Catchy music video? No, it's actually a protest against the lack of equal rights for Saudi women
When music gets the message across louder than demonstrations.
Saudi Arabia is infamous for its unfair gender rules, under which women cannot drive and always have to be accompanied by a male while travelling.
How does one criticise this without actually breaking this law?
How about depicting women approvingly getting into the back seat of a car while a young boy sits at the wheel? That’s how a new music video begins. It’s titled Hwages, which roughly translates to “Concerns”.
Directed by Majed Alesa and produced by 8IES Studios, the video hits out at Saudi Arabia’s male guardianship by portraying men who disapprovingly look at niqab-clad women play basketball, skateboard and dance. The video also shows them in authoritarian roles such as government officials guarding a cutout of Donald Trump on a podium
Saudi activist Manal al-Sharif, who fights for women’s rights, shared the video on Twitter and praised it for cleverly mocking the archaic patriarchal society.
The Saudi director @majedalesa breaks stereotypes about Saudi women in a funny yet clever video clip https://t.co/9udRGl1s2a loved it
— منال مسعود الشريف (@manal_alsharif) December 24, 2016
According to Al Arabiya, the lyrics were inspired from a 2014 low-quality production video below.
Uploaded on December 23, 2016, Hwages has since then made waves across the world, garnering over 2 million views.