Face to Face

This is an old post I wrote and I forget to post here in my blog and  I believe it is never too late

Face to face means confrontation and it is also the name of the famous modeling and casting company in Egypt which owns the rights of the “Miss Egypt” and “Mr. Egypt” contests, its owners are Youssef El-Sibahy and Andre Abi Sha’ar

Since 1995 they owned the right to organize such events in Egypt after long time of not having that sort of event annually. And since 1995 every year after the announcement of the new Miss Egypt there must be a huge buzz about the contest in the media and the parliament mostly in a negative manner very negative manner that doesn’t surprise any one who knows the Egyptian society very well as Arabic, Muslim and Eastern society.

The media mainly the newspapers always attack the contest annually and accusing it and its owners with all sorts of charges from the disrespect to our traditions and customs to the undercover prostitution to the destruction of the Egyptian beauty by choosing the ugliest and most ignorant girls to represent “Miss Egypt”!!

All sorts of the newspapers from tabloids to serious ones, from independent to party newspapers, from opposition to official newspapers!! It seems that this contest has some kind of a public rejection; the only publications which praise it seriously are the English and Arabic life style of magazines like Lailena, Charisma, Cleo and unfortunately Egypt today!!

The Parliament also is used to see inquiries to the ministers of tourism, culture and media about “Miss Egypt” mainly from the MB members or from the so-called active members like Mustafa Bakery in attempt to win the public acceptance despite to tell you the truth those active members usually drop it after one week, they are not that active. Regardless that many see those inquires as silly and unneeded in a country that is full of other important issues I see it is not bad to open a serious discussion about this contest in order to clear things up

The Egyptian national TV usually ignores the “Miss Egypt” party after all it is not “Miss Universe” or even “Miss Lebanon” but in the last few weeks the respectable TV with a strong censorship that sometimes cut a kiss scene in a black and white 1940s Egyptian film began to host the “Miss Egypt” girls in its TV shows as guests praising them in a way that provokes many viewers including me , an annual custom for the “Bait Batik” show to host every year’s “Miss Egypt” and the conservative Tamer Amin ,the good student of the grand Mufti of Egypt began to be impressed so much by the silly contest ,at least that what I had seen when he hosted Miss Ehasn with Sibahy and Andre.

I don’t know if that was included in the modernization of the National TV but the majority doesn’t respect or want it at all.

Anyhow strangely in the entire TV interview with Miss Egypt the owners of the contest must be there at least Youssef El-Sibahy, only few times I saw one of Miss Egypt girls alone in TV show!! El-Sibahy is a son of a very high class family in Alexandria that used to own textile factories before the revolution “I guess they are still in the industry”, their roots go back to Syria, he used to be from the early male models in Egypt, already he lived in Italy for sometime, then returned back to Egypt to open his modeling and casting company “Face to Face” and began his journey with Miss and Mr. Egypt from the middle of the 1990s ,we used to have it before but it wasn’t organized nor publicized as he did .

El-Sibahy can be considered a handsome man despite I feel that my eyebrows are not as clean as him and that I speak more “I don’t what the word I can use “more man than him may be!!?? Already I had seen the man in the flowers fair 2007 with his mother and sister, both seemed very fine ladies, his mother wore the Islamic veil in a very elegant way without makeup. For me he and Andre who seemed to be from Lebanese origin form a stupid couple, I won’t jump in any conclusion about their sexuality.

This year 2007 the allegations are more than news talk in the gossip and scandals pages as they reached to the General Attorney himself with allegations from five girls and their families to the Contest and its owners. The allegations are all around the misconduct of the contest, the indirect prostitution and endangering underage girls, of course there are other tiny allegations like the existence of gays and liquor!!

I won’t waste my time and yours about this stupid contest whether it was Miss Egypt or Mr. Egypt but for three weeks I watched Wael Al-Abrashi’s weekly Show on Dream about the case and I saw people from the both sides and let me tell you that if you like to watch An Egyptian ugly bitches fight you must watch these three episodes, wow really ugly bitches whether El-Sabhi and his partner or the parents of the girls or the girls themselves or that thing who participated in Mr. Egypt ,it was a big ugly bitches fight with all screams and accuses

What I like was the respond of the PM and lawyer who attended the show as with the families of the girls against the face to face company , they were astonished by the families from each side even those they are with , I mean I can understand them after all PM seems not from Cairo !!

To tell you the truth I found those girls who stood beside the company very rude, they don’t respect those who are older than them from the parents especially the Mr. Egypt constant and his sister the Miss Egypt constant, well sure mama is very proud with their brilliant empty heads and bad manners.

The families of the girls who complain I think they are more angry about other stuff, come on I can’t believe that they are angry because there girls were forced to wear Bikini, hello if anyone of their girls won the title and traveled to the Miss Universe or world or international representing Egypt, she would wear Bikini, hot Bikini whether she liked or not and men will watch her body!! These families are angry because their daughters didn’t win and they are trapped by the face to face model contract which forces them to give part of the money they earn in their working in modeling to the company as it is the one it discovered them in the first place, in other short word monopoly, of course it is bad thing because they don’t work for El-Sabhi

My favorite part in the episodes was when some mother accused El-Sabhi to be gay of course they didn’t repeat or explain this part except that he fired back in his way that reminded with Paris Hilton after her trial when she came to the paparazzi and told them

“It is not fair, this wasn’t fair”

Despite the danger of the allegations, I believe Al-Abrashi wasted three episodes in nonsense, may be he wanted to change the mood for awhile as believe me I had my share in laugh

You can read a summary in Arabic about the scandals this year in that issue from “Crimes News”