Mohammed bin Salman (1985- )

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    How Swizz Beatz Climbed to the Top of Saudi Arabia’s Camel Racing Scene

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    “I’m just bringing the cool factor to it,” said the American hip-hop producer, who has spent millions of dollars on 48 camels for a team he calls “Saudi Bronx.”As the Arabian Peninsula’s fastest camels galloped around a track in the Saudi desert, Kasseem Dean, a Grammy Award-winning hip-hop producer from the Bronx, watched nervously from an air-conditioned V.I.P. viewing hall.Waiters in black vests plied the crowd with lemonade and red velvet cupcakes. Women in sundresses milled around off-white sofas, sipping fizzy mocktails.Though the camels sprinting past were the main event, Mr. Dean, better known as Swizz Beatz, felt as if all eyes in the room were on him — one of the newest competitors in Saudi Arabia’s deep-pocketed camel racing scene. Four years since he entered and won his first race, he has spent millions of dollars to buy 48 racing camels, ascending into the most elite circles of the sport.“When you discover it, you enter into a whole other world,” said Mr. Dean, 45, whose team of camels, “Saudi Bronx,” has won trophies across the region and deepened his attachment to the kingdom, which he first visited in 2006.He now travels to Saudi Arabia so often that he considers it a second home. He is a co-founder of a roller-skating rink in the desert retreat of AlUla, where the camel race was held, and keeps an apartment in the capital, Riyadh; a few years ago, he was granted Saudi citizenship.The competitors with robot jockeys on their backs, followed by trainers in SUVs who remotely control the robots.Saudi Camel Racing Federation More

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      ‘Barbie’ Debuts in Saudi Arabia, Sparking Delight, and Anger

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      Denounced in some Middle Eastern countries for undermining traditional gender norms, the hit movie is finding an audience in Saudi Arabia, illustrating the region’s shifting political landscape.On Friday night, Mohammed al-Sayed donned a pale pink shirt and denim overalls to join a friend at a movie theater in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, where the men settled in to watch a film about a doll on a mission to dismantle the patriarchy.Similar scenes played out across the conservative Islamic kingdom last weekend, as women painted their nails pink, tied pink bows in their hair and draped pink floor-length abayas over their shoulders for the regional debut of the movie, “Barbie.” While critics across the Middle East have called for the film to be banned for undermining traditional gender norms, many Saudis ignored them.They watched as the movie imagined a matriarchal society of Barbie dolls where men are eye candy. They laughed when a male character asked, “I’m a man with no power; does that make me a woman?” They snapped their fingers in delight as a mother delivered a monologue about the strictures of stereotypical femininity. Then, they emerged from the darkened theaters to contemplate what it all meant.“The message is that you are enough — whatever you are,” said Mr. al-Sayed, 21, echoing the Ken doll’s revelation.“We saw ourselves,” said Mr. al-Sayed’s friend, Nawaf al-Dossary, 20, wearing a matching pink shirt.Watching Barbie’s search for identity and meaning, Mr. al-Sayed said he was reminded of the fraught period when he started college and wasn’t sure of his place in the world. He said he believed that the movie had important lessons for men as well as women.“I felt like my mom should see the film,” he said.“All of our families — all families,” Mr. al-Dossary said, laughing.That this was happening in Saudi Arabia — one of the most male-dominated countries in the world — was mind-boggling to many in the Middle East. When “Barbie” opened on Thursday in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, it arrived suddenly and overwhelmingly. Moviegoers rushed to prepare Barbie-pink outfits. Some theaters scheduled more than 15 showings a day.Moviegoers wore pink during a screening of “Barbie” in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on Thursday.Ali Haider/EPA, via ShutterstockA snide headline in the Saudi-owned newspaper Asharq al-Awsat declared that Saudi cinemas had become “havens for Gulf citizens escaping from harsh restrictions” — a twist in a country whose people once had to drive to Bahrain to watch movies.Eight years ago, there were no movie theaters in the Saudi kingdom, let alone any showing films about patriarchy. Women were barred from driving. The religious police roamed the streets, enforcing gender segregation and shouting at women to cover up from head to toe in black.Since he rose to power, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, 37, has done away with many of those restrictions while simultaneously increasing political repression, imprisoning conservative religious clerics, leftist activists, critical businessmen and members of his own family.Even now, despite sweeping social changes, Saudi Arabia remains a state built around patriarchy. By law, the kingdom’s ruler must be a male member of the royal family, and while several women have ascended to high-ranking positions, all of Prince Mohammed’s cabinet members and closest advisers are men. Saudi women may be pouring into the work force and traveling to outer space, but they still need approval from a male guardian to marry. And gay and transgender Saudis face deep-seated discrimination, and sometimes arrest.So as word spread through the kingdom that “Barbie” would debut on a delayed schedule — a sign that government censors were most likely deliberating over it — many Saudis thought the movie would be banned, or at least heavily censored. Bolstering their expectations was the fact that neighboring Kuwait banned the film last week.Lebanon’s culture minister, Muhammad Al-Murtada, also called for the film to be banned, saying that it violated local values by “promoting homosexuality” and “raising doubts about the necessity of marriage and building a family.” It is unclear if the government will follow his recommendation.Even in Arab nations that have allowed the film to be shown, it has faced intense criticism. The Bahraini preacher Hassan al-Husseini shared a video with one million Instagram followers calling the movie a Trojan horse for “corrupt agendas.”Even while Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has done away with many social restrictions in Saudi Arabia, he has increased political repression.Pool photo by Ludovic MarinAnd in Saudi Arabia, not everyone is receptive to the film. To the entrepreneur Wafa Alrushaid, who suggested that the film be banned in her country, its messages are a “distortion of feminism.”“I’m a liberal person who has called for freedom for 30 years, so this isn’t about customs and traditions, but the values of humanity and reason,” she told The New York Times. The film, she argued, excessively victimizes women and vilifies men, and she objected to the fact that a transgender actress had played one of the Barbies.“This film is a conspiracy against families and the world’s children,” Ms. Alrushaid, 48, declared.Many Arab critics of the movie expressed views similar to those of some American politicians and right-wing figures who have castigated the film as anti-male. The tussle in the Middle East over the movie illustrates how battles that sometimes echo the so-called U.S. culture wars are playing out on a different landscape.The animated film “Lightyear,” which showed two female characters kissing, was banned in several countries in the region last year. And six Gulf Arab countries issued an unusual statement last year demanding that Netflix remove content that violates “Islamic and societal values and principles,” threatening to take legal action.In Kuwait, religious conservatives have become more vocal in recent years, Gulf analysts say, broadcasting views that many Saudis would be hesitant to express in public now, fearing repercussions from the government.“Banning the movie ‘Barbie’ fits into a larger tilt to the right that’s increasingly felt in Kuwait,” said Bader Al-Saif, an assistant professor of history at Kuwait University. “Islamist and conservative forces in Kuwait are relishing in these culture wars to prove their ascendancy.”Some Kuwaitis expressed astonishment that they would have to travel to the Saudi kingdom to watch the movie. Many pointed out the irony that Kuwait and Lebanon, despite objecting to the film, had long provided greater freedom of expression than many other Arab countries.Streaming out of movie theaters in Riyadh, people who watched “Barbie” seemed to leave with their own understanding.Lining up for “Barbie” in Dubai. Many Arab critics of the movie have expressed views similar to those of some American right-wing figures who have castigated the film as anti-male.Ali Haider/EPA, via ShutterstockYara Mohammed, 26, said that she had enjoyed the movie, dismissing the Kuwaiti ban as “drama.”“Even if kids saw it, it’s so normal,” she said.To Abrar Saad, 28, the message was simply that “the world doesn’t work without Ken or Barbie; they need to complete each other.”But to teenage girls like Aljohara and Ghada — who were accompanied by an adult and asked to be identified only by their first names because of their ages — the film felt deeper.“The idea was pretty realistic,” said Aljohara, 14, wearing a hot pink shirt underneath her black abaya. She said she liked that the film ended with a type of equality between men and women.“But it wasn’t nice that it ended with equality,” interjected Ghada, 16. “Because I feel like equality is a little bit wrong; I feel like it’s better for there to be equity because there are things a boy can’t do but you can do them.”Asked if they ever thought they would watch such a movie in Saudi Arabia, both exclaimed, with laughter: “No!”“I was expecting them to censor a lot of scenes,” Ghada said.In fact, it did not appear censors had cut anything major. A scene in which Barbie declares that she has no vagina and Ken no penis remained, as well as a scene with the transgender actress. The Arabic subtitles were rendered faithfully — including the word patriarchy.Hwaida Saad More

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      An Oscar Winner Made a Khashoggi Documentary. Streaming Services Didn’t Want It.

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeHoliday TVBest Netflix DocumentariesBryan Fogel is known for his Academy Award-winning documentary film, “Icarus.”Credit…Coley Brown for The New York TimesSkip to contentSkip to site indexAn Oscar Winner Made a Khashoggi Documentary. Streaming Services Didn’t Want It.Bryan Fogel’s examination of the killing of the Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi had trouble finding a home among the companies that can be premier platforms for documentary films.Bryan Fogel is known for his Academy Award-winning documentary film, “Icarus.”Credit…Coley Brown for The New York TimesSupported byContinue reading the main storyDec. 24, 2020Updated 5:58 p.m. ETBryan Fogel’s first documentary, “Icarus,” helped uncover the Russian doping scandal that led to the country’s expulsion from the 2018 Winter Olympics. It also won an Oscar for him and for Netflix, which released the film.For his second project, he chose another subject with global interest: the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi Arabian dissident and Washington Post columnist, and the role that the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, played in it.A film by an Oscar-winning filmmaker would normally garner plenty of attention from streaming services, which have used documentaries and niche movies to attract subscribers and earn awards. Instead, when Mr. Fogel’s film, “The Dissident,” was finally able to find a distributor after eight months, it was with an independent company that had no streaming platform and a much narrower reach.“These global media companies are no longer just thinking, ‘How is this going to play for U.S. audiences?’” Mr. Fogel said. “They are asking: ‘What if I put this film out in Egypt? What happens if I release it in China, Russia, Pakistan, India?’ All these factors are coming into play, and it’s getting in the way of stories like this.”“The Dissident” will now open in 150 to 200 theaters across the country on Christmas Day and then become available for purchase on premium video-on-demand channels on Jan. 8. (Original plans called for an 800-theater release in October, but those were scaled back because of the pandemic.) Internationally, the film will be released in Britain, Australia, Italy, Turkey and other European nations through a network of distributors.It is a far cry from the potential audience it would have been able to reach through a service like Netflix or Amazon Prime Video, and Mr. Fogel said he believed it was also a sign of how these platforms — increasingly powerful in the world of documentary film — were in the business of expanding their subscriber bases, not necessarily turning a spotlight on the excesses of the powerful.For his film, Mr. Fogel interviewed Mr. Khashoggi’s fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, who waited outside the Saudi Arabian Consulate in Istanbul in 2018 while the murder took place; The Washington Post’s publisher, Fred Ryan; and multiple members of the Turkish police force. He secured a 37-page transcript made from a recording of what happened in the room where Mr. Khashoggi was suffocated and dismembered. He also spent a significant amount of time with Omar Abdulaziz, a young dissident in exile in Montreal who had worked with Mr. Khashoggi to combat the way the Saudi Arabian government used Twitter to try to discredit opposing voices and criticism of the kingdom.“The Dissident” landed a coveted spot at the Sundance Film Festival in January. The Hollywood Reporter called it “vigorous, deep and comprehensive,” while Variety said it was “a documentary thriller of staggering relevance.” Hillary Clinton, who was at Sundance for a documentary about her, urged people to see the film, saying in an onstage interview that it does “a chillingly effective job of demonstrating the swarm that social media can be.”Jamal Khashoggi, with glasses, was killed after entering the Saudi Arabian Consulate in Istanbul in 2018.Credit…Briarcliff EntertainmentThe only thing left was for Mr. Fogel to secure a sale to a prominent streaming platform, one that could amplify the film’s findings, as Netflix did with “Icarus.” When “Dissident” finally found a distributor in September, it was the independent company Briarcliff Entertainment.Mr. Fogel said he had made Netflix aware of his film while it was in production and again months later when it was accepted into Sundance. “I expressed to them how excited I was for them to see it,” he said. “I heard nothing back.”“The Dissident” features interviews with Mr. Khashoggi’s fiancée, Hatice Cengiz.Credit…Briarcliff EntertainmentReed Hastings, the chief executive of Netflix, was at the film’s Sundance premiere, but the company did not bid on the film. “While disappointed, I wasn’t shocked,” Mr. Fogel said.Netflix declined to comment, though a spokeswoman, Emily Feingold, pointed to a handful of political documentaries the service recently produced, including 2019’s “Edge of Democracy,” about the rise of the authoritarian leader Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil.Amazon Studios also declined to bid. Footage of Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive, who privately owns The Washington Post, is shown in the film. Amazon did not respond to a request for comment.Fox Searchlight, now owned by Disney, didn’t bid. Neither did the independent distributor Neon, which was behind last year’s Oscar-winning best picture, “Parasite,” and often acquires challenging content.“What I observed was that the desire for corporate profits have left the integrity of America’s film culture weakened,” said Thor Halvorssen, the founder and chief executive of the nonprofit Human Rights Foundation, who financed the film and served as a producer.Documentaries are not normally big box-office draws, so they have traditionally found their audiences in other places. PBS has long been a platform for prominent documentaries, but the rise of streaming has made companies like Netflix, Amazon and Hulu very important to the genre. As those companies have grown, their business needs have changed.Mr. Fogel said Netflix had changed since it distributed “Icarus” in 2017.Credit…Coley Brown for The New York Times“This is unquestionably political,” said Stephen Galloway, dean of Chapman University’s film school. “It’s disappointing, but these are gigantic companies in a death race for survival.”He added: “You think Disney would do anything different with Disney+? Would Apple or any of the megacorporations? They have economic imperatives that are hard to ignore, and they have to balance them with issues of free speech.”“The Dissident” is not the only political documentary that has failed to secure a home on a streaming service. This year, Magnolia Pictures, which has a streaming deal with Disney-owned Hulu, backed out of a deal with the makers of the documentary “The Assassins,” which tells the story of the poisoning of Kim Jong-nam, the half brother of the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.The film’s director, Ryan White, referred to the 2014 hack of Sony Pictures in an interview with Variety, and chalked up the “bumpy road” of U.S. distribution to corporations feeling they “could be hacked in a way that could be devastating to them or their bottom line.”Netflix was eager to have “Icarus” several years ago, buying the film for $5 million after it debuted at Sundance in 2017. “Fogel’s incredible risk-taking has delivered an absorbing real-life thriller that continues to have global reverberations,” Lisa Nishimura, who was Netflix’s vice president of original documentaries, said in a statement at the time.Mr. Fogel wonders if the company would be as excited about that film now.In the film, Omar Abdulaziz, a Saudi dissident, details how he says the kingdom uses social media to silence critics.Credit…Briarcliff Entertainment“When ‘Icarus’ came out, they had 100 million subscribers,” he said. (Netflix currently has 195 million subscribers worldwide.) “And they were in the hunt to get David Fincher to do movies with them, to get Martin Scorsese to do movies with them, to get Alfonso Cuarón to do movies with them. That’s why it was so important that they had a film they could win an award with.”In January 2019, Netflix pulled an episode of the comedian Hasan Minhaj’s series, “Patriot Act,” when he criticized Prince Mohammed after Mr. Khashoggi’s death. Mr. Hastings later defended the move, saying: “We’re not trying to do ‘truth to power.’ We’re trying to entertain.”In November, Netflix signed an eight-picture film deal with the Saudi Arabian studio Telfaz11 to produce movies that it said “will aim for broad appeal across both Arab and global audiences.”The outcome for “The Dissident” has not been ideal, but Mr. Fogel is still hoping that people will see the film.“I love Netflix and considered myself part of the Netflix family after our wonderful experience with ‘Icarus,’” he said. “Sadly, they are not the same company as a few years ago when they passionately stood up to Russia and Putin.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More