Satellite broadcasts of the U.S. television shows Desperate Housewives and The Late Show With David Letterman are doing more to persuade Saudi youth to reject violent jihad than hundreds of millions of dollars worth of U.S. government propaganda, informants have told the U.S. embassy in Jeddah.
Broadcast uncensored and with Arabic subtitles alongside sitcoms such as Friends on Saudi Arabia’s MBC 4 channel, the shows are being allowed as part of the kingdom’s “war of ideas” against extremist elements.
According to a secret cable titled “David Letterman: Agent of Influence”, they have been proving more effective than Washington’s main propaganda tool, the U.S.-funded al-Hurra TV news channel.
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Diplomats said they believed the allure of actors such as Eva Longoria, Jennifer Aniston and David Schwimmer meant commercial TV had a far greater impact than al-Hurra which, according to one report, has cost U.S. taxpayers up to $500m.
“It's still all about the war of ideas here, and the American programming on MBC and Rotana [a channel part-owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation] is winning over ordinary Saudis in a way that al-Hurra and other U.S. propaganda never could,” two Saudi media executives told a U.S. official in a meeting at a Jeddah branch of Starbucks.
“Saudis are now very interested in the outside world and everybody wants to study in the U.S. if they can. They are fascinated by U.S. culture in a way they never were before,” the May 2009 cable said. The popularity of the channels is surprising given that Rotana broadcasts Fox News, the rightwing News Corp channel that has strongly supported U.S. military intervention in the Middle East.
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The diplomats told Washington that certain themes in U.S. movies seemed to appeal to the Saudi audience: heroic honesty in the face of corruption (George Clooney in Michael Clayton), supportive behaviour in relationships (an unspecified drama featuring an American husband dealing with a drunk wife who smashed cars and crockery when she wasn't assaulting him and their child), and respect for the law over self-interest (Al Pacino and Robin Williams in Insomnia).
Copyright: Guardian News & Media 2010