Although I am an Egyptian-American citizen, who was born in Cairo, I only lived there for 1 year and shared the same conceptions of the middle east that any other American would have. However, after visiting Egypt in 2004, I was shocked to learn of the significant impact that Western culture has had on the culture of the Middle East. Due to the broadness of that topic, I chose to compose a video about the influence of Western culture on Middle Eastern music and dance.
With the help of the GIMP and CamStudio programs, I accumulated a collection of pictures and video clips that depict these influences. The introduction of the video is intended to portray the "Americanization" of the middle east in a literal sense. After American culture became popular in Egypt and other parts of the middle east, many actors and singers underwent "Americanization" makeovers, as I like to call them, dying their hair blonde and switching their eye color to a lighter tone. This was the beginning of the Americanization of middle eastern culture, as this popular influence from the US began to be seen in television shows and music videos as well.
As American Idol took America by storm, an identical show entitled "Star Academy" was introduced in the middle east, and became one of the most popular daytime television shows on Arab television. As hip hop dance is one of the most popular forms of dance in the US, it has also became a dominant form of dance that has been integrated into traditional Arabic bellydancing. Although there were several videos to choose from, I was selective in an effort to find one that would depict several western influences at once. The final music video shows influences on both dance and clothing, and the grafitti on the wall is evidence of western culture's infiltration of several different aspects of the middle east's culture.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| Americanized.wmv | 11.3 MB |
Video Comment
This was a very good topic and you depicted it very very well. Everything you put up supported your argument perfectly but maybe if you could go beyond music and move into more areas.
I think you choose a very
I think you choose a very interesting topic and depicted it in a very visually pleasing way. I however agree that maybe a little more text should be added to really pull the concepts together. Also you may want to change the text to be more visually pleasing by changing the font and color :) Great Job!!!!
Unique topic
You have a unique topic. Americanization is happening everywhere, and it's interesting to see how it's influencing other cultures. I like the sequence you have in the beginning. It sets the topic in a creative manner. The only suggestion I would have would be to tie it all up at the end and smoothing that out. Good work.
I like all of the pieces
I like all of the pieces that you have put together. I wonder if you might want to add a bit more text to extend your analysis--maybe some concluding points at the end. For instance, pointing out the way the influence moves from one culture to another or the elements that seem to be shaped the most--music, tv, etc. You'll want to make sure to polish all the text as well, and look for a smoother ending that includes the credits. Nice work.
I agree with the post above.
I agree with the post above. I thought it was a really cool, interesting topic for your video. I liked the fact that it was fun and flashy yet I really felt like I learned something from it/it really made me think.
Re: "Americanized"
I very much liked the topic you chose for your video. It really is interesting to see just how much other cultures are affected by American music and movies. I'm sure that the first things that come to mind when people think of Egypt are pyramids and heiroglyphs, and thoughts of the Middle East are anything but Hollywood images, but clearly your video shows that the popular culture is greatly the same. It's really neat just to see, you know, how similar our cultures really are.
The beginning of the video might be my favourite part because I like the effect you used. I just thought it looked really cool, but it's also kind of sad, to me anyways, because it's almost as if the culture of Egypt is literally being replaced by with American values at the cost of Egyptian traditions and culture.
But overall, I liked it and thought it was a good topic :)