Blog
Heather Jaber

Oddly Sexual Lebanese Music Videos

I know that Lebanese music videos, and many Arabic ones in general, feature lots of voluptuous, made-up women dancing sensually, usually teasing a man in one form or another. The eroticism is not surprising, but what did surprise me were the odd ways in which that sexuality sometimes manifests itself. Here are the five most odd sexual music videos:


Aal Tayeb – Fares Karam

I think Fares Karam’s music video for the song “Al Tayeb” takes the cake in odd sexualization. I’m not sure how else you can interpret women milking cows sensually, and I don’t think I need to spell it out.

The video starts out with your average model/farm girl (as most are) standing under some labneh bags which are dripping white liquid all over her. Yeah. She then proceeds to sensually milk a cow, squeezing its utters while looking over her shoulder and pouting her lips, as one does. Highlights of the video include Fares Karam drinking the milk, which has some interesting underlying connotations, Fares Karam driving through the barn on a tractor, looking like the tractor king, and Fares Karam and Farm Girl being romantic among long stalks of horse hair/hay/something disturbing. By the end, Karam and his buddies rescue the farm girl, release the cows to experience freedom, and drive away in a convertible. As one does.



Just your average milkmaid.


Behold the tractor king.


Why?



Bos Alaya – Dana

Dana, I think, is misunderstood. She has a boat and a nice house with paintings, but she yearns for more. She likes to repeat that she is “Dana” or sometimes “Dan Dan.” She does everything with flare and spunk, dancing in her pajamas in the street, on a boat, on her couch during a photo shoot, asking the viewer all the while to “bos alaya, bos” (look at me, look.)


Beware — Dana knows all.

She lies vertically on her couch rather than horizontally, always going against the grain, and shows off her artwork while sticking her rear out and looking at the viewer from over her shoulder.


Come on in guys. Just hanging out.


Do you like this one? I got it in Rome last spring.



El3ab – Maria

This one has all the markings of pedophile’s dream and everyone else’s nightmare. Maria is a woman-child who seems to be playing homage to Britney Spear’s “Hit Me Baby One More Time.” But let’s face it. Britney’s was a lot less creepy.


All my lollipops have my name on them too.

Maria seems to be a schoolgirl/celebrity doing a photoshoot, with braces and lollipops abound. There is a creepy mime who tries to force her to eat cotton candy, which she looks upset about (not the most subtle reference).


Maria teaches girls that they have the right to refuse gifts from mimes.

The most disturbing part about this video is the photography director who watches her intensely has he smokes his pipe, pulling at his collar and touching his lips, getting eerily turned on by the large child gyrating in booty shorts.


I don’t…know.

But the absolute best part of this video is when Maria takes a bath in a bowl of cereal. And the cereal is her own brand, called “Maria.” The lasting image of Maria wearing a tiara in a bathtub of cereal is something to cherish.


Come on in guys. Just hanging out.



Shu B7eb Akel Al Mawz – Zeezee M

I don’t know how much there is to say about this one. This is about a woman who loves bananas. Granted, turned out to be a joke made to raise awareness about faux-fame, because this woman is embarrassingly strutting her stuff around banana plants and sprawling her body all over the trees, and sticking bananas with cream on them in her mouth.


Come on in guys. Just hanging out.


I don’t…know.




Breathing You In – Haifa Wehbe

No list of weird sexual music videos would be complete without Haifa Wehbe. The odd thing about this one, besides the fact that it’s in English, is its mixture of themes. I was sitting on a bench in AUB one day when I heard a guy tell his friend, “It’s like BDSM meets space meets cowboys!” Intrigued, I had to know more.

I later found out that he was referring to Haifa Wehbe’s latest music video; the video opens with an astronaut and apparent farmhand (what is it with farmers in Lebanon?) Casper (who is also J Lo’s ex) as her love interest. The video somehow takes place in space, the farm, and the desert all at once.



Just Haifa and the boys in a flower field.

If there’s anything we should all take away from this, though, it’s that you should be adequately prepared for space travel.


Not a space suit.