My Beirut Chronicles

Worse than Zeezee’s Banana song , here’s Naïma’s “Chay Binaânaâ”. “Chay Binaânaâ” means mint tea. Most Arabs would write it “Chay bil na3na3”, but why not, there are no rules yet to arabic words written in latin letters. As Zeezee turned out to be an advertising agency’s stunt , Naïma seems like a genuine article. Even if the whole thing is so terribly bad, it looks like a prank from an uninspired comedian looking for a buzz to kick-start a stalling career...

So it was a stunt. A hoax. The infamous “Banana song” was not real and Zeezee M . doesn’t exist. Shame, I was starting to like her. Her video made me laugh an entire evening. That’s quite an achievement in such dark and depressing times. During a TV interview with the young actress who “played” Zeezee, we discovered the purpose of that stunt and the message addressed to the Lebanese people: “ Bikaffé sakhafé, 3eech el saqafé ” --which means “enough silliness, live the Culture.” Damn! Didn’t see that coming . How could I? It’s like making a video of a kitten licking itself to stop people from watching videos of kittens licking themselves.

How do you define pornography?  On Wikipedia we can read: “Pornography (often abbreviated as "porn" or "porno" in informal usage) is the portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purpose of sexual arousal (…) The term applies to the depiction of the act rather than the act itself.” So, can this unintentionally hilarious video clip by Lebanese unknown (not for long) singer Zeezee be described as porn?