Egypt vs. DreamWorks: The rumble is on

Humor is always difficult to translate across cultures. Rokaya Sadat, the daughter of assassinated former Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, has filed a legal complaint against DreamWorks. The reason?

In the DreamWorks-released I Love You Man, Jason Segel’s pet dog is named “Anwar Sadat.” In the script, Segel’s character says it’s because the dog physically resembles Sadat — and in the credits, the dog is listed as “Anwar Sadat playing himself.”

Sadat’s lawyer Samir Sabri is seeking legal action against both DreamWorks and the Egyptian government:

Sabri said he has also filed a libel lawsuit against Egypt’s minister of information, demanding that copies of the movie be removed from the market because it has “gravely tarnished the name and history of the leader [...] and symbol of the nation.” Rokaya was quoted in the independent daily al-Masry al-Youm on Wednesday as saying the Egyptian censorship authorities should be held responsible for allowing the movie to run in Egyptian theatres. Censorship of foreign films in Egypt is common, though usually it is nudity and love scenes that are targeted. The head of the censorship authority, Ali Abou Shadi, told the daily that the movie arrived in Egypt with the scenes about Sadat already removed.

The actual Anwar Sadat, of course, was assassinated in the early 1980s in retaliation for signing a peace treaty with Israel. In Egypt’s complicated legal system, the filing of a complaint is the first necessary step towards launching a suit.

Sadat’s decision to take legal action follows months of Egyptian bloggers fuming over the Sadat gag. A rundown of Egyptian bloggers’ complaints about the joke can be found over at Kabobfest, but why not take a look at one of the blogs in question? This is the (well-written, in English) Egyptian Chronicles:

May be it is funny in the States but for us this is a huge insult even if it were not for an icon like Sadat, so you can imagine it when it comes to one of our rulers. Honestly if it were not for Masrawy.com. I would not have not known. [...]

Cutting off this scene from the film to be screened in Egypt did not hide our mistake and insult against this man, if this film was truly screened in Egypt, then Ali Abu Shady , the head of censorship should apologize to the Egyptian people and the family of President Sadat not to mention the least thing he can do is to resign. Where is the Egyptian Embassy in the United States from this insult? Where are our Egyptian community from this insult against our President? Or they only move when it comes to Mubarak?

I swear I will be as angry as now if they call it Nasser or Naguib or even Mubarak. It is not an overreaction or over sensitivity, yes East is East and West is West, I remember that many Americans did not like when that company produced a monkey doll on the shape of Obama. This is the same issue.

The other blogger mentioned, Masrawy, can be found here. Meanwhile, Wikipedia already has an entry on the Sadat gag controvesy. According to the Egyptian public intellectual Tarek Shenawi:

Any artist is allowed to criticize public figures and men in power like current and ex-presidents, but it is totally unacceptable to insult someone like El Sadat in a film,” prominent film historian and critique Tarek Shenawi told Al-Hayat TV. “It is really strange to find El Sadat, who is well-known and respected in the West for his peace achievements, get mocked like this.”

Rokaya Sadat previously filed (and won) a libel lawsuit against the daughter of former Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, who claims Sadat plotted Nasser’s murder.