American Television

Northern Desert, Jordan.

My phone was dead and there were no clocks on the walls, but I nevertheless knew that it was well past midnight. Apart from Amr and I, the only thing awake in the house was the television, that--at this late hour--had shifted to slightly controversial television. As a country that has invested only minimally in entertainment, Jordan borrows movies and television shows from other countries. Turkish soap-operas are dubbed in Arabic, and B-grade American movies (generally starring the Coppola-family black sheep, Nicholas Cage) run with subtitles.

For the most part, the loans from American television are quite tame, but that night--as I heard the first chords of the Six Feet Under theme song--I found myself watching the one show I thought would never air on Jordanian television. Amr--who was open-minded but nevertheless quite conservative--seemed surprisingly familiar with the show and didn't change the channel.

It was a classic Six Feet Under plot, involving a deranged daughter stealing a dead-man's foot from the family funeral home. It had all the regular plot lubricants like drugs, infidelity, and family-feuding. Although it was heavily edited by the networks--both in actual scenes and in subtitle translations--it was still the last thing I would ever expect to see in Jordan.

With the cultural differences and network modifications, I wondered how much of the show Amr was actually understanding. After watching a tension-filled conversation in the beds of one of the show's central couples--a gay couple--Amr commented, "I'm so glad they're really good friends. They do everything together." At that point I realized that Amr and I were watching entirely different shows. But whatever show Amr was watching, he seemed to be enjoying it.

The show ended with an awkward moment between the mother and her daughter-in-law-to-be. In a conversation loaded with cultural references, I wondered why someone had bothered to write subtitles at all. Afterward, I gingerly asked Amr what he had thought of it. He admitted that he had been a bit confused by some parts, he nevertheless had enjoyed it. "It's a good show," he said.

"Do feel like you're missing anything by not being an American?"

Amr then tried to explain that the reason he had watched it was because he wasn't American. Like myself, Amr was the product of a small town where everyone knew everyone's business. Watching a TV show about other people's drama was therefore totally interesting.

In fact, Amr continued, watching drama about a family that was nothing like his own was much more enjoyable. He said he was best able to enjoy drama by watching people collapse over problems he would never have to worry about--virtually anything in Six Feet Under. "It's always the other people that are the most interesting," he offered.

"You know, Amr," I said, "That show takes place about thirty minutes from where I live. But I don't really understand the problems either."

"Then that's why we both like it," he concluded.