Here’s the thing about Ramadan mosalsalat. Even when we’re too tired to keep track of all the shows or are too surprised to see who’s acting where, we all know we’re still going to meticulously keep score of every single work coming out.
That might be, of course, why we all immediately noticed the poster for Lama Konna So3’ayareen — well, it’s either that or it might be the fact that the poster kind of makes no sense.
See, if you take another look at the poster, you’ll see that, even though it’s led by an ensemble cast, there are 3 core actors. Mahmoud Hemeida, Khaled El-Nabawy, and Riham Haggag.
The problem here is this wasn’t the order they chose to put on the poster.
Now that you’ve seen the poster again, you might be able to tell just why literally no one was in favor for it when it was first released.
Everyone, whether El-Nabawy fans or even people who don’t like him, took to their social media accounts to comment on how off-brand and disrespectful that poster was. But, shockingly, Khaled El-Nabawy’s own comments took the cake.
In a long, explanatory Facebook post, El-Nabawy directly said that in his contract, there’s a fine line for “respecting those who came before him” and that he didn’t agree to the posters, which the show producers had “no knowledge of”. He’d even hinted that maybe he should retire to put an end to the defamation.
Now, you might expect the show’s production company to come out with an apology statement or at least an explanation to alleviate the people’s growing contempt against the show but, well, that never happened.
Ironically enough, the opposite did. Lama Konna So3’ayareen’s production company went out of its way to release a statement that glaringly said that El-Nabawy knew what he was “signing up for” and that this show was “Riham Haggag’s first and foremost”.
But, of course, that wasn’t the only bomb dropped. The statement also hinted that Khaled El-Nabawy was this Ramadan’s highest paid actor, a fact that did literally nothing except telling us all that the company was trying to distract us from the issue.
Let’s forget about that last bit for a second. Whatever was in that statement still doesn’t make it better for the production company.
Even though all cast members got the same time in the trailer, Riham Haggag being the star of the show will never excuse the poster.
Everyone who has ever seen a TV show or film in Egypt knows one thing: where an actor’s face and name is placed on a poster matters. Not only does it directly relate to the actor’s popularity, it also directly relates to their reputation. It gives us clues as to how they’re respected by their industry and audience.
And when it comes to respect and longevity, no one can argue Mahmoud Hemeida and Khaled El-Nabawy deserve that top spot in the poster. Not even Riham Haggag, who actually requested that their names be placed above hers, according to a post by costar Nisreen Amin.
It’s not a bad thing to admit that Riham Haggag has not reached the same stage her costars have reached after decades of respectable TV and film work. She might get there eventually but in the meantime, let’s not disrespect renowned actors’ existing legacies.
