By Ishaq Ibrahim – Manassa –
As it does every year, social media has been filled with scenes of Egyptian Christians celebrating Holy Week—from carrying crosses and palm branches on Palm Sunday, marking Christ’s entry into Jerusalem, to the symbolic burial rituals on Good Friday, culminating in Easter Sunday just few days ago.
And, as is also the case every year, official media remained absent from these scenes, limiting its coverage to news reports and exchanges of congratulatory messages between political and religious officials.
I have observed this particularly through the coverage of Upper Egypt Radio, which serves the governorates of Fayoum, Beni Suef, Minya, Assiut, and Sohag—stations I often listen to while traveling during my holiday travel to Minya. For years, its coverage has focused only on governors congratulating bishops and visiting diocesan headquarters and some churches, without any engagement with ordinary citizens or coverage of how and where they celebrate, despite the visible Christian presence in these regions.
This contrast prompts a broader question: the absence of such celebrations reflects a wider phenomenon—the near-total absence of Christian social life from Egyptian drama. During the recently concluded Ramadan season, more than forty television series were broadcast, depicting various aspects of Egyptian life and featuring hundreds of characters. Yet not a single Christian man or woman appeared among them, not even in a secondary role.
Is it reasonable to marginalize a segment of Egyptian society—whether large or small—in this way? After nearly a century since the emergence of Egyptian cinema and six decades of television production, how can works addressing Christian characters remain marginal? And why has much of this limited output been marked by controversy in its content, intentions, and consequences?
This process of exclusion has produced—and continues to produce—a vague and distorted image of Christians in the eyes of their fellow citizens, obscuring their daily lives, interactions, behaviors, challenges, and the nature of relationships within their families and churches.
The Impact of Absence
It can be argued that the sectarian harassment incident involving a Christian woman in Dakahlia last month—when another passenger told her in a minibus, “You smell bad, you Christian (literally using the term ‘Crossed,’ or ‘Crusader’) ”—is one of the outcomes of this exclusion.
Such incidents reflect the stereotyping of fellow citizens and a lack of familiarity with them, calling for responses that go beyond simply arresting the perpetrator to addressing the deeper causes that give rise to such behavior.
Drama plays a central role in shaping public awareness. It has the capacity to influence audiences and present complex issues in creative ways that encourage reflection and reconsideration of attitudes and behaviors, without relying on direct preaching or instruction.
Yet dramatic works that have addressed Christian characters—rare as they are—have tended to rely on simplification and stereotyping, placing them within rigid molds. These range from the excessively “kind” (“cute”) or ridiculously naïve figure, to the subordinate but competent professional (often an accountant or treasury employee), to the overly rigid and exaggeratedly devout figure, bordering on caricature.
There is also a recurring character type that does not exist in reality: one who speaks in an artificial tone, overemphasizes religiosity, and repeatedly uses expressions such as “in the name of the Lord” in exaggerated or inappropriate ways, or makes the sign of the cross in a theatrical and unrealistic manner.
There are, of course, exceptions—particularly in cinema—which has occasionally portrayed Christian characters with greater depth and complexity. The film I Love Cinema (2004), despite criticism and certain inaccuracies, presented a realistic Christian family with its fears and tensions. Its characters were drawn from lived experience rather than moralistic templates, embodying both strengths and weaknesses.
Similarly, The Junction (1996) offered a different perspective through the story of a simple railway worker imprisoned in place of a political detainee, emphasizing empathy with his human struggles before his religious identity. Likewise, An Indian Farce (2003) explored the challenges of Christian marriage.
The Sensitivity of Representation
The issue is not limited to stereotyping. The types of issues addressed in drama have also contributed to heightened sensitivity among the Church and Christians, particularly the focus on topics such as interfaith marriage, conversion to Islam, and complex family relationships.
As a result, works such as the series Awan al-Ward (“ the Time of the Rose”) and the film One-Zero faced strong criticism for presenting negative portrayals or appearing to favor one side over another.
The Church, by its nature a conservative institution, tends to promote an idealized image of its followers and is therefore uncomfortable with negative portrayals, especially given the scarcity of works depicting Christian life. It sees such portrayals as unrepresentative of reality, particularly in the absence of broader depictions of everyday life and struggles.
Christians themselves, shaped by a minority experience and concerned about how such portrayals might affect their social standing and relationships, question why these specific issues are repeatedly highlighted. If there are implicit or explicit constraints on addressing issues such as church construction or religious discrimination, why then are Christians excluded from normal representation? And in whose interest is it to present society as monochromic in identity and character?
More Balanced Representation Needed
Film critic Tarek El-Shenawy has addressed this issue, arguing that heightened sensitivity is partly the result of the long-standing absence of Coptic characters from drama. The longer this exclusion continues, the greater the discomfort becomes. Audiences are simply unaccustomed to seeing Coptic characters portrayed with the same range of human complexity—including flaws—as other characters.
Some may argue that the problem stems from a lack of creative writing about Christian characters or from the difficulty of finding material sufficiently attractive for drama works. This claim does not hold, particularly in the post–January 25 Revolution period, when numerous writings have documented the daily lives of Christian families—their experiences, celebrations, and the challenges they face both within their communities and in wider society.
There is also a rich body of literary work addressing Coptic characters, as highlighted by Dr. Nevine Mossaad in her book The Coptic Character in Egyptian Literature. From Naguib Mahfouz and Bahaa Taher to Edwar El-Kharrat, Salwa Bakr, Ashraf El-Ashmawi, and younger writers emerging after the 2011 revolution, these works have explored Muslim-Christian relations with a depth rarely matched in drama, boldly revealing the lived realities and struggles of many, particularly among poorer communities.
If there is no shortage of material, there should be no shortage of production. Given the domination of state-linked institutions in production and distribution areas, it would be entirely feasible—without the constraints of commercial profitability—to prioritize the inclusion of realistic and diverse representations of society.
This is not a matter of appeasing Christians. It is essential for drama to serve as a true reflection of society—one that captures its diversity, sheds light on its problems, and contributes to addressing them, while combating ignorance and extremism.
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Translated fro: https://manassa.news/stories/31218?
