Egypt's Panoptic Cinema: From Colonialism to Sobky

Abstract

Is Egypt witnessing the birth of a new revolutionary cinema after having undergone a wave of political consciousness and revitalization? This paper aims to trace the history of state censorship in Egypt with the aim of shedding light on the use of cinematic discourse as a tool of “Othering”. Beginning with the colonial years and ending with Anwar al-Sadat's rule, cinema in Egypt underwent slow yet complex development reflective of the sociopolitical reality of Egyptian society. How, in turn, has the scrutiny of Egyptian censorship, a rigid tool of discourse production and dissemination, been reflected on a more individualistic level? Through a Foucauldian analysis, the paper aims to explain the process of self-regulation and self-censorship performed by the Egyptian mainstream audience. More importantly, I aim to explore how hyper-sexualized, hyper-masculinized mainstream cinema has constantly escaped the scrutiny of the censorship bureau, the “patriarchal guard on morality”.