Saturday, May 20, 2023

Almaza - between a deja vu and a reference past its selling by date


I know you will not believe me but this pun has been played before. All right, first the Almaza pun "Almaza aw la aha - wala sabt". This, believe it or not is a double pun. The first is "Anta aw la ahad" the first Mexican telenovela which opened the floodgate to dubbed programs (In Mexican it was "Tu o Nadie" and it introduced the Lebanese to "Raquel" - or Lucia Mendez making "Corazon de Piedra" (the title track of the telenovela sung by Mendez) a ubiquitous hit back then and I am taking 1991 here).  Please note, anyone who is younger than my own generation has this pun lost on them as no one is aware of it. 
The second pun is a wordplay on the word "Ahad" which means both Sunday and Person in Arabic. So the line means "Almaza or no one/Sunday" which continues into "or no Saturday". The issue, this has been played before by the Al Mustaqbal newspaper (now defunct) in its Sunday edition ad:
"No one/Sunday stands in the way of the future (Al Mustaqbal means future)... and no Monday, or Tuesday, or Wednesday..."
Told you, it's been done before.
So between only select generations will understand and one that has been done before - Almaza brings little to the table