fashion has always faced the difficulty of not 7

Valerie Steele, The Berg Companion to Fashion (Oxford, New York: Berg, 2010), Introduction.

Ibid.

being taken seriously”10 and if I may add, understood. Subsequently, the use of fashion as a vehicle of personal expression of identities has been deemed banal or frivolous. The authors also claim that fashion “separates individuals one from the other in appearance, yet draws them together with common identities.”11 On the one hand, “fashion has unifying characteristics, it expresses inner selves, yet aids disguise.”12 In addition, “it is obsessive about outer appearance, yet speaks to the unconscious and our deepest desires.”13 I use these dualities in fashion, to situate the discussion around Sabah’s clothes. As it will be demonstrated in my next chapters, Sabah’s fashion goes beyond appearances and aesthetics, communicating parts of her intellect and psyche, in postmodern culture. Since the scope of my thesis looks at fashion beyond the West, I also considered Elizabeth Wilson’s postmodern views on fashion from Adorned in Dreams, arguing that “we can no longer believe in the history of the world as being the single “grand narrative of the history of Western civilization.”14 She adds, “It is simply no longer possible to imagine that the history of the West is the history of the world; and if we can no longer perceive history as a linear progress, there are many histories, many ‘stories.’”15 This thesis thus invites the reader to explore a different and novel view of the Middle East, away from stereotypes, through discovering the life and fashion of a less globally known star.

Juliet Ash and Elizabeth Wilson, Chic Thrills: A Fashion Reader, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), Introduction. 11

Ibid.

Elizabeth Wilson, Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity, (London and New York: I. B. Tauris & Company, Limited, 1984). 15

Ibid.

Part of this thesis ignites the debate on Hollywood fashion in film representation and advertisements. I looked at studies on American lifestyle and patterns of consumption in the mass market environment of the 1950’s (The 1950’s, Willam and Nancy Young). Exploring ways men and specially women led their lives, enabled a deeper understanding of the meaning behind objects of desire fashioned in these films. The latter has in turn, demonstrated other subjectivities on the sexualization of women for the male gaze. Hence, I base my analysis of advertisements according to Arthur Asa Berger who bases his beliefs on semioticians such as Potter, Lotman and John Berger. I also wished to explore the transcendence of Sabah as an artist, in order to understand her lasting mark on the world. Therefore, in the context of my study of her fashion as a social phenomenon, I visited Richard Dyer’s groundbreaking work in his book Stars from 1998. He positions his work on stars under the realm of film studies, demonstrating that it is the star that makes the film significant.16 Reading various chapters from his book has presented me with the fundamentals of star-making themes and criteria. I also analyzed fashion in film from the scope of feminist film studies drawing on writings of Rachel Moseley in Fashioning Film Stars: Dress, Culture, Identity and Pamela Church Gibson who presents alternative views on fashioning the female body. From these standpoints, I argue that, in the same way Western actresses and performers such as Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Mae West and Madonna, became icons through their fashion, Sabah does the same, claiming her agency as female pop icon from the Middle East.

Richard Dyer, Stars, (London: British Film Institute, 1998), Introduction.

Methodological Approach

I had initially thought of writing a case study on the styles of Sabah and the Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum, known as “The Voice of Egypt” (figure 3). My aim was to investigate how it was possible for female artists such as them to reclaim agency through fashion in performative arts in the context of the Arab World. However, in the end, I decided to focus my study solely on Sabah. My decision had to do with the fact that Sabah, being a Lebanese pop culture figure, touched the hearts of many and that much more needed to be said on her subject. I thought that it would be better to concentrate only on her, due to how fashion permitted a constant redefining of her identity. Covering only Sabah was a whole theme in itself, and adding in the Umm Kulthum factor would make it too broad, thus inhibiting the reader to truly learn about either of them.

When I first started mentioning the topic of my thesis, I was pleasantly overwhelmed by the amount of excitement and encouragement people around me expressed. Scholars and friends from New York were eager to discover Sabah, an artist not known to them. Friends from Lebanon, claimed that not much importance had been dedicated to Sabah, and that her legacy needed to be preserved. This sense of overwhelment became one of the most powerful fuels for me to continue with my research.

At first, I looked into The New School Libraries and Archives for scholarly material on Sabah, whether from the lens of pop culture, music or even framed through the history of Lebanon. I could not find anything. At this point, I decided that it would be better to start by investigating the Nahda period (1870-1960’s). The reason for this was that aside from the fact that Sabah was born during 19

this era, I had read an excerpt from my father’s unpublished historical novel Glamour and Espionage in the Times of the Nahda, and found this era to be fascinating. I had an intuition that it would be easier to find information on this subject, and then move from there. I was right. I then focused on gathering material about the Arab cinema industry, through looking into big illustrated books that included black and white stills and texts about the studio industry in Egypt, ranked third worldwide at the time. I specifically looked into the book by Sherif Boraie, The Golden Age of Egyptian Cinema 1936-1967: Cinema Cairo, to learn more about this industry, and on Princeton University Library Digital Archives, where, despite still being in its formative stages, it had archived Arabic movie posters and put together an exhibit in 2013.

Having established the context of this thesis, I moved on to exploring Sabah’s songs and costumes. While I was familiar with some of her songs, I discovered the rest and noticed the evolution of her style and performance. They were always impeccable, channeling not just fashion of the period borrowed from the West, but also appeared wearing unique looks that no other star was able to. Aside from her hairstyles, make up, avant garde nail design (figure 2) she was also the first to wear and admit to wearing fake jewelry or “faux bijoux”, while encouraging emerging designers. For this reason, I listened to her songs, which vary in topics. One of the songs which might have been her favorite as she often sang it during her interviews, is “Saat Saat” (1980) meaning “As the Hours Go By”. This song whose lyrics read “Mani Saaida” “I am not happy”, is considered to be melancholic. “Taxi d’Amour” (2000) means “The Love Taxi” and in “Allô Beirut”17 (1974) Sabah dials Beirut on the telephone and asks to speak to the city quickly so she can visit the sea, the mountains and all of its landmarks (figure 4). Her other songs include “Yana Yana”, a play on

“Allô Beirut”, Sabah https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBvLqJenpkg

words, something like “Me!Me”, “Zay Al Asal”, “Just Like Honey” and “Maximum you can touch me”18 which requires no translation. I also watched interviews she had conducted with the media throughout the years, in the 60’s, 70’s and 2000s.

In order to establish a comparison between the Golden Ages of Hollywood and Egyptian cinema, I looked into film posters, record covers and advertisements from the 1950’s and 1960's, found in the book Tonight by Abboude Abou Jaoude, archivist and publisher, and on the website braich.com, an online gallery offering posters, magazines and articles for sale, operating from Lebanon. My visual analysis of this material was based on Arthur Asa Berger’s Ads, Fads, and Consumer Culture: Advertising's Impact on American Character and Society, as his work focuses “upon print advertisements and television commercials, the two most interesting--from my point of view--kinds of texts.”19 For Berger, “One important thing to remember about these texts is that every aspect of them is significant.”20 Indeed, analysing these artistic texts meticulously has helped decode, compare and analyze Marilyn Monroe and Sabah’s fashion, and the impact it had on shaping women’s role in society in the 50’s and 60’s. I also read parts of works by other advertising scholars and semioticians, who have established through their writings that advertisement was the most powerful and successful tool to sell products in the context of a neo-liberal capitalist system, as demonstrated by Cynthia Mayers21 and Chris Wharton.22

Sabah, “Maximum You Can Touch Me” from A Man From Tehran, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flDreSTJfUI

Arthur Berger, Ads, Fads, and Consumer Culture: Advertising's Impact on American Character and Society, (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc: Lanham, Boulder, New York, Toronto, Oxford), 2015, p.123. 20 21

Ibid

Cynthia Mayers, A Word from our Sponsor: Admen, Advertising, and the Golden Age of Radio (New York: Fordham University Press, 2015). 22

Chris Wharton, Advertising: Critical Approaches (Abingdon: Routledge, 2015).

My overall approach for going on with this research can be said to be quantitative, as one of my main research methods was conducting an interview and gathering oral history material from individuals who had either worked with or had encountered the diva. I met hairdresser and friend of Sabah, Joseph Gharib in January 2020 at his salon in Baabda, an area peripheral to Beirut. Gharib had pictures of him and Sabah hung all over and the recorded interview lasted about an hour. I wanted to discover Sabah through the lens of people who had a closer relationship with her and who could reveal aspects of her life less known. Also while in Beirut, I was able to talk about my topic to both friends and people in the field, on and off social media. I was thrilled by the feedback I got as to how many people had actually met Sabah or had personal anecdotes to recall. Through my Instagram and Facebook posts, inviting people to share with me their stories, I was contacted by a Sabah fan account who sent me videos of one of her concerts in London.23 In chapter 3, I turn to testimonials of members of the LGBTQ community in Lebanon who share their thoughts and stories about Sabah.

Sabah in Concert, London 1977 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efNAaLLAH3s.

Literature Review I have explored several works of scholarly literature that can be broken down into two broad categories; one is writings on the Nahda and Arab World cinema, and the other is contributions from the field of fashion studies, feminist and film studies, pop culture and advertising. First, I have looked at historical writings on the Nahda period during which the Arab cinema was born, reflecting on Middle Eastern cultural identity at this crucial time in history; a period that impacted greatly the cultural face of the Arab World. Tarek Ariss, Middle-Eastern Studies professor at Dartmouth College, in his book The Arab Renaissance: A Bilingual Anthology of the Nahda (2018), introduces the Nahda as a period of cultural awakening in the Middle East. In his book, both female and male writers agree that Beirut was the Arab World’s center of culture and that women’s active participation in all aspects of life was essential to remedy the decline of Arab culture in the mid 1800’s. At the turn of the twentieth century, a ‘New Woman’ became active in Egypt’s everyday and public life, as is discussed by feminist and historian Mona L.Russell, in her book Creating the New Egyptian Woman: Consumerism, Education and National Identity, 18631922. “Despite seclusion, women were active in the social, cultural and economic realms of society”24 The ‘New Woman’ was improved and empowered. Ghada Talhami’s book a Historic Dictionary of Women in the Middle East and North Africa indexes the most influential women in the region including Nahda’s most controversial feminist figures, artists, actresses and performers, such as Ester Moyal (writer), Umm Kulthum, Hind Rustom and Leila Murad (both actresses considered sex symbols), Sabah and Fairuz and many more. While studies on the history of Arab and Egyptian cinema are easily available for the reader to navigate, looking at it from the lens of

Mona Russell, Creating the New Egyptian Woman: Consumerism, Education and National Identity, 1863-1922, (New York: Palgrave MAcMillian, 2004).

fashion is limited and it has been challenging to find texts on fashion, style and the traditional dress of women in the Middle-East during the Nahda. According to Lebanese historian Nour Majdalani Hakim, in an encyclopedic entry on “Lebanese Traditional Dress” from the Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion Central and Southwest Asia, the “study of Lebanese dress is difficult, partly because the civil war between 1975 and 1990 led to movement of the population, and sale of cultural heirlooms including clothes. There are a few small private collections, but no ethnographic museum has been founded for Lebanon.”25 Her writing situates Lebanon’s traditional dress and its evolution within a long history of colonialism, explaining the importance of fashion adopted by women and how it slowly became Westernized. Also, she points out that the civil war is responsible for lack of interest in clothes and their preservation. Majdalani references contemporary artist and Lebanese activist Nada Sehnaoui, who in her book L’occidentalisation de la Vie Quotidienne à Beyrouth: 1860- 1914 (The Westernization of Everyday Life in Beirut), presents an exposé of daily life practices in Beirut borrowed from the West. It offers, however, a short overview, two pages, on traditional fashion adopted by men and women at the turn of the century. It could have enabled the tracing back of the evolution of traditional dress and its Westernization in an urban context such as Beirut, a city that distinguished itself from all other Arab and Middle ones. But fashion is not the main concern of Sehnaoui’s book. The film scholar and feminist theorist Viola Shafik, profiles in her 2007 book Popular Egyptian Cinema: Gender, Class and Nation, Egyptian films with a focus on audience and spectatorship. It serves as a reference point to analyze the ways in which films were received by their audience,

Nour Majdalany Hakim, "Lebanese Women’s Dress", Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion: Central and Southwest Asia, edited by Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood, (Oxford: Berg Publishers,2010), p.205–208.

however omitting some of the most popular movies from the Nahda which were within my area of interest. As explained by Shafik in her other book Arab Cinema: History and Cultural Identity, “the Arab World is not, as is often perceived, a monolith, but is made up of different communities, peoples, states, and governmental and societal forms.”26 She adds, “neither does it form linguistically, ethnically or culturally an unchallenged unity.”27 This along with writings on the Nahda encouraged me to emphasize the fact that the Arab World is not monolithic. On the same topic, Mustapha Darwish’s book Dream Makers on The Nile: A portrait of Egyptian Cinema, similarly reveals that the film industry was not just composed of Muslim actors and director of Muslims descent but also Christians notably Coptic and Jewish directors, such as Togo Mizrahi.28 Hence, Islam was not the only religion in the Arab World as is commonly misconceived. Here, I expose the reader to a much more secular, non-stereotypical view of the Arab World and specifically to Westerners, who perhaps might not be well informed on this region’s diverse cultural identity, its complexity and richness. Another scholar who has contributed to Middle Eastern film studies is Lina Khatib, Lebanese film scholar and lecturer based in London. Her book, Filming the Modern Middle East: Politics in the Cinemas of Hollywood and the Arab World, borrows from the groundbreaking work of Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978) who “shows how Orientalism implies that there exists a primordial difference between East and West, (...) whereby the first dominates the second, and where the East

Viola Shafik, Arab Cinema: History and Cultural Identity, (Cairo, New York: The American University in Cairo, 1998). 27

Ibid.

Mustafa Darwish, Dream Makers on the Nile: A Portrait of Egyptian Cinema, (Cairo, New York : The American University in Cairo Press, 1998).

is constructed as the West’s Other and the source of its identity”29 It addresses similarities and differences between films in the two regions and what the cinema can represent for national identity. Once again, this contribution and analysis of national identity through cinema, even though useful to situate the Western view of the Middle East, disregards popular or material culture and fashion consumption which was at the heart of 1950’s and 1960’s lifestyle. Indeed, according to Khatib, the Arab cinema is “not confined to Hollywood’s cinema industry”30 addressing a crucial point; “While it is important to study how the West represents the East, it is even more crucial to see how the Orient represents itself.”31 The book Tonight, written by Lebanese publisher and film collector Abboud Abou Jaoude, is an illustrated guide of films from 1929 till 1979, a focal point in time for this study coinciding both within the Nahda (1870-1950’s/60’s), and the Golden Era of Lebanon (1950s-1975). It consists of “252 posters, 740 photos, 110 Lobby cards and 34 press ads”32 I consider it to be an essential archival documentation of advertisements and costumes which could be consulted by anyone wanting to investigate the cinematic history of Lebanon and the Arab World. A book, which has provided me with knowledge on Sabah as a singing star was Najmat Al Ghinaa fi Al Arbiinat or Music Stars from the 1940’s, it profiles the biographies of the most prominent female singers from the Nahda. The book also highlights the major spaces where artistic identity was being manifested and where stars were able to perform, such as theatres, cabarets, cafes and film studios. While I

Lina Khatib, Filming the Modern Middle East: Politics in the Cinemas of Hollywood and the Arab World, (London, New York: I.B. Tauris, 2008), p.5. 30

Khatib, p.6.

Khatib, p.7.

Tala Safié, https://www.talasafie.com/tonight), 2016.

have listened to some of the recordings, I am not particularly interested in analyzing Sabah’s musical style, but rather I have analyzed the different themes in her songs. The artistic life in the Middle East during the Nahda (1870-1960’s), witnessed a series of developments through broadcasting channels in the Levant area (Syria and Lebanon mostly). Lebanese songs were distinct from the Egyptian ones, with the former taking on a patriotic feel reflective of a love for Lebanon’s nature and landscape, celebrating its coastal lifestyles, rural spaces and diverse climates, while the Egyptian ones, like film, dealt with matters of drama, romance and betrayal. This book has rich archival elements such as movie posters, magazine covers and inside pages, which are not preserved in Lebanese national libraries. It also includes 4 CDs of each singer including one on Sabah. Another book I was able to consult is the Arabic book by Victor Sahhab, entitled Al Shahroura Sabah: Najmat Al Nahdatayn Al Masriya wa Al-Loubnaniya, Arabic translation for The Songbird Sabah: The Star of the Two Nahdas, the Egyptian and the Lebanese.33 It serves as a biographical essay on the life of Sabah, conducted through the form of interviews where the author sits with Sabah in 2004, in hotel Comfort, which served as the lieu of residence of the icon, in the last ten years of her life.

In order to draw comparisons between the two major female Lebanese singers Sabah and Fairuz through fashion and musical style, I have looked at the article “Liberating Songs: Palestine Put to Music” by Joseph Massad, assistant professor of modern Arab politics and intellectual history at Columbia University. In his article, Massad “surveys the history of songs about Palestine from 1948 to the present, examining how the changes in musical style and lyrics correspond to the

Victor Sahab, Al Shahroura Sabah: Najmat al Nahdatayn Al Masriya wa Al-Loubnaniya,(Beirut: Dar Nelson, 2017).

changes in the exigencies of the Palestinian struggle itself.”34 Through “tracing the primacy of revolutionary Egypt in the 1950s and 1960s, the central role of Fairuz and The Rahbani Brothers in the wake of the 1967 war [in Palestine, the Naksa] provides historical and political analyses of these songs as central features of how Arab popular culture has dealt, and continues to deal, with the Palestine tragedy.”35 I take an approach similar to Massad, as he examines meaning-making systems of national songs by a Lebanese singer in the 60’s, to demonstrate their impact on Arab pop culture. In my case, Sabah’s fashion in films, songs and performers are central to my study, shaping fashion and popular culture in Lebanon and the Arab World, allowing for her to be perceived as a star. Massad’s article however, does not deal with fashion and mentions Sabah just once and briefly, without delving further into her life and songs. As I compare in chapter 2, the fashion and songs of two giants of music, Sabah and Fairuz, this article was more helpful to understand some of Fairuz’s politically charged songs for Palestine. Surprisingly, it has no mention of Fairuz’s most loved song “Li Beirut” from 1984, which will be interpreted in chapter 2.

To define the relationship between fashion, costumes and dress in the context of film stars and specifically Hollywood, I looked at Rachel Moseley’s Fashioning Film Stars: Dress Culture and Identity first published in 2005. In her book, which groups a number of essays by prolific fashion, costume and feminist film scholars such as Stella Bruzzi, Pamela Church Gibson, Jane Gaines and Charlotte Herzog, each chapter is a case study of different films and the actors who star in them. The author divides her book into two parts, the first on “Hollywood” and the second relates to the

Joseph Massad, “Liberating Songs: Palestine Put to Music”, The Journal of Palestinian Studies, Vol 32, No.3 (Spring 2003) p.21-35 35

Ibid

rest of the world entitled, “Asia, Latin America and Europe”. This connotes the hegemonic relationship between East and West in the context of cinematic history, fashion, popular and consumer culture and celebrity culture. Spaces allow for the expression and manifestations of artistic representation, which is why I look at different urban settings in Lebanon where this expression of fashion as a cultural phenomenon was made possible, such as the mythical Hamra street in the 1960’s and 1970’s in Beirut (chapter 2). This carries over into chapter 3, wherein I look at the expression of queerness and gay camp through drag performances and impersonations of Sabah. Sabah’s spectacular style of dress in the Arab World almost certainly contributed to her becoming a gay icon. Madison Moore’s book on the concept of ‘fabulosity’, Fabulous: The Rise of the Beautiful Eccentric, tells the story of what it means to be fabulous and “why eccentric style, fashion, and creativity are more political [and why these concepts are] assimilated with matters of the self expression, looks and “attitude””36 I was introduced to Moore’s work in the Gender and Sexuality Studies certificate class which I took in spring 2019, where Moore presented his work at a class conference. However, because of the unavailability of the book to consult in the News School Library, as I decided to include it in my thesis after the COVID_19 pandemic outbreak, I will just explore parts of his writings.

Madison Moore, Fabulous: The Rise of the Beautiful Eccentric, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008).

Chapter 1 A Tale of Two Blondes

As Sabah’s career started in Egypt in 1944 in cinema, I will begin with an analysis of her presentation in terms of fashion, body and hair in the film Fatinat Al Jamahir as it relates in its narrative and posters to the American film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes with Marilyn Monroe. I am interested in demonstrating the relationship between fashion and film advertising that I see in the two films. Both films utilize blonde actresses and emphasize clothing and makeup and jewelry that corroborate the impact of modern consumer culture and the role fashion plays in women’s lives in patriarchal society. In his book The Arab Renaissance: A Bilingual Anthology of the Nahda, Tarek Ariss, Associate Professor and Chair of Middle Eastern Studies at Dartmouth University, provides a comprehensive study of the Nahda in both English and Arabic. He defines the Nahda as the project of Arab cultural and political modernity, from the early nineteenth century to the twentieth century. Arab models of nationalism and secularism as well as Islamic revival are attributed to the Nahda thought. The Nahda saw the emergence of new literary genres such as the novel, the creation of periodicals, journalism, and a new publishing industry, professional associations and salons; a new education system; and an overall Enlightenment ideal of knowledge. The Nahda ushered in innovative modes of reading and writing along with new social practices of knowledge transmission, transnational connections, and new political ideas. 37

Tarek Ariss, The Arab Renaissance: A Bilingual Anthology of the Nahda, (New York: The Modern Association of America, 2018), Introduction p.xv.

In the introduction to his book, Ariss references Lebanese-Palestinian journalist and intellectual Samir Kassir. Kassir, who was “undoubtedly one of the most intriguing and prolific intellectual figures in Lebanon”38 in recent years, and was assassinated by the hands of the Syrian regime, shortly after the killing of then Prime Minister Rafic Hariri in 2005. In his book Being Arab (2005), Kassir “laments the social and political malaise of the Arabs at the beginning of the twenty-first century” and traces it back to the project of “cultural and political modernity”39 Ariss explains that etymologically, the term Nahda is derived from “Nahada”40, “to rise”. This overall “Enlightenment of knowledge”41 and social, cultural, linguistic and literary reforms were visible through the naissance of the cinema industry in Egypt. Another Lebanese thinker and missionary of Christian descent is Boutros Al-Bustani (1819-83), who suggested that Arabs should look to the future by reflecting on “the culture of the Arabs’ from a cultural perspective.”42 Of the women who influenced the Nahda, one was Ethel Moyal born Ethel Azhari in 1873, to a Sephardic Jewish family in Beirut. Her most renowned journalistic contribution was the first letter to ever be published by a woman in the famous Egyptian newspaper Al-Hilal. The title of her article, “Should Women Have the Same Rights as Men?” started the conversation on women by women in regard to their active participation in everyday life. Both Butrus Al-Boustani and Moyal were two Nahda thinkers, whose writings contributed to raising questions on culture in the Arab World. Through their use of the Arabic language, they were able

Tarek Ariss, Introduction p.xv.

Kassir, Being Arab, (Brooklyn, Verso Publishing, 2004), Preface.

Ariss, Introduction, p.xvi.

Ibid.

Ariss, p.5.

to convey forward thinking ideas, encouraging women’s participation in all aspects of intellectual life in Arab and Middle-Eastern societies. The Egyptian cinema is, according to Robert Fisk in his introduction to Kassir’s essay, Being Arab, a pillar of this Renaissance moment in Arab history. “In the twentieth century one of these [Arab] societies, Egypt, founded the world’s third-oldest film industry, while from Cairo to Baghdad and from Beirut to Casablanca painters, poets, musicians, playwrights and novelists shaped a new living Arab culture.” 43 However, the developments in Arab and Egyptian cinema lagged behind those of Hollywood. In 1944 Sabah moved to Egypt to start a career as a stage actress (figure 5); she was chaperoned by a woman under the name of Asia Dagher, who was born in Lebanon and emigrated to Egypt in the 1920s. Owner of the Egyptian film studio “Lotus Productions”, she was responsible for diffusing over 50 films, becoming one of the female pioneers of Egyptian cinema at its debuts, before the inaugurations of “Studio Misr” in 1937, Egypt’s leading film studio. Dagher, “who played a prominent role in the production of Egyptian films tackling female societal problems; serving feminist purposes”,44 participated in the creation of “the first feminist wave in the Egyptian Cinema to lead the female acting industry in Egypt.”45 The Egyptian film director Sherif Boraie addresses this nuance in his book The Golden Age of Egyptian Cinema 1936-1967: Cinema Cairo, a large hardcover black and white. illustrated book

Robert Fisk, Introduction to Samir Kassir, Being Arab, (Brooklyn: Verso Publishing, 2004), p.12

Dima Ayman, “The Egyptian Women as a Cinematic Figure and Her Status In the Film Industry”, Wlahawogohokhra, February 13 2019, https://wlahawogohokhra.com/8772/the-egyptian-women-as-a-cinematicfigure-and-her-status-in-film-industry-since-1920-and-till-now/?lang=en. 45

Ibid.

which gathers stills from over eighty Egyptian films from the archives of Studio Bakr, another leading studio at the time. He highlights that “love is a prominent topic among these comedies”46dramas and romances starring the most acclaimed actresses, dancers and actors from all around the Arab World such as Leila Murad, Umm Kulthum, Tahiyya Carioca, Faten Hamama, Hind Rustom, Asmahan, Rushdi Abaza, Omar Sharif, Ismail Yassine, Abdel Halim Hafez and the Lebanese icons, Sabah and Feirouz.47 This book discusses cinema in the context of the Arab Renaissance in conjunction with Western and American cinematic production. Egypt’s strategic location on the Nile’s fertile crescent with two large cities, Cairo and Alexandria, offers an influx and outflux of people, culture and goods, making it a hub of arts and culture. The city of Alexandria was considered “Egypt’s cultural capital, with the first film studios, documentary and equipment available there.”48 For these multiple reasons, the movie Fatinat Al Jamahir from 1964 will be treated as being made during the Nahda. In 1950’s America, mass media was reflective of how people and households spent their time and money. According to Willam and Nancy Young in “The 1950’s”, print advertising is the oldest way to promote goods and services conveying visual messages, initiating viewers to consume not only products but also a certain lifestyle. “As the oldest and most traditional carrier of advertising messages, print can offer clear, glossy pictures, descriptive text, and bright packaging.”49

Sherif Boraie, The Golden Age of Egyptian Cinema 1936-1967 (Cairo: Cinema Cairo, 2008), Introduction, p.5

Ibid.

William Young, Nancy Young, The 1950’s: American Pop Culture Through History, (Westport, Connecticut, London: Greenwood Press, 2004), Introduction.

Sabah stars in Fatinat Al Jamahir50 from 1964 (figure 6), as a singer followed by a journalist who tries to interfere with her personal life. Similarly, the American film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes from 1953 (figure 7), is a movie about the lives of two American showgirls, Lorelei Lee (Marilyn Monroe) and Dorothy Shawn (Jane Russell). Lorelei is engaged to the naive Gus Esmond. His father, Esmond Senior, is not too happy about this engagement so he hires a private detective to spy on Lorelei, and the private detective falls in love with Dorothy. At first glance, and before even watching the films, their two posters look very similar. For Arthur Berger, in order to provide “the reader with a language [that transmits] different information to different readers in proportion to each one’s comprehension”51, it is crucial to thoroughly analyse the two based on Berger’s method described in “Six ways of looking at a Fidji perfume commercial” from Ads, Fads, and Consumer Culture: Advertising's Impact on American Character and Society. “The thing we have to realize about radio and television commercials and print advertisements (and all other forms of advertising as well) is that they are, aside from their commercial function, works of popular art or “commercial””52 says Berger. He adds that “the most widespread and eclectic art form in our day, I would suggest, is the advertising which we decide upon what to consume”53 Hence, through these images, produced and created in movie studios and advertising agencies by admen, the films and their posters have a commercial function pushing spectators to desire and long for fantasy-driven lives, just as they are promulgated by moving

Fatinat Al Jamahir, 1964, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4v17YAqfQA.

Ibid.

images through television and the cinema. The core purpose of an ad is the selling of goods and services through different mediums, such as the selling of fashion garments or dresses through which a certain image of women can be conveyed, desired and thus consumed. In both films and their posters, the product being marketed is not merely the film itself, but the image of women and their bodies covered with fitted sequined and encrusted dresses, with advertising therefore, playing a crucial role in the creation and transmission of sexualized images of women. Another point made by the author and academic Graham Cairns, who centers his research around architecture and visual culture, in his book Deciphering Advertising, Art and Architecture: New Persuasion Techniques for Sophisticated Consumers, discussing semiotics and their fundamental function to understand is “how symbols communicate meaning (...) in the context of a given culture.”54 We can infer that the culture of post-war 1950’s Americana lifestyle was transmitted through the use of symbolism in movies taking shape through costumes, the movie plot and the positioning of women in regard to the design in the poster, allowing for the creation of dichotomies between the roles of women and men. The fashion objects here are promoted for commercial purposes and to make clear the role of women. Following Berger’s strategy of encoding ads, I notice how Sabah, the main protagonist of the story in Fatinat Al Jamahir, like Monroe in for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes occupies center stage in the poster, thus making the different elements that comprise the picture symmetrical. A horizontal axis divides the image in top and bottom sections, with Sabah wearing a ruby pink dress with her hands pointed towards the sky, focusing on her bust and emphasising the décolletage of the dress. The

Graham Cairns Deciphering Advertising, Art and Architecture: New Persuasion Techniques for Sophisticated Consumers,(Libri Publishing, 2010), p.11.

low shot of this image glorifies the diva, making her an object of desire gazed at by both a female and male audience, with non-visible faces and bodies turned towards the actress. There is a significant amount of copy in the ad: the title of the movie, in vivid yellow takes up a large space in this ad, with technicolor font, similar to the font of the films Maabar Al Hob (figure 8), The Asphalt Jungle (figure 9) and Gentleman Prefer Blondes. Another scholar whose work is helpful here in analyzing these posters is Cynthia Mayers, who in her book A Word from our Sponsor: Admen, Advertising, and the Golden Age of Radio (2015), says that “it is commonly agreed by advertisers and scholars that the significance of advertising lies in the ‘power’ of sales and marketing, and to learn about advertising as a social, cultural economic force allows for a critical interpretation.”55 This can, in the case of this thesis, enable a comparison between East and West. To add to the common characteristics of these two movies in terms of plots, in one of the scenes in Fatinat Al Jamahir, Sabah sings the song “Sana Helwa ya Jameel'', the Arabic version of “Happy Birthday to You” (featured in the trailer of the movie). Two years before the Egyptian movie was released, Marilyn Monroe sang and performed the famous “Happy Birthday Mr. President” to John Fitzgerald Kennedy on his 45th birthday.56 The performance of the song had a narrative of its own, becoming a symbol of American pop culture and an influential moment in the history and life of

Cynthia Mayers, A Word from our Sponsor: Admen, Advertising, and the Golden Age of Radio (New York: Fordham

University Press, 2015). p.1. 56

Marilyn Monroe, Happy Birthday Mr.President, Madison Square Garden, New York, 1962. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqolSvoWNck.

the American sex symbol. Carol Dyhouse studies the concept of glamour in her book from the same name, relaying it to American cinema from the 1950’s “the classic period of Hollywood’s ‘dream factory’ and female stars.”57 She says, in regard to “that Marilyn dress (...) perhaps one of the last high moments in the classic Hollywood celebration of glamour was when Marilyn Monroe, in a memorable public performance, sang “Happy Birthday” to John F. Kennedy in Madison Square Garden in May 1962.”58 She wore a gown by Jean Louis in nude marquisette covered with rhinestones and skin color and beads -- I chose a front full length view of the dress, since its color and texture are not so visible from the back shot of her performing-- (figure 10). In 1999, the gown was sold at auction by Christie’s for $1.2 million”.59 Jean Louis, who was born in France in 1907, had come to the U.S as a fashion designer and then began to work in the movies. “He did work for the Duchess of Windsor, and he also created the black satin dress worn by Rita Hayworth with all its inserted rhinestones, which was said to have cost $12,000 in 1962.”60 Taking a closer look at a scene from Fatinat Al Jamahir’s trailer, we see Sabah photographed performing the Arabic version of “Happy Birthday To You” (figure 11) in an ivory flesh coloured dress undeniably resembling Marilyn Monroe’s from the Madison Square Garden performance which was described by The Guardian article as a “soufflé gauze encrusted with rhinestones.”61

Carol Dyhouse, Glamour: Women, History, Feminism, (London: Zed Books, 2011), p.125.

Ibid.

David Thomson, The Guardian, “Happy Birthday Mister President: The Story of Marilyn Monroe and That Dress”, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/nov/03/happy-birthday-mr-president-the-story-of-marilyn-monroe-andthat-dress 61

Ibid.

In her book The Corset: A Cultural History, Valerie Steele explores the history of the corset; “probably the most controversial garment in the history of fashion”62 She reveals reasons why, despite being considered “as an instrument of torture”,63 the corset can be said to have revolutionized fashion at different moments in time. When Steele decides to write a book on the corset, drawing on visual, material and textual resources, she approaches the subject from a multidimensional perspective, considering different aspects and iterations of the object with an approach that doesn’t necessarily imply a binary opposition between “oppressive or liberating”64 in regard to women and their bodies. According to the author, “Corsetry was a form of body modification with profound implications for women’s lives and no discussion of the female body can make real sense without getting a grip on the corset.”65 She adds, “The corset is a perfect example of the kind of rigid, physically oppressive garment that we habitually contrast with the relaxed, “liberating” clothing of the present day. Yet, although the body’s biological entity and a product of evolution, it is also and always culturally mediated.”66 So, too, is Sabah’s body like Marilyn’s body, culturally mediated through costuming utilizing a kind of corsetry. So, how can these fashioned bodies be read through the lens of advertisements while dissecting the semiotics of their symbols? Berger claims that “one of the basic contentions of most

Valerie Steele, The Corset: A Cultural History (New York & London: Yale University Press, 2001), Introduction.

Ibid.

Valerie Steele, p.165.

Ibid.

contemporary feminist thinkers is that we live in a phallocentric society--one dominated by males and what might be called the invisible power of the phallus.”67 In the posters, Monroe and Sabah both wear pink 1950’s dresses. While pink has always had distinct meanings in different contexts and different iterations, it is the gendered color par excellence, “associated with little girls, ballerinas, barbie dolls and all things feminine.”68 The two actresses perform in front of a male audience, which clearly connotes the domination of a phallic society, constructed by men and for the male gaze. In this case, the similarity of the dresses worn in the two movies by Monroe and Sabah unify them. One might also note that while the colors of the dresses are pink, they are not a pastel pink but rather an intense pink that is aggressively feminine in denoting the woman’s body. In the same scene, adding to the instances where fashion in film and advertising in Egyptian cinema was clearly instigated by Hollywood, Sabah wears a diamond tiara on top of her Western chignon (figure 11) an ornament that suggests aspirations for royalty and one of the universal symbols of the ‘Cinderella syndrome’. As Rachel Moseley points out in her article “Trousers and Tiaras: Audrey Hepburn a Women’s Star”, for the Feminist Review (2002), “The Cinderella motif is a staple of feminine culture from the childhood fairytale, to the before and after rags to riches fashion and beauty makeover of girls’s and women’s magazines, women’s films, Pretty in Pink (...) offering the magical spectacle of transformation and the promise to a better self and a better life.”69 She adds, “It is the fairytale narrative of growing up and transformation in which discourses of

Berger, p. 136.

Valerie Steele, Pink: The History of a Punk, Pretty, Powerful Color ( UK: Thames & Hudson: 2018), Introduction.

Rachel Moseley, “Trousers and Tiaras: Audrey Hepburn a Women’s Star”, Feminist Review, Number 71, Fashion and Beauty (2002), p.39.

beauty, dress and class are brought together as social mobility” which is key to this romantic comedy.”70 Here, men represent the economic force providing to their women, through their disposable incomes, objects of desire turned into goods to be consumed by women to achieve selfexpression and aspiration to royalty, represented by the domination of a “phallocentric society”.71 These objects become means of self discovery to women satiating their desires and fantasies as little girls. In a scene from the trailer of Fatinat Al Jamahir, the camera focuses on the hands of two female protagonists from the movie, a platinum blonde and a brunette probably inspired by the characters and aesthetics of Lorelei Lee and Dorothy Shaw (figure 12 and 13), carrying champagne coupes and adorned with jewelry and pearl nailpolish, identical to the scene where Lorelei performs the song “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” with men splashing her with jewelry (figure 14). This case study of the two movies, the Eastern Fatinat Al Jamahir with the Western Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, illustrate a time of exchange between Hollywood and Egypt, during which Sabah established herself as a film actress. It has identified ways in which we can see Sabah’s image in the Nahda period, at the beginning of her career, in relation to that of Marilyn Monroe in ways unexpected in the Arab region but signifying a disruptive female force akin to Monroe in her costuming and presentation.

Ibid.

Berger, p.131.

Chapter 2 Beirut and Sabah: Treasures from a Golden Era

Sabah’s visual presentation in Fatinat Al Jamahir demonstrates how she can be likened to the spectacular performance of Marilyn Monroe. Sabah's characteristic image consisted of a large blonde bouffant hairdo, dresses that usually included sequins and beads, distinctive accessories and unique nail colors long before millennials’ infatuation with nail art (as seen in figure 2). This chapter explores how Sabah continued to use fashion to express her identity during the Golden Age of Lebanon (1950’s-1975) in her role as singer and performer. Sabah performed at concert halls around the world, including New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, London’s The Royal Albert Hall and The Olympia in Paris. (The video cited below of Sabah’s appearance at a West London theater includes a belly dancer performance at the beginning, then the crowds entering the concert hall, followed by Sabah on stage).72 Sabah was able to redefine herself, create and recreate new personas all of which became part of the “Sabbouha”’s expression of identity and was manifested through thousands of iconic outfits and hairdos that kept apace with Western fashion through the 60’s and 70’s. Television programs in Lebanon from that period demonstrate how Sabah was invited to speak about her spectacular wardrobe as one can see in the videos cited below. Fashion allowed Sabah to construct an unconventional identity and made her a star. I begin this chapter by introducing the reader to some aspects of Lebanon’s urban life during its Golden

Sabah in Concert, London, 1977 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efNAaLLAH3s

Age, based on testimonials of residents and images. These serve as an effective way to tell the story of Sabah in the context of Lebanon and indicate the nostalgia for this specific period and way of life which she embodied. I also contrast Sabah to another formidable and contemporary Lebanese singer, Fairuz, to highlight the difference in image between the two in their ‘fashioning’.

In a comprehensive research on “Oral Histories of Ras Beirut Nostalgia, Memory and the Construction of History”, Alia Zougbu and Susannes Abou Ghaida, two scholars from Lebanon, define the ‘Golden Age’ of Beirut as the “period between the 1950s and 1960s, when the city was thriving economically and was the hub of Arab and foreign intellectuals. In particular it is Ras Beirut, home to the American University of Beirut and the once commercially unrivalled Hamra Street, that is regarded as the geographical equivalent to these idealized times. This is the discourse of the literature, primarily the produce of the intellectual elite who have the access and prestige to publish and distribute their versions of history”73 In their paper, the authors use Bourdieu’s notion of cultural capital to understand “how and why, the notion of nostalgia is personalized.”74 This notion of nostalgia is also defined here as a constructed memory, “as is history.”75 Their study interrogates various residents of Ras Beirut, where one interviewee recalls that the Hamra Street “was the most beautiful street he had seen in his entire life.” He testifies76

Alia Zougbu, Susannes Abou Ghaida, “Oral Histories of Ras Beirut Nostalgia, Memory and the Construction of History”, Journal of Mediterranean Studies, Volume 15, Number 2, 2005, pp. 379-392. 74

Ibid

Ibid.

We used to have sophisticated coffee shops. Hamra Street was a meeting point for the intellectuals. Horseshoe used to be the meeting point of the novelists and the poets. The side-walk cafes had clients whose ages ranged from 15 to 90 years of age, all of them getting nourished by the presence of the other. Ras Beirut was open. You felt as if you could do anything you wanted, and be what you wanted, as long as you did not trespass on other people’s liberties (figure 15 and 16).

The notion of nostalgia is often evoked when recalling past times of Lebanon and of Beirut (see mini documentary in footnote below),77 and it is the case in this thesis which traces back the life of a bygone era and starlet, Sabah, who emerged from that period. The authors of this article define ‘nostalgia’ according to the American Heritage Dictionary as “the bittersweet longing for things, persons or situations of the past.”78 From the numerous testimonials in this study on Ras Beirut, it is evident that Beiruti inhabitants experience symptomatic of nostalgia or this feeling of loss, and I believe this contributes to Sabah’s power as an icon.

Hamra street charmed and attracted locals and tourists alike. It was a place of coexistence infused with vibrant urban life and intellectual and artistic spirit, singular of the Lebanese lust for life and progressive times. In this space, where women freely dressed in Western sixties and seventies style (figure 17 and 18), thriving with a Bohemian energy similar to that of the East Village of Manhattan, but if I may say so, a place so different and distinct from anywhere else in the world, Sabah rose to stardom. After acting in film and theater in Egypt, Sabah moved to Lebanon and launched her career as singer for the stage, eventually performing her songs all over the world. Therefore, in the following sections, I explore what she wears when she performs through videos

Sunnier Times in Lebanon, Lebanon / Beirut in the 1960's - Harold Baim https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHtixDCSB_w 78

American Heritage Dictionary 1982, “Nostalgia”/849.

of her concerts and songs in film and television interviews from the 60’s and 70’s. Sabah often appeared on Najib Hankash’s show in the 70’s, Hankashiyat Moutanaouia or Hankash Varieties on TéléLiban, the Lebanese national television station. There, she states that she prefers singing and acting in plays over the cinema, as she can be more engaged with her spectators. She said “I will still act in movies but it requires more time. I’ve done it all throughout the 1940’s, 1950’s and 1960’s. An artist needs to constantly evolve exploring new mediums where artistic production is allowed and be able to interact with his audience.”79

The Lebanese song “Ya Jabal Ma Yi Hezzak Rih”80 “Oh Mountain, Wind Can’t Shake You”, is a famous song by Sabah composed by legendary Lebanese songwriting duo The Rahbani Brothers in 1962, honoring the mountains of Lebanon. In Lebanon, the mountains or “Jabal Lubnan” in Arabic or “Mont Liban” in french, are a national symbol of strength, in addition to being spaces where cohabitation between its mostly Christian and Druze communities was possible before the war. Sabah performs the song on TéléLiban wearing characteristic 1960’s fashion: a knee-high dress, cat-eye makeup and brown hair in bouffant style--all adopted from the West and very fashionable for the time (see video in footnote).81 In another video performance from a TV show

Sabah Interview 1970 with Najib Hankash , Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMJyHJ4RmV0.

Jabal ma Yihezzak Rih, produced by TeleLiban, 1967,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rV6MlmvbS1Y&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR0-qxOUlzJP8PWs5we3Jkip6pIn8IvZ1fAmwHvdsCuG5m-oiTb5X2j8n0. 81

“Jabal ma Yihezzak Rih”, produced by TeleLiban, Lebanese National Television, 1967,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rV6MlmvbS1Y&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR0-qxOUlzJP8PWs5we3Jkip6pIn8IvZ1fAmwHvdsCuG5m-oiTb5X2j8n0.

on TéléLiban as well, Sabah appears performing the song “Because I Love you”82 from 1971, in Arabic and English with English subtitles. She has long bouffant blonde hair and dances effortlessly on stage while opening her dress to show her legs. She is wearing a thobe with a long front slip, similar to 1970’s patchwork dresses. The thobe is an oriental long dress which has folk patterns and embroidery on the waist and wrists, paired with shorts from the same pattern, visible when she opens and closes her dress when she is in movement. Here, Sabah succeeds in marrying her Eastern heritage and Western style showcasing 70’s glamour but making it oriental. This video resembles performances by such contemporary singers as Petula Clark83 in Great Britain and Dusty Springfield84 in the U.S., indicative of Sabah’s attitude and openness to popular culture and fashion.

In a video interview from 1975, Sabah wears an organza silk lilac ensemble (figure 19), encrusted with flower rhinestones and a matching headband. By this time, her hair is extra big and copper blonde, a toned down hue from her later signature platinum look, but distinct from and more spectacular than how she is dressed in the 1960s films and performances. In other songs that spoke to Lebanese identity, Sabah would sometimes dress in a more traditional Lebanese costume. She often appeared on the cover of Lebanon's French weekly culture and lifestyle magazine La Revue du Liban. In a cover photograph for the issue “Sabah, Phoenician Star” from 1971’s (figure 20),

Sabah [Because I love you 1971], https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSn7_WBGQis.

Petula Clark Sings “My Guy” 1973, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpz08QFynEc and “The Wind Of Change” Live in England, 1970 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnQz4OGgDag. 84

Dusty Springfield - A House Is Not A Home, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWdlVemgKCc.

Sabah wears oriental embroidered shorts and her big hair. No matter what she wore, however, Sabah’s style of dress and flirtatious attitude was clearly something to be noticed by her audience. In a December 1993 issue of Prestige magazine, a Lebanese lifestyle magazine that profiled stars from Lebanon and the region, the writer starts out by saying: “She has this unique way of appearing.”85

The Lebanese national television channel TéléLiban, a symbol of Lebanese cultural heritage during its Golden Era before the war, was popular among people of all ages and from different social classes, broadcasting local plays, films, and concerts, and featuring the work of Lebanon’s most prolific writers and artists. Sabah of course, was a recurrent guest on a number of shows. In one particular program from 1970, Sabah appeared alongside Lebanese satirical writer, TVhost/presenter and composer Najib Hankash. What Sabah and Hankash had in common, apart from being artistic and intellectual figures from Lebanon, was the importance happiness and laughter played in their lives. As one can see in the 10-minute interview aired on TéléLiban86 Sabah jokingly teases Hankash and criticizes how he is fast to show admiration to new singers. Both laugh as Hankash’s reply was: “I’m not going to comment, because you’re right!” He addresses the audience saying “Laugh! Yeah, laugh! You always side with Sabah! You’re right anyway, I don’t blame you.” Then Hankash makes some jokes that seem to entertain the audience and Sabah

Prestige Magazine, “Legendary Sabah:” Issue 7, December 1993, http://www.prestigemag.co/2014/06/legendarysabah/ 86

Sabah Interview 1970 with Najib Hankash , Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMJyHJ4RmV0

alike, as the diva laughs graciously, a laugh specific to Sabah which was famous and imitated. The conversation between Sabah and Hankash is transcripted below with parts emphasized in bold87 -

Hankash: “You’ve been away from us for too long. The crowd misses you and realizes that there is no one who loves their fans quite as you” Sabah: “That’s true. They’re the ones I love the most” H: “Now, tell me about your hair. This is something else! Something else.” Sabah: “It is, right? It’s Naïm! Naïm, who else. You know, I was giving a big concert in an Arab country a week ago and they had these foreign hairdressers brought to do my hair. But Naïm did it, and when I appeared on stage, everyone thought it was the other hairdressers. I announced that it was in fact Naïm. He’s an amazing young man, we should accord him appreciation.” H: “Is this an ad?” (all laugh) S: “No, really. Just happened to come through in this discussion. He’s awesome” H: “ I know, I mean look at you, I can see that” S: “And yea poor thing, there are always rumors surfacing about him, that one day he got arrested and one day…” H: “How common is it for accomplished people to be media targets. And your dress?” S: “It’s Madame Salha, of course, it looks like Madame Salha” [Madame Salha was a Lebanese couturier who was famous for designing dresses to high society dames, including royalty from the Arab World and of course, Sabah] H: “Show me, show me (as he leans towards Sabah and gently grabs her big hair). Oh my!” he says as he kisses her forehead. And what about your future projects and your U.S. tour? S: “Yes, I’ll be there in May. I have six concerts in the U.S. My tour includes Boston, Detroit, California and New York, many places… Part of George Tabet’s musical troupe. Of course, Naïm will be accompanying me and Madame Salha has designed several of my dresses for my shows.” Some people might criticize me for mentioning Naïm and Salha, but I cannot not mention such talents. H: Yes, when you’re confident you don’t really care about what will be said about you.

In this interview with Hankash, Sabah is notably asked about her hair and costume which clearly is of interest to her fans. Indeed, hairstyling was a large part of Sabah’s identity and image, and hair, as an accessory, has been explained as “more than simple dressing. Whilst subject to constant shifts and changes in the pursuit of the new, it maintains its crucial dynamic in the transformative

Ibid.

processes of fashioning desire and identity. Rather than just an accessory to pivotal moments and shifts in style and the iconography of style, hair is always part of the narrative drive of fashion’s relentless and cyclical movement.”88 The story of Sabah’s hair likely began in the 40’s in Egypt where she wore Western “pin up” hairdos whenever the story was set in an urban context.

In the interview with Hankash, Sabah specifically credits her hairstyling to Naïm, a star hairdresser in the region at that time. According to an article from Raseef22, a digital magazine tackling and voicing alternative opinions on lifestyle in the MENA region, the book Naïm, A Brush With History: From Glamorous 1950’s Beirut to Cosmopolitan London paints the portrait of bygone eras of pre-war Lebanon (50’s-70’s). Through images and illustrations of hairstyles, the book follows Naïm’s chronological journey as the master of chignons, who worked in the Lebanese and Arab World with international artists, starlets and royalty. Naïm’s hair brush strokes are a symbol of the cosmopolitan life, beauty and freedom in the region. Among his clientele, were of course, Sabah, Umm Kulthum, the actress Faten Hamam (Egypt’s sweetheart), Hind Rustom (considered the oriental Brigitte Bardot), as well as Fairuz, Jayne Mansfield and Anita Ekberg among others including members of the Royal families of Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Britain.89 The book on Naim, edited by Carol Corm, traces back moments of Lebanon’s history through the steps of “Lebanon’s most iconic hairdresser and a master of Haute Coiffure90 --much as I am integrating Sabah’s evolution to periods in Lebanon’s history. 88

Alice Beard, “Hairstyling in the Fashion Magazine Nova in the 70’s”, Styling, Culture and Fashion edited by Geraldine Biddle-Perry and Sarah Cheang , Berg Fashion Library, p229-240. 89

Christine Abi Azar, ‫ ﻣﺻﻔف اﻟﺷﻌر اﻟذي ﯾروي ﻧﮭﺿﺔ اﻟﺷرق اﻷوﺳط‬...‫ ﻧﻌﯾم‬, Raseef 22, February 20, 2015, https://raseef22.com/article/6134-‫ا‬-‫اﻟﺷرق‬-‫ﻧﮭﺿﺔ‬-‫ﯾروي‬-‫اﻟذي‬-‫اﻟﺷﻌر‬-‫ﻣﺻﻔف‬-،‫ﻧﻌﯾم‬ 90

Beirut.com, “Brush With History Book Signing by Carole Corm”, 2014.

Naïm’s journey began in the heart of the Bab Idriss quarter in Beirut, where he had his first salon. Then, at the beginning of the 60’s, he moved to the iconic Saint Georges Hotel, “ the most famous hotel in the Middle East visited by Queen Narriman of Egypt and Cary Grant”91 which is a symbol of Beirut’s period as the “Paris of the Middle East”. Corm adds, “Beirut’s popularity attracts the great Alexandre de Paris, who opens a salon in Lebanon in the mid 1960s. Working along the French ‘czar of scissors’, Naïm is swept into a whirlwind of chignons and postiches. Raucous parties, Dior fashion shows and high society balls across the globe confirm his talent amongst the international jet set. By the 1970s, Naïm opens his futuristic salon in Beirut’s city center, marries a famous Egyptian actress and is kidnapped during a Sabah concert. When a hold-up occurs at his salon and militias loot the place, he grudgingly takes the road to exile; first to Kuwait, then Cairo and finally Paris.”92 The chapter on Sabah in Naïm’s book is titled “I Put Christmas Lights in Her Hair: On the Road with Sabah”. The chapter explains that the inspiration behind the blonde hair came from Sabah wanting “to do something ‘sexy’ and since Marilyn Monroe was on both their minds, they opted for a statement blond.”93 In one photograph, we see the debonair hairstylist Naïm pictured with Sabah (figure 21). In another, Sabah’s huge bouffant chignon is decorated with pearls and beads (figure 22).

Ibid.

Carole Corm, Naïm, A Brush With History: From Glamorous 1950’s Beirut to Cosmopolitan London (London: Darya Press, 2014).

From the interview with Hankash, we can see that Sabah’s bouffant blonde hairdo as done by Naïm is a significant part of her image and that it ties her inextricably to the Golden Age in Lebanon with its international and cosmopolitan cast of characters. In Paris, the likes of “Louis Gervais, Albert Pourriere, and Jacques Dessange (...) designed the ‘Choucroute’ style that defined the sexy young starlet Brigitte Bardot.”94 Hairspray was introduced in order to achieve these high and big styles and “made it feasible to raise natural hair to unprecedented heights in teased bouffants. The various versions of the ‘Beehive’ in the early 1960s, often stuffed with pads and finished with falls, marked the apex of ‘Big Hair’”95 However, the hairdo in color and style also can be set within Susan Sontag’s writings on camp as Grant McCracken writes, an aesthetic “derived from the French slang word camper meaning ‘to pose in an exaggerated fashion’; this is an aesthetic that prioritizes gloss, surface and artifice over the rhetoric of naturalness.”96 He points out, ‘voluptuous hair has a sexual message… The fullness and the curves of the hair are symbolically consonant with the fullness and curves of the body below.”97 Freud situates the symbolism of hair within “unconscious sexuality”98 and Gananath Obeye-sekere attributes to hair “‘personal symbol’ on the cusp of the psychological and the social self, which may originate in the unconscious urges of individual subjects, but which operates in

Steve Zdatny, Producing Fashion: Commerce, Culture, and Consumers “French Hairstyles and the Elusive Consumer” (Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), p245-246. 95

Ibid.

Grant McCracken, Big Hair : A Journey into the Transformation of Self, (London: Indigo,1997).

Ibid.

Joseph Roach, It, “Hair”, (University of Michigan Press, 2007), p.125.

the publicly symbolic practices of a culture.”99 As such, one wonders whether Sabah’s elaborate blonde hairdo references the singer’s unusual lifestyle with her multiple marriages and its natural associations to a more unconventional sexuality for an Arab woman. The emphasis on blondeness in addition to the ‘big’ hairstyling removes Sabah from the general characteristics of the brunette Arab woman, but also links her to those in the Eastern world that desire that Western or ‘white’ look. Sabah’s early performance in film, so similar in presentation to Marilyn Monroe, would also support this idea. Blondeness has been examined by cultural fashion historian Pamela Church Gibson in her essay “Concerning Blondeness, Gender, Ethnicity, Spectacle and Footballer’s Waves”, included in the anthology edited by Geraldine Biddle-Perry and Sarah Cheang Styling, Culture and Fashion; blondeness can be seen as a “universal craving for a certain kind of whiteness.”100 In this case, Sabah’s hairstyles “must be critically evaluated as an aesthetic practice inscribed in her everyday life.”101

If there is one artist from Lebanon who can be said to provide an alternative to Sabah’s big loud blond hair and persona, it is Sabah’s fellow singer Fairuz. Nohad Haddad, who later took the stage name of Fairuz, which means turquoise in Arabic, was born in 1935 to a Christian family in Lebanon. “In 1953, she married music composer Assi Al-Rahbani of The Rahbani Brothers. Later

Ibid.

100

Pamela Church Gibson, “Concerning Blondeness, Gender, Ethnicity, Spectacle and Footballer's Waves”, Styling, Culture and Fashion edited by Geraldine Biddle-Perry and Sarah Cheang , Berg Fashion Library, p55-66. 101

Ibid

on they moved into a house in the Rahbani village of Antelias near Beirut. The environment, countryside in close proximity to the Mediterranean, inspired many songs.”102 Both Sabah and Fairuz are considered “giants of music” in Lebanon and the region. Fairuz’s aesthetics, including fashion, music style and facial expressions, are much more serious and dark (figure 23), and she has always led a very private life unlike Sabah. Fairuz stands still while performing with barely any facial expression,103while Sabah laughs and dances around joking on stage interacting with her audience.104 Fairuz is known to be much more overtly politically engaged, with songs dedicated to Palestine and Jerusalem, recalling memories of the Lebanese civil war. Through her songs, Fairuz brings together different communities of the Arab World, redefining “how Arabs perceived themselves and their history. Fairuz tells the story of her shattered city through songs during times of turmoil and has established herself as an icon for the whole Arab World.”105 She relies on nostalgic elements, for example, in the song “Li Beirut”106 and how the war altered the face of the city, its people and landscape. In fact, Fairuz can be said to represent the “anti-Sabah''. In contrast to the turmoil Fairuz sings about, in Sabah’s “Taxi d’Amour”, a song from 2000 originally composed and intended for an audience of children, Sabah playfully honors Lebanon’s heritage by riding in the back of a convertible taxi car across the Lebanese coastal highway with a

102

Samir Asmar, “Fairuz: A Voice, a Star, a Mystery”, Al Jadid , A review and Record of Arab Culture and arts, Vol. 19, No. 68 , 1999 https://www.aljadid.com/content/fairouz-voice-star-mystery. 103

Fairuz, “Rudani Ila Biladi”, Olympia, Paris, 1979 lhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0UbYHLvEI&list=PL47F569C5FEC0C8C8. 104

Sabah, “Ya Dala”, Kuwait 1971 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw2Gg0evoUE.

105

Ibid.

106

Fairuz, “Li Beirut” “To Beirut, From my heart a greeting of peace to Beirut, And kisses to the sea and the houses.”. 1984.

big blue bowtie on her head107 (figure 24), an image of liberation and freedom. If Fairuz removes herself to concentrate on the song, Sabah uses her clothing, hairstyle and accessories to project herself and gaiety into the context of Lebanon. In another video for the song “Al Basata, Al Basata” from the film Ahlan bil Hob or Welcoming Love from 1968, for example, we see Sabah with young men and women in the Lebanese countryside wearing a classically simple bubble-gum pink sleeveless dress ending above the knee with a bow piped at the neck but with a silver fringe at the midsection that glistens and shines as she moves and dances along in silver leather boots. She has accessorized it with long tassel earrings that similarly sway as she moves. It again combines a Western style with Eastern elements.108 I have introduced Fairuz here to demonstrate how different these two major but parallel female talents in the Arab World are from one another albeit equally dedicated to their country. In this context it is interesting to know that Sabah sometimes wore more recognizable Arabic garments to perform. In the 1960’s, in fact, Sabah wore Lebanese folkloric (or folk-inspired) costumes109 often seen on magazine and record covers, that popularized her ‘look’. The Baalbeck Festival, Lebanon’s most prestigious and oldest cultural festival in the Middle East, was founded in 1956 under the patronage of Lebanon’s President Camille Chamoun. It was most known for its “Lebanese Nights” promoting the country’s most grand talents, introducing “spectacular Lebanese creations and ambitious shows to its program; it enabled many of Lebanon’s most talented artists

107

Sabah, “Taxi d’Amour”, 2000 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYGyS5p7KXQ.

108

Sabah, “Al Basat Al Basata”, Ahlan bil Hob, 1968https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwgrXbDuyAo.

109

Madame Salha, a Lebanese couturiere who was famous for having dressed high society dames, including royalty from the Arab World, for The Baalbeck Festival.

to emerge such as The Rahbani Brothers, Wadih El Safi, Roméo Lahoud, and Fairuz and Sabah”110 At these festivals, Sabah often wore folkloric-inspired outfits designed by Madame Salha, a wellknown Lebanese couturier (figures 25, 26, 27). As a result of what she wore when performing (and in her daily life), as seen in the Hankash interview, Sabah was frequently asked about her clothing and her jewelry. In one video interview from 1975, for example, she is asked a series of questions by a female Egyptian reporter, some about her personal life, but mostly about her fashion. Transcription of the interview below111 -

Interviewer: “Ms. Sabah, if you had the chance to pick between a new song and a new dress which would you choose?” - Sabah: “A song of course! Every day you have people designing new and beautiful dresses but a good song is rare.” - I: “How many dresses do you have?” - S: “Many! So many, but I’ve given some away. Some girls write to me asking to borrow or take dresses for weddings or an occasion.” - I: “And how many songs did you sing since the beginning of your career?” - S: “Oh so many! I haven’t counted.” - I: “Do you wear a new dress every time you perform?” - S: “Oh no. When I was younger I used to, in my coming of age days. Now I’m much more of a good girl.” (both laugh) - I: “And what about your accessories?” - S: “Well a few years ago tassels were in style. It’s nice for a woman to accessorize herself. Big necklaces on embroidered dresses. But now, simplicity is more en vogue. Fashion is about wearing what looks good on you... I love earrings!” - I: “Yeah but once you were performing in Cairo wearing a very chic, gorgeous sequined dress topped with lavish jewelry. You said at the time, “simplicity is beautiful”, that made me laugh!” (both laugh) - S:“ Sometimes your look does not necessarily reveal aspects of your daily life, especially for artists.” The interviewer interrupts her asking: “so simplicity is a look?” - Sabah: “No, definitely not. Simplicity is not just through clothing, it's embedded in your character and in the way you live your life.”

110

Baalbeck Festival, History http://www.baalbeck.org.lb/history/.

111

Sabah the Songbird Rare Interview 1975, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUvJFEj0Zyk&list=PLjPQJmNTkaBw3jRHEGtdtYwPRYdaj2q2D&index=45.

Sabah elaborates saying she appreciates simple aesthetics but when on stage however, she must not disappoint her audience and when asked about her jewelry, whether fake or real, she says “some of it is real and some of it is fake.” - Interviewer: “How do you define elegance?” - Sabah: “You wear what suits you, what you feel comfortable in.” - I: “Are you a housewife?” - S: “Well I’m a woman, I can be everything.” - I: “And an elegant man?” - S: “Men should be elegant in their minds.”

This last sentence which ended the interview for me resonates with one of Diana Vreeland’s most well-known quotes “The only real elegance is in the mind; if you've got that, the rest really comes from it.”112 This conversation reveals a less known side of Sabah. While some of the YouTube commentaries about this interview criticize the interviewer’s questions and its concentration on fashion, Sabah’s answers reveal valuable information on the diva, her style, her character and her convictions on the role of women in society. Her answer “I am a woman, I can be everything”, which is short and concise provides an outlook on dichotomies within the Arab societies related to the role of women. Here Sabah asserts, I can be an artist and a working woman and a housewife. And here she affirms the way costume and jewelry is simply a part of the image her fans expect, in much the same way Bob Mackie acknowledged that his designs for such performers as Cher were meant to thrill her audience and fulfil their expectations upon seeing the icon. In the 1993 article in Prestige, Sabah in fact is quoted as saying “I love my life with my art; I live for my audience with love and moderation, I must preserve this image of me that my audience has always cherished.”113 This statement entails both Sabah’s strong sense of self and how it is 112

Diana Vreeland

113

Prestige Magazine, “Legendary Sabah:” Issue 7, December 1993, http://www.prestigemag.co/2014/06/legendarysabah/.

intrinsic to her dress. It might also explain the multiple plastic surgeries to maintain her youthful spirit.

In Fashioning Film Stars: Dress Culture and Identity, Rachel Moseley investigates “how dress operates in relation to stardom to articulate particular identities - gendered, national, classes, ethnic and sexual.”114 Moseley starts by pointing out to the reader the distinctive definitions of clothes, dress in order to situate film costume semiotically, socially and culturally. According to her definitions, borrowed from the Oxford English Dictionary, the function of clothes is to “cover the body rather than to adorn it [making it] functional rather than decorative” and dress, which is also a means of camouflaging the body may also “indicate something quite specific about both the person who wears it or the occasion for which it is worn.”115 She invites the reader to reflect on the first image that comes to mind when thinking of a star. “First, probably, you bring to mind their face, and possibly their voice, those key aspects of performance which made them a star. Second, you think clothes, (...) It is difficult to imagine (...) without thinking in general terms of their style.”116

114

Rachel Moseley, Fashioning Film Stars: Dress Culture and Identity (London: British Film Institute, 2005), Introduction, p.1. 115

Ibid.

116

Ibid.

Just like the first image we have of Marilyn Monroe is one of her platinum blonde hair and tight dresses, the image that comes to mind when thinking of Sabah is also that of a platinum blonde woman with big hair and a smile (figure 28). Sabah’s age was a major part of her story as a star. Even though she lived until the age of 87-- some say that she was actually 93--the image one has of Sabah is always that of big blonde hair and a smile on her face, whether in her younger age or as a more mature woman. Sabah’s clothes, which did not defer to her age, played a significant role in the construction of this star-like identity, leaving her fans always with a particular image of her face, hair, accessories and clothes--or, as quoted earlier, “her unique way of appearing.”117 As Pamela Church Gibson writes about Marilyn Monroe, that her “overly blonde, slightly tousled hair, strong make-up and glossy red lips were a vital part of her appeal, which contested a repressive regime (in Marilyn’s case, a regime of good taste and elegance)”118 the way Sabah dressed and styled herself challenged the status quo of Lebanese conventions and what was considered acceptable ‘femininity’.

Church Gibson points out in New Stars, New Fashions and the Female Audience: Cinema, Consumption and Cities that the emergence of Audrey Hepburn in Hollywood “offered women an alternative way of looking and behaving in a cinematic landscape dominated by blonde, curvaceous, traditionally glamorous Hollywood stars like Marilyn Monroe.”119 In his

117

Prestige Magazine, “Legendary Sabah:” Issue 7, December 1993, http://www.prestigemag.co/2014/06/legendarysabah/. 118

Pamela Church Gibson, “Concerning Blondeness, Gender, Ethnicity, Spectacle and Footballer's Waves”, Styling, Culture and Fashion eds., Geraldine Biddle-Perry and Sarah Cheang (Berg Fashion Library), p55-66. 119

Pamela Church Gibson, New Stars, New Fashions and the Female Audience: Cinema, Consumption and Cities.

groundbreaking work Stars (1998), Richard Dyer “surveys and develops an area of work within film studies and film stars.”120 He lays the “conditions of stardom” and defines the status and title of star as “remarkable social phenomenon- an elite, privileged group who yet on the one hand do not excite envy or resentment (because any-one may become one) and on the other hand have no access to real political power.”121 Dyer explains that stars are not “hard to explain or hard to grasp (...) it is true of all stars, they are elusive and reflect a type of mystery.”122 All the above criteria for a public figure to be considered as a star according to Dyer, in my opinion, are met in the case of Sabah. Sabah is not “hard to grasp”, she is for everyone and she has always been approachable by anyone. Her audiences are cross generational, multinational and multi-gender, and she has inspired people from different social classes throughout the years. However, and because of the complex persona behind Sabah, given her age, her numerous marriages and her optimistic temperament--which sometimes seems too good to be true, she becomes an elusive mystery. Also, Dyer notes that “a star cannot become a crucial decision maker (and remain a star), this does not mean that she/he is without political significance.”123 Indeed, Sabah has always mentioned not interfering in politics saying “an artist’s job is not to side with political parties”. Lebanon, known for its multiple political parties, makes dissension an issue for the country. Sabah is, as Dyer describes, a star who has political significance without being a crucial decision maker. She remains iconic to Lebanon rising above, like a bird, its multiple dissenting political parties.

120

Richard Dyer, Stars, (London: Palgrave Macmillan), 1998, Introduction.

121

Ibid.

122

Ibid. Ibid.

123

Chapter 3 Beirut Camp

In this chapter, I look at how the ghost of Sabah, the construction of her identity, retains its power in a struggle for human rights in post war Lebanon. Beirut, pre-war was different from what it is today (figure 29). While it is not in the scope of this thesis to expand and revisit the dreadful events which led to the eruption of the Lebanese civil war in 1975, hoping to maintain an air of optimism throughout this case study, as Sabah would have liked, it seems essential to present the reader with some brief facts on the events of 1975-1990. On April 13 1975, 27 Palestinians were killed by the hands of Christian Phalangist Kataeb militia fighters in the Ain el Remmaneh district in Eastern Beirut. This has since been known as “The Bus massacre of 1975”. The Taïf Accords of 1989, led by Rafic Hariri, later on elected Prime Minister, were expected “to unify its history (...) with the hope of building a national consensus and a more solid national identity.”124 The war came to an end in 1990, killing 120,000 people and leaving 90,000 displaced. This chapter is concerned with the events relating to Sabah’s life after 1990, when Hariri attempted a planning and redevelopment of the Beirut Central District. This era in Lebanese history gave Beirut a novel face, one of hope in order to retain what was left of this city in ruin. This shift took place on both political, social and cultural levels, however, to date, the various Lebanese parties who have participated in the war, do not agree on its causes and facts inhibiting any real teaching of the war and Lebanese

124

“Teaching War Reconciliation-and-History in Lebanon”, 2016, www.thearabweekly.com

history, for future generations to reconcile. The images of photographer Fouad ElKoury, who is recognized to have documented the days of the war and what was left of Beirut and its ashes, are available to contemplate on his website,125 from which I have selected an image from 1983 (figures 30).

Since then, the Lebanese civil war has impacted almost every aspect of Lebanese life, touching on issues of identities and gender representation. Lebanon has eighteen different religious denominations, each with the power to administer marriage, divorce and custody cases. Therefore, different religions follow their own distinctive laws with gender conformity and heterosexual religious marriages considered to be the norm; any type of extra-marital relationship is a social taboo. “Article 534” of the Lebanese Penal Code criminalizes homosexuality, dictating that “any sexual intercourse contrary to the order of nature is punishable by up to one year in prison.”126 As a result, it is impossible for homosexual marriages to take place in Lebanon, with religious laws governing relationships and marriage provoking gender binary beliefs. This legislative, cultural and social segregation, continues to discriminate against members of the LGBTQ community. However, unlike other Arab countries in the Middle East, “Lebanon Edges Closer to Decriminalizing Same-Sex Conduct”,127 thanks to growing pressure of Lebanese activists fighting for LGBTQ rights, such as Nada El-Adhami Yassine. Nada Yassine is a Lebanese lawyer and

125

www.fouadelkoury.com.

126

“Article 534”, Lebanese Penal Code.

127

Graeme Reid,“Lebanon Edges Closer to Decriminalizing Same-sex Conduct”, Human Rights Watch February 2, 2017, https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/02/02/lebanon-edges-closer-decriminalizing-same-sex-conduct#.

member of the Beirut Bar association whose work encompasses human and womens’ rights activism in both Lebanon and the region. She is part of global movements such as Amnesty International, campaigning to end grave abuse of human rights. In 2003, she led and founded the NGO “Hurriyat Khassa” or “Private Liberties” the first of its kind to fight for private rights of women and LGBTQs from Lebanon. Salim Yassine, Beirut-based journalist, writer and former Editor in Chief of Agence France Presse (AFP), whose thirty years journalistic career covered most conflict in Lebanon and the Arab World, including the War of the Gulf and the Iraqi invasion of 2003, reports on El-Adhami Yassine’s work in an article from the Daily Star from 2004. In his article “Lebanese Group Comes Out With Public Battle For Gay Rights”, he claims that “a rights group has begun a campaign in Lebanon to overturn the country’s ban on homosexuality, in the first publicity offensive of its kind to take place in the Arab World.”128 Therefore, despite the sectarian regime that is currently in place, the LGBTQ community manages to find ways to manifest itself in light of a patriarchal hegemony. Fashion art and drag performances encourage such freedom of expressions of identity and non-gender binary and sexuality orientations. The examination of Sabah’s wardrobe and the preservation of her legacy and memory through drag performances, aim at honoring the life of the late artist and allowing for a better understanding and expression of Lebanese identity, explaining the underlying reasons for a sectarian and homophobic system, which continues to discriminate against women and gay rights. In an episode from Christian Amanpour’s Netflix, CNN’s mini-series: Sex & Love Around the World from 2018 , Amanpour describes Beirut as “a mosaic of faiths, values and convictions stuck 128

Salim Yassine, “Lebanese Group Comes Out With Public Battle for Gay Rights”, Beirut, The Daily Star, October 20, 2004, https://www.dailystar.com.lb//News/Lebanon-News/2004/Oct-20/2947-lebanese-group-comes-out-withpublic-battle-for-gay-rights.ashx

between the wounds of the past and the uncertainty of the future.”129 Religious fundamentalism, a response to wars, has led some Lebanese men and women to rebel against the idea that religion should rule their lives and their bodies and are fighting for the freedom to love who they want and how they want. In May 2017, despite threats from religious groups, Beirut held its inaugural Gay Pride Week, the first ever in the Arab World. Other places where LGBTQ members can express and exist freely are at LGBTQ friendly poetry readings. Some neighborhoods are relatively safe with gay bars and restaurants. Despite LGBTQ friendly spaces, members of the community always risk being discriminated against. Gender also plays a role as homosexual men face different types of discrimination due to the preconceived concepts of masculinity.

How is this expressed through Sabah’s fashion? The following recounts the ways I see this. Firstly through the drag performance of Baseem Feghali who embodies drag culture in Lebanon, through fashion designers that knew Sabah and street art that have adopted her literal image, and thirdly through an interview Sabah gave when she was 80 years-old.

The expression of queerness is reflected in Bassem Feghali’s performances and impersonations of Sabah (figure 31). Born in 1977, Feghali was discovered in a talent show “Studio Al Fan” in 1996. Feghali, who identifies as male, is the only Lebanese drag performer and probably the first in Lebanon to have had a drag show on the country’s main television channel (LBC). Feghali is most famous for his personifications of Sabah. His artistry is a living proof of contradictions existing in

129

Christian Amanpour, Sex & Love Around the World, A CNN original Series, “Beirut Episode” Netflix, 2018.

Lebanon, revealing that, despite laws against honosexuality, artistic and drag expressions are still allowed and celebrated. The queer digital magazine Bidoun, describe Bassem Feghali as born in the very small Lebanese town of Wadi Shahrour (...) most famous for being the hometown of the legendary singer and actress Sabah. A man who mostly plays a woman onstage, Bassem has secured a place as one of the most admired performers in the Arab World. He is described as ‘a particular brand of gender play, both polite and clownish enough to be depoliticized.130 In a video compilation from his youtube channel,131 Feghali imitates the peroxide diva in her most famous appearances. In one of his clips, Feghali reinterprets Sabah’s song, “Taxi d’Amour” as mentioned in chapter 2, which is one of her most pop genre songs and has become a favorite among gays in Lebanon. In his version, Feghali wears a rave-like, tight silver glittery astronaut suit and moon boots, remixing the song to early 2000’s techno music.132

In an episode from one of his TV shows, “Alf Wayle Bi Layle” “A Thousand Catastrophes in One Night”,133 Bassem as Sabah stands in front of a mirror of confession, where the diva has an internal monologue about youth, plastic surgeries and men. Sabah’s voice and village-like accent is perfectly mimicked by Feghali. Sabah, who, as we have seen in chapter 2, had very sophisticated hairstyles was not reinterpreted by Feghali. Instead, he used cheap hair extensions and excessive makeup that did not resemble the look of the diva. However it was clear enough to reflect Sabah’s

130 131

Wael Lazkani, The Queen, Bidoun Magazine, Spring 2009, https://www.bidoun.org/articles/the-queen. Imitating Sabah, Youtube compilation, 2011 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNgAeNUhF8Q.

132

Imitating Sabah “Stop, Stop Taxi d’Amour”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-xTZgYL9Jw.

133

Alf Wayle Bi Layle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzFGZMB7YrI.

characteristics. While rewatching Bassem’s performance for the Studio Al-Fan show, where he won the competition that year in 1996 for his impersonation of Sabah and her songs, it struck me that the audience was made up of young men and women, some who were veiled. The “Queen” article notes the same observation. “No one seems to mind the presence of a boy dressed as a girl, gently swaying his hips and flipping his wrists. On the contrary, the people around him whistle, whoop, and applaud as if the scene before them were the most normal thing in the world.”134

What makes Feghali so successful in a country like Lebanon where one would think most would reject such identities? I came across a blog post which attempts to identify “What is so hot about him/her”135 The first line reads that “This Lebanese comedian and drag queen (was) related to the legendary singer Sabah. Bassem went on to impersonate many Lebanese celebrities such as Haifa Wehbe, Fairouz and Marilyn Monroe.”136 Feghali is known for imitating “the voices of personalities he impersonates without lip syncing.”137 The take of the author of the blog mentioned above on Feghali is “I do not know what to make of him, he is funny, and he works hard, but sometimes he pushes the envelope and he does that whenever he likes.”138 It comes as no surprise that Bassem includes Marilyn Monroe on his list of stars to caricature. In a photo from Getty images, Feghali does a great job as Monroe, reinterpreting her portrait by Andy Warhol through impeccable makeup (figure 32).

134

Wael Lazkani, The Queen.

135

“Why do Lebanese Love Bassem Feghali?” http://hotarabicmusic.com/2011/04/why-do-lebanese-love-basemfeghali/. 136

Ibid.

137

Ibid.

138

Ibid.

The book Fabulous: The Rise of the Beautiful Eccentric explores Madison Moore’s concept of fabulosity through “performances of fabulousness- performances that occur in everyday life as well as across other mediated forms in America during the second half of the 20th century.”139 For Moore, “Instead of strictly adhering to or circulating hard edged notions of “male” or “female”, fabulousness wants us to go beyond gender, to abstract it to end it all together.”140 Here, I’m compelled to look at drag artists and performers such as Bassem Feghali, who identifies as male, performing Sabah’s femininity on stage through “fashion and self styling”141 It allows Feghali and other (male gay) performers to express, through Sabah, fabulousness in the context of Lebanese identity and to claim their agency while asserting “themselves through radical self-styling [where] fabulous presentations of self in everyday life are activated by the specific rejection of normative ways of looking.”142 Moore “analyzes how appearance has innate liberating potential” and how “performers of fabulousness reveal the pleasure of making the self, and of using the body as a mode of expression.”143 We see this clearly in Sabah’s performances and construction of her own identity and similarly, for Feghali, in the “spectacular styling of the self as [a] principal mode of self-expression” and following in Sabah’s footsteps, part of this “fabulous class”, using “fabulousness as it becomes a form of high art that sits at the intersections of performance, style,

139

Madison Moore, Fierce: Performance, Creativity, and the Theory of the Fabulous Class, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), p72. 140

Madison Moore, Fabulous: The Rise of the Beautiful Eccentric, p.13.

141

Madison Moore, Fierce: Performance, Creativity, and the Theory of the Fabulous Class, p.72-73.

142

Ibid.

143

Ibid.

and creative expression.”144 Feghali’s hand gestures and body movements are an exaggeration of Sabah’s body language and presence on stage, as well as her fabulousness. He breaks margins and social barriers by disrupting the status quo, by fashioning himself as the starlet to become an expression of Lebanese pop culture through the ghost of Sabah. Feghali is able, through fashioning his own appearance, to explore Sabah’s nature as a diva on stage. He embodies fabulousness as a form of cultural production, reshaping aspects of Lebanese pop culture, which have for a long time discriminated against marginalized communities such as the LGBTQ one. His drag performances use “material of the everyday to produce new aesthetic forms in response to restrictive social”145 In fact, Bassem Feghali had a photoshoot with Sabah done the same year she died,146 it was her last shoot, art-directed by Feghali and Gharib.147 Sabah appears as a patron of Lebanese elegance, style, beauty and immortal grace. She is seated looking upwards yet in a void, in an enchanted garden with blossoming trees, dressed in a majestic gown, embroidered with gold leaves and encrusted with magnificent beads and crystals which blends perfectly with the background. Her head is adorned with a powder pink rose buds crown, symbolizing her sacredness and transcendence as a divine and legendary figure to all who knew her (figure 33). Sabah’s appreciation by her audience is a reflection of their love of her art, fashion and performances. As a camp performer, Feghali is using Sabah as a means of empowerment and an avenue for social change. After all, as Michael T. Schuyler writes, “camp has the ability to unite those who are

144

Ibid.

145

Ibid.

146

147

Sabah and Feghali shoot, February 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWqBJJhr2L0. Gharib is the hairdresser which I interviewed to talk about Sabah. See image # “Sabah Feghali shoot”.

separated by difference from the dominant cultures which can include women as well as men, linking together feminists, lesbians and homosexuals in opposition to a dominant patriarchal society.”148 The power of Sabah for the gay community in Beirut is clear from other remembrances as well: As Olivier, a Lebanese jewelry designer who roams around the artistic and gentrified quartier of Gemmayzeh, celebrating Sabah and other women divas from the Arab World on his Instagram told me, “To me, it’s simple: Sabah represents the “joie de vivre”, Lebanese elegance and the old Beirut, the mountains, everything that is very Lebanese, opulence and Lebanese generosity. The Lebanese people and their spirit which celebrates joyfulness. She was revolutionary. I know her interviews by heart.”149 International Lebanese-Armenian fashion designer Krikor Jabotian also has “his own vision of Sabah.”150 However he did not elaborate. And as Mazen Khaled, a friend of my family and celebrated film director, member of the LGBTQ community, said: “When I was a child, I saw Sabah at the airport (more than 40 years ago in the 70s) and she was so beautiful her exact image stuck in my head. When I met her a few years before she died I asked about what she was wearing and described the outfit from memory. She remembered it exactly and told me she still had it. She had all her clothes. It was a baby blue satin pants with a blue satin coat lined with white fur and a matching hat. Unforgettable woman.”151

148

Michael T. Schuyler, “Camp for Camp's Sake: Absolutely Fabulous, Self-Consciousness, and the Mae West Debate”, Journal of Film and Video, Vol. 56, No. 4, Winter 2004, pp. 3 and 8.

149

Olivier de Gemmayze, Testimonial, April 2020.

150

Krikor Jabotian, Testimonial, April 2020.

151

Mazen Khaled, Facebook comment part of testimonial, December 2019.

In Pamela Robertson’s book Guilty Pleasures: Feminist Camp from Mae West to Madonna, the author writes about the identification of gay men with women and their perception of their image, leading to the formation of bonds between them and these stars (as exhibited by Feghali, Gharib and many more). Sabah, perhaps, is comparable to Mae West and Madonna, in addition to Marilyn Monroe, given their influence on these marginalized communities who admire fashion and all forms of representations as an expression of extravagance and over-the-top aesthetics, channeled through glitzy burlesque costumes, hair sprayed wigs and artistic makeup. Robertson maps women’s access to a sensibility generally considered the domain of gay male culture, and constructs a new female speaking subject of a politically inspired “camp e!ect.”152 Whether this is something that can be applied to Sabah remains to be seen.

Recently, the Lebanese social media scene has witnessed an outbreak of transgender and trans-models mostly in fashion, performance and the creative fields. For Lebanese artist and photographer Sabyl Ghoussoub, who curated the exhibition C’est Beyrouth at the Institute des Cultures d’Islam (ICI) in Paris in 2019, Beirut has always fascinated the crowds. “To evoque Beirut is to summon images of a bruised city, resilient, effervescent, unusual, where different cultures and communities coexist, as well as religious beliefs.”153 Through the lens of sixteen artists, photographers and videographers, C’est Beirut proposes a diverse and unique view on society, weakened by wars and a sectarian structure of the country. Ghoussoub’s aim is to

152

Pamela Robertson, Guilty Pleasures Feminist Camp from Mae West to Madonna,( Durham and London, Duke University Press, 1996). 153

Sabyl Ghoussoub, C’est Beyrouth, institute des Cultures d’Islam (ICI), Paris March- July 2019, https://www.institut-cultures-islam.org/cest-beyrouth/2019).

document modern-day Beirut showcasing it through images and visual representations of the discrimination against homosexuality and other marginalized groups of such as Palestinian refugees and migrants workers in Lebanon. Queerness and gay goes hand in hand with other communities on the margins. In his 2014 book Queer Beirut, the first ethnographic study of queer lives in the Arab Middle East, Sofian Merabet writes about “Gender and sexual identity formation”154 in the Middle East but the title specifically features Beirut. He recalls the last concert given by Fairuz in 2002, encrypting conversations between the various attendees of the concert including women and gay men as reflective of the contrast and contradictions of Lebanese mentality, based on social standing, regarding these concerts as social events embedded in Lebanese culture.

Sabah’s image also finds its place in mural art in Beirut. A large graffiti mural of Sabah was painted in 2015 on the wall of a building that housed the same Horseshoe café, embedded in Ras Beirut culture, evoked in chapter 2 (figure 34).The graffiti artist Yazan Halwani painted the mural; he combines calligraphy art and paintings “taking Arab culture to the streets.”155 His murals immortalize the Lebanese icon Sabah. The popular use of Arabic and graffiti art in general, is a way to revive the language, which sometimes tends to be overshadowed by a French and English speaking population. An article from The Guardian, on his latest mural works of Sabah, describes

154

Sofian Merabet, Queer Beirut, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2014).

155

Ellie Violet Bramley, “How a Beirut graffiti artist is using his murals to try to unite a fragmented city” The Guardian, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/sep/22/beirut-graffiti-artist-yazan-halwani-lebanese.

“Yazan’s choice of having his mural in Hamra [as] not accidental, as the art merges well with the walls of the café that brought together many artists and intellectuals of the region.”156 According to the article, Halwani says “I decided to paint her to create that sense of nostalgia and positivity for the people living there. It kind of reinforced the sense of culture that used to exist.”157 Halwani also decided to depict Sabah in his art because of how “she challenged the norms of society.”158 Today, “Yazan believes, “we should all do as Sabah (...) I think we need to take Sabah’s drive in modern society, break taboos when need be and not be held by norms.”159 Hence, does Sabah maintain her nostalgic hold over Lebanon. There is a second mural of Sabah in the Christian era of Ashrafieh in Beirut, by street artist duo Ashekman. The graffiti mural took three days to complete and “over a year to plan the painting since we wanted to find a good spot in Beirut. We painted the late Sabah since unfortunately she wasn't commemorated well, and it's a concept that we are doing where we previously painted the faces of other cultural icons like Fairouz and Wadih el Safi. The idea is to leave something for the next generation that is cultural and to turn our hometown to an open and free art museum.”160 Underneath the mural, which differentiates itself from Halwani’s by its bright and vivid yellow and orange colors symbolizing life and happiness, inspired by a photograph of Sabah with her signature Naïm hairdo, is the following quote: “I want

156

Ibid.

157

Ibid.

158

Ibid.

159

Ibid. “A street art tribute to Lebanese pop icon Sabah appears in Beirut Created by Ashekman”, Buro247.me, June 8, 2015. https://www.buro247.me/culture/arts/sabah-streetart-beirutashekman.html 160

to live a hundred years just so that they can call me “Sabbouha”, "‫”"ﺑﺪّي ﻋﯿﺶ ﻟﻠﻤﯿﺔ ﺑﺲ ﻟﯿﺴّﻤﻮﻧﻲ اﻟﺼﺒﻮﺣﺔ‬ ( figure 35).

“Smallah Sit Sabah” is a frequent expression in Lebanese Arabic meaning “May god grant you a long life, Lady Sabah”, says the security guard as he escorts Sabah out of the passenger seat of her Mercedes car. In a televised interview from 2002, produced by Lebanese broadcasting channel, Future Television, Sabah arrives at the studio in a short sky blue flapper feathered mini-dress, paired with a rabbit fur bolero in color degradation of different tones of blue . Everyone is amazed at the sight of the 80 year-old peroxide diva.161 The television anchor, Zaven Kouyoumjian, presents Sabah as “the legend who is here to stay”. He seemed stunned by her presence. Towards the beginning of the show, Sabah mentions her love for fashion and her appreciation for Lebanese designers who created her dresses. She particularly brings up the name of late Lebanese designer William Khoury162 who designed most of her dresses, later on in the 70’s, after her folk ensembles period. Sabah frequently referred to herself as a “small village girl” and recalls in this interview a memory with her favorite nun at school telling her not to kiss any muslim boys. “I kissed them all” she says, in that same interview. The presenter then asks her how she spends her days, given that she doesn't perform as much as before. “Sometimes, I sit at home with myself, thinking”. “Thinking of what?”, Kouyoumjian asks, the host of the TV show. “Well, thinking...I love my brain. I like to sit with it. When I used to fall in love, I would do as if I was acting in a film and when the men were out of my life, I would consider it as the end of the movie.” “Why do you think you are admired by a younger audience, is it because of your age, or because you are trying to defy 161

Sabah’s Interview with Future Television, 2007https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8-ID0Y5w_s&t=1583s

162

I was not able to get in touch with the people who preserved his work.

age? Or because you have a legacy?” Sabah responds, “This is how and who I am. As a woman grows, she becomes more beautiful and reflects on deeper issues. I sit with my shadow and discuss…” (End of interview transcription from 2007, Future Television).

Sabah lived a non-traditional, non-normative life within a culture that tends to repress female individuality by not granting women legal rights. Her outsized image speaks both to the LGBTQ community and to younger women in Lebanon today and de-trivializes fashion. What has been discussed in this chapter above all validates Sabah’s position within the pop culture of Lebanon, confirming her status as an icon in her appeal to diverse audiences for different reasons.

Conclusion

“Sabah was fashion. She was ahead of her time, never following trends instead, she set the norms of what fashionable and glamorous was through her personal style, choice of costumes and charisma, which became popular all over Lebanon and the Arab World. More than anything, she was kind and playfully witty, her smile never left her face. The ultimate fashion and beauty icon, there is no one like Sabah and there never will be”163 This is how Joseph Gharib, Sabah’s friend and hairdresser (figure 36 and 37), describes the late artist, during the interview I conducted last year. I noticed an air of melancholy in his speech. “What is left after Sabah?” He asks out loud as I sit facing him taking notes.“I am not interested in working with self proclaimed celebrities on music videos that won’t even be remembered and without any artistic substance.”164 Our interview ended with him recalling one more moment with Sabah. “Are you going somewhere, Sabah?” I would ask her when she would just sit at home all dressed up.” “No, just staying in”, she would answer.

Curated Instagram accounts revive Lebanon’s pre war and Golden Era nostalgia, with 80’s kitsch aesthetics and photos of Sabah and her performances. Even during the Lebanese civil war, Sabah stylized herself as was demonstrated in chapter 2 (performances from the end of the 1970’s). Some of the accounts I came across were called “The Sabah worshiper” or “The Songbird’s Admiror” or even “Sabah Forever”. It is very possible that, if the diva of music was still alive today, and

163

Joseph Gharib, Interview, December 2019, Beirut Lebanon.

164

Ibid.

while I write this case study, I would have attempted to contemplate her dresses and document her wardrobe, which would have revealed many hidden facets of her as an iconic fashion figure.

Sabah who passed away in 2014 remains a fashion icon and one of the most celebrated artists and performers in Lebanon and the Arab World, challenging and breaking all sorts of taboos, admired across generations and different social classes. The Lebanese performer, actress and singer captivated the hearts of audiences165 with a career that spanned over sixty years. Through fashioning extravagant costumes and hairdos, seductive silhouette-hugging dresses in her role in Fatinat Al Jamahir inspired by Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Sabah just like Marilyn Monroe, built up her image as star and icon inspiring women across the Arab World. I was curious to look at Sabah in the light of the elusive concept of “cool”. I ask myself, “how does Sabah exude a certain coolness?” For this reason, I turn to Jessica Wolfendale and Jeanette Kennett’s book, Fashion Philosophy for Everyone: Thinking with Style on being “Fashionable and Cool” which defines cool as “some people who are always cool, even when (or perhaps because) they do not dress in the fashions of the day, and who do not seem to be bound by the relativity of fashion to time, groups, and expert opinions.”166 The same could be said about Sabah and her fashion throughout the years. As the authors define it, “she does not dress in the fashion of the day

165

Joseph Gharib in his interview, recalls that memory when he first met Sabah in 1993, he didn’t “sleep for months”, he says, “astonished by her beauty and presence, she lit up any room”. For twenty years, and up until her death in 2014, Gharib accompanied her on her many artistic journeys and trips around the globe. While Sabah had two children, a girl and a boy, her relationship with them was controversial and she had expressed often perceiving Gharib as a child-like figure to her, saying, “He is like my son. He’s more than a friend”. 166

Jessica Wolfendale and Jeanette Kennett, “Fashion Philosophy for Everyone: Thinking with Style,” (Feriz Allhoff, 2011).

and is not bound by the relativity of fashion to time, groups or opinions.”167 The paragraph on being Fashionable and Cool ends with the suggestion that “Perhaps, then, being cool is also a matter of having freedom to exercise one’s tastes, and the resources to be able to do this.”168 This couldn’t be more true of Sabah and her image as a fashion icon. If Sabah was bound by any sort of social taboo or limitations, she would have never been able to express her identity through style as well and as marvellously as she did.

Sabah’s ghost, as I have made it the point to demonstrate in my last chapter, is more than ever still prevalent in Lebanese pop culture and women’s fashion and everyday life, engraved in people’s memory. I remember having received a few years ago for Christmas, a bag designed by the Lebanese artisanal brand, Sarah’s Bags, which specializes in the design of bags and accessories, having as mission to empower the makers and wearers of the designs through a “social enterprise that creates one-of-a-kind luxury handcrafted bags and accessories.”169 The pouches of different sizes have photos of a younger Sabah printed on them, with a retro feel instead of the overused pop art print aesthetics, often adopted to immortalize icons. When the collection was first launched, I received one of these bags as a gift. At first, I did not wear it, as I did not understand the significance of having a picture of Sabah printed on a bag and carrying it wherever I went. Today, I understand the meaning behind collectible fashion items honoring divas of the past. As I remove

167

Ibid

168

Ibid

169

“Our Story”, www.sarahsbag.com

myself from Lebanese daily life, given that I am currently living abroad, I have developed a deeper sensibility and affinity with all things Lebanese and begin to celebrate Beiruti life more than ever before, which is part of my identity and upbringing, despite having grown up in a trilingual household with the tremendous influence of Paris on my culture. I celebrate and look back at times where my country was thriving on multiple levels, through the realms of artistic and intellectual presentation, in cosmopolitan neighborhoods by the sea, such as Ras Beirut and other spaces. Sabah’s legacy is, as it is being demonstrated in this thesis, an immense part of our collective memory reflecting nostalgia for Golden Beirut and its past.

Figures

Figure 1. Picture of Sabah covered with flower petals at her funeral convoy, November 2014, Beirut, Getty Images

Figure 2. Sabah, the “Diva of Music and Fashion Icon” Lebanese veteran singer Sabah attended the Alexandria International Music Festival late 29 June 2003 in Egypt's Mediterranean port city. AHMAD HUSSEIN/AFP via Getty Images

Figure 3. Umm Kulthum - date unknown

Figure 4. “Allô Beirut” The Wonderful World of Sabah, Album cover, 1966

Figure 5. Sabah’s debut as an actress, Egypt 1940’s

Figure 6. Fatinat Al Jamahir, 1964

Figure 8. Maabad Al Hob, 1961

Figure 7. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, 1953

Figure 9. Asphalt Jungle, 1950

Figure 10. Marilyn Monroe front view of dress, pictured with Steve Smith, Kennedy’s brother-in-law, The Guardian, 1962

Figure 11. Sabah in fitted ivory dress and tiara, “Sana Helwa Ya Jameel”, Fatinat Al Jamahir, 1964

Figure 12. Champagne and Jewels, Fatinat Al Jamahir, 1964

Figure 13. Brunette and blonde protagonists with champagne coupes singing along Sabah while performing the Arabic version of “Happy Birthday To You”, Fatinat Al Jamahir, 1964

Figure 14. Marilyn Monroe performing “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, 1953

Figure 15. Hamra Street at night, Beirut, 1960’s/1970’s

Figure 16. Hamra Street life, circa 1960’s

Figure 17. Woman window shopping in Hamra, 1960’s

Figure 18. Women dressed in disco dress, bell bottoms, psychedelic prints, Blow Up Discothèque in Beirut, circa 1960’s

Figure 19. Sabah in a lilac silk organza flower embellished dress, 1975

Figure 20. “Sabah, Phoenician Star” La Revue du Liban et de L’Orient Arabe, April 3rd, 1971

Figure 21. Naim posing with Sabah, 1970’s

Figure 22. Sabah with pearls in her hair, hairdo by Naïm, 1970’s

Figure 23. Fairuz in concert, Paris, 1970’s

Figure 24. “Taxi d’Amour”, Children’s Dream Vol.4, album cover, 2000

Figure 25. Sabah’s folk costume designed by Madame Salha for Lebanese Nights” “Terre de Jadis, Terre de Demain” by Nizar Mikati, The Baalbeck Festival, 1964

Figure 26 and 27. Sabah’s folk costume designed by Madame Salha for Lebanese Nights, The Baalbeck Festival, 1964

Figure 28. A ravishing Sabbouha receiving an award in Egypt in 2004- She is 77+ in this picture

Figure 29. Aerial view of Beirut from my airplane seat December 2018

100

Figure 30. Fouad ElKoury “The Farewell, Place de Martyrs Beirut 1983”, “Civil War 1977-198” series, Permanent Collection, http://www.fouadelkoury.com/works4respon.php?work=5

101

Figure 31. Lebanese comedian Bassem Feghali impersonates late Lebanese diva Sabah during the 15th annual Murex d'Or awards ceremony in Beirut on June 4, 2015. JOSEPH EID/AFP via Getty Images

102

Figure 32. Bassem Feghali as Marilyn Monroe, Getty Images

103

Figure 33. Sabah looking like an icon in her last shoot, February 2014

104

Figure 34. “Eternal Sabah”, Mural by Yazan Halwani, Hamra Street same corner as ex-Horseshoe café, 2015

105

Figure 35. Sabah “‫ ”ﺑﺪّي ﻋﯿﺶ ﻟﻠﻤﯿﺔ ﺑﺲ ﻟﯿﺴّﻤﻮﻧﻲ اﻟﺼﺒﻮﺣﺔ‬Mural by Ashekman, Ashrafieh Beirut, 2015

106

Figure 36. Sabah in a royal blue gown, accompanied by Joseph Gharib, mid late 2000’s

107

Figure 37. Sabah styled by Joseph Gharib- Probably late 2000’s

Figure 38. SABAH, Toujours, 70’s

108

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