The Muhannad Effect: Media Panic, Melodrama, and the Arab Female Gaze
In the summer of 2008, the Saudi-owned, pan-Arab satellite television network Middle East Broadcasting Center (MBC) aired a failed Turkish soap opera, Gümüş, as the Arabized Noor, creating an overnight sensation and a media panic. Arab news media attributed a wave of domestic violence and divorce to the series’ handsome lead actor, and his character’s romantic deportment. This article combines con
