Golden age divas on the silver screen: Challenging or conforming to dominant gender norms?

Egyptian cinema has been hugely influential throughout the Arab world, and has produced several divas. Fatin Hamama (d. 2015) and Soad Hosny (d. 2001) were very popular among their contemporaries and still continue to enchant audiences. Yet, there has been little systematic study of the cinema roles such enthralling divas were cast in. In this article, we discuss the genre melodrama, and the roles played by these two highly successful Egyptian actresses and stars over decades. We ask: to what degree do Fatin Hamama and Soad Hosny’s iconic screen characters conform to or challenge dominant gender norms? We broaden our inquiry so as to examine what characterizes the gender dynamics in the films that Fatin Hamama and Soad Hosny star in, thereby exploring what kind of male characters they are pitted against and how the gendered power dynamics play out in the storyline. The films we analyse, illustrate how numerous themes and narratives on class, patriarchy, education, modernity and nationalism overlap and play into the definition of power and relations across both class and gender. Against the backdrop of a highly politicised cinema, we discuss the various ‘state narratives’ or counter-narratives that appear to be informing the films, and demonstrate how productions from the 1950s, 1960s or 1970s betray wider political sentiments of their time. We argue that Fatin Hamama and Soad Hosny’s screen choices and famous stage personae developed in line with the capacity of the national modernist project to produce the desired results on the ground.