Satellite Rides
I was lucky enough last night to have dinner with Naoufel, the head of AIESEC Morocco. He spends a lot of time over at the apartment, and even accompanied us to Essaouira, but this was one of the first times that I was able to get a Moroccan alone, over dinner and of course, tea.
The conversation shifted pretty quickly to the weekend, I told him some of my reservations about how some of my traveling companions were being treated, etc. He managed to put it this way:
Basically, everything in Morocco is pirated - CDs, Music, Clothing, Software, and especially satellite television. One of the most curious sights in Morocco is seeing these absolutely dirt poor slums with satellites sticking out all over the place. If you took a panorama of Casablanca, the landscape would be filled with them. These are not your average Direct TV satellites, they're frankly rather junky-looking, with no discernible markings on them.
These satellites are all hacked. Basically, you buy a box for around 1500 Dirhams, and then you have to buy a card with codes on it. Then, you connect the Satellite to all of this, etc, and you literally get thousands of channels from all over the world. Every language, from HBO to ESPN to Egyptian Soap Operas. You can sit in front of your tv all day and just consume this ridiculous amount of media, especially western/american media.
Anyways, with that out of the way, there is an amazingly high consumption of American media, Naoufel asked me if I knew of American Pie, American Beauty, etc. Part of what's disseminated through these satellites, besides an often incredibly overblown view of drugs, sleazy politicians, violence and such in America is the liberated and free American woman. This is a woman who makes her own choices. For Moroccan men, and many non-western men, this perception fuses with sexual freedom - what results is basically a view of Western women as promiscuous and slutty, by virtue of their liberated nature. Based on that, there is this idea that if you talk to a western woman, and spend enough time with her (keeping in mind that they have little clue as to how to interact with these western women appropriately), then you'll be able to sleep with her.
It was good to hear this from Naoufel, because even as I mentioned in my last post, I'd previously had enough experience with Meditteranean, especially Italian, men to know how sleazy and overt they can be about declaring affection. While I hope this post doesn't in anyway imply some sort of tacit or stated acceptance of Moroccans' behavior towards Western women, at least hearing it from Naoufel helped clarify why.
The conversation shifted pretty quickly to the weekend, I told him some of my reservations about how some of my traveling companions were being treated, etc. He managed to put it this way:
Basically, everything in Morocco is pirated - CDs, Music, Clothing, Software, and especially satellite television. One of the most curious sights in Morocco is seeing these absolutely dirt poor slums with satellites sticking out all over the place. If you took a panorama of Casablanca, the landscape would be filled with them. These are not your average Direct TV satellites, they're frankly rather junky-looking, with no discernible markings on them.
These satellites are all hacked. Basically, you buy a box for around 1500 Dirhams, and then you have to buy a card with codes on it. Then, you connect the Satellite to all of this, etc, and you literally get thousands of channels from all over the world. Every language, from HBO to ESPN to Egyptian Soap Operas. You can sit in front of your tv all day and just consume this ridiculous amount of media, especially western/american media.
Anyways, with that out of the way, there is an amazingly high consumption of American media, Naoufel asked me if I knew of American Pie, American Beauty, etc. Part of what's disseminated through these satellites, besides an often incredibly overblown view of drugs, sleazy politicians, violence and such in America is the liberated and free American woman. This is a woman who makes her own choices. For Moroccan men, and many non-western men, this perception fuses with sexual freedom - what results is basically a view of Western women as promiscuous and slutty, by virtue of their liberated nature. Based on that, there is this idea that if you talk to a western woman, and spend enough time with her (keeping in mind that they have little clue as to how to interact with these western women appropriately), then you'll be able to sleep with her.
It was good to hear this from Naoufel, because even as I mentioned in my last post, I'd previously had enough experience with Meditteranean, especially Italian, men to know how sleazy and overt they can be about declaring affection. While I hope this post doesn't in anyway imply some sort of tacit or stated acceptance of Moroccans' behavior towards Western women, at least hearing it from Naoufel helped clarify why.
posted by Isaac at 6:42 AM
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