12 March 2002
Johannesburg — Who Wants to Win a Million? is a runaway hit
A SUAVE Lebanese man and a top game show are doing more to unite Arabs than 50 years of summits, slogans and pan-Arab politics.
The Arabic version of global quiz show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? has been a runaway hit in the Arab world and catapulted its host to superstar, even sex-symbol, status.
Shown twice a week on the Londonbased Saudi-owned MBC satellite channel, Who Wants to Win a Million? has become the most widely watched show in the region, surpassing popular political taboo breakers broadcast on the Qatarbased Al-Jazeera channel.
Host George Qerdahi's version of the catch phrase "Is that your final answer?" ("jawaab nihaa'i?") has entered into everyday conversation around the region.
Commentators in the Arab media are talking about overexposure for the handsome host, who has housewives swooning, their husbands fuming, and now appears on ubiquitous adverts for an Egyptian cellular phone company.
In one episode featuring Syrian pop star Assala, her husband told Qerdahi: "I hate you. In fact, hatred isn't strong enough a word, but I hate you." While the audience fell about laughing, Qerdahi just smiled his velvety smile.
"Me, a sex symbol? No, I don't think of myself like that," he said on a Nileside hotel terrace in Cairo.
"All people see is my face. People like (my) personality, they find it close to themselves, their thinking and their feelings, but not to the degree that I'm a sex symbol or Elvis Presley," the immaculately-dressed forty-something said.
The programme, originally shot in Europe, moved to Cairo in February.
With contestants from all over the Arab world, the show often offers the spectacle of Qerdahi, an urbane Lebanese Christian in a designer suit, with fully veiled contestants from places such as Mecca, the birthplace of Islam, in the hot seat. The camera plays around their eyes, peaking through a gap in their black cloaks, while Qerdahi plays with their nerves before finally revealing if their answer is right or wrong.
"Stop this horsing around. Just gimme the answer," one Saudi woman retorted in streetwise language that got a titter from the audience, not expecting a veiled woman to be so bold. Qerdahi's famed poise and composure seem to betray him when faced with more unresponsive women. Viewers sense he wants to flirt, but it is a tall order with only a pair of eyes to play with.
"I deal with them, not with reserve, but with bearing. I deal with them with a lot of sensitivity, because you feel that they are very sensitive," he said.
"I'm proper and polite, because I respect the feelings of a fully veiled woman. I respect her circumstances, her environment, her traditions. I respect her convictions," he said.
Qerdahi says the variety of guests shows the diversity of the Arab world, whose cultural unity the show promotes.
"I wouldn't be exaggerating if I say that this programme brings the whole Arab world together. It brings it together despite all the contradictions of the Arab world. A statistic a few months ago said that 80% of Arab viewers watch this programme, which is a viewing figure that no programme in the world has reached," he said.
Despite that, he sometimes seems thrown by Moroccans, whose dialect is notoriously difficult for other Arabs to understand. "We all have a problem understanding each other's dialects when we speak purely in local dialect," said Qerdahi.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2002 Business Day. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
