One evening in Cairo, just to experience what it would be like, I went alone to a movie in a large downtown theater. Because of the language barriers and the Islamic religion, I didn't feel as though I had a very good understanding of the true character of Egyptians. By sitting with them and watching a movie together in one of their popular theaters, I thought I might be able to get a better understanding of the kind of entertainment they liked. A comedy western, made in the early 70's was playing, called 'Trinity'. I was a little uncomfortable about it at first, but once I saw that it was an American comedy, I didn't feel so out of place.
The inside of the theater was reminiscent of the way theaters in America looked back in the fifties and early sixties. It even had a big draw curtain in front of the screen and a balcony. After going in and walking carefully down through the isles, it appeared that all of the seats had been filled. Someone had noticed that I couldn't find a seat and motioned that there was a seat towards the front section of the theater. For not knowing who I was, I thought it was pretty considerate of them to extend the courtesy. The seat was in the center row, a little down from the middle of the theater. I was curious to know the kinds of things they thought were funny, and thought it might be helpful to see what they laughed at in the movie...
One of the first things I noticed about the audience was that I couldn't see a single female in the whole place. Not long after the movie started, I felt a tap on my shoulder from someone in the row of seats behind me. A guy probably in his late teens or early twenties offered me some seeds to eat while I watched the show. They don't eat popcorn or chocolate candy when they go to the movies over there. I don't think they even had sodas in the theater. They eat little seeds by biting the shell and prying out the nut with their tongue. I'm not sure what they did with the shells afterwards. You really have to have the knack to eat these things and I wasn't good at it at all, so I said no thank you, or (shucran) in Arabic. Correctly, I think it would be (la-ah shucran). Iuwa is yes and la-ah is no. Anyway, I thought it was nice that he offered...
Everybody seemed really happy to be there to watch this movie, so that made me happy to be there too. I'd seen the movie a couple of times several years earlier and always thought it was pretty funny. The movie starts out with the main actor asleep while his horse drags him backwards on a piece of canvas that's between two poles that are hanging down behind the horse. It looks like a long hot ride through sandy plains out west somewhere. His hat covers his face and the horse automatically knows where to go. The film had the original sound in English turned down quite low. Arabic was written at the bottom of the screen instead of trying to audibly dub it in. It made it hard to tell what they were laughing at sometimes because I couldn't hear over their laughing what was being said in English. They seemed to find humor in things that I didn't think were all that funny. I began to wonder why I wasn't laughing too!
Just as I was thoroughly beginning to enjoy the movie, another guy from the row of seats in front of me turned around and offered me a cigarette. H'mm, I thought? They let you smoke in the theater?? I said once again, no thank you, awkwardly trying to say it in Arabic. Unfortunately, I wasn't exactly winning a popularity contest for sure... After looking around, I could see that there were quite a few people smoking. I didn't see any cigarette butts, or ashes anywhere. They must have been field stripping them, I thought. I could see one Egyptian lady, way up behind me in the balcony, sitting among hundreds of males. I couldn't speak Egyptian, so I didn't have any way to ask why there weren't more females watching the movie. It was one of those lingering questions that I never got around to finding out the answer to.
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