Soaps (musalselat)
54 images Created 30 Apr 2014
State-produced Syrian soap operas offer a dose of escapism to those enduring the civil war - a vital pressure release. As neorealist agitprop, the soaps contain story elements that reinforce regime doctrine. I watched all 30 episodes of Al Wilada Min Al Khasira, a popular TV miniseries seen by millions of Syrians during Ramadan. Whenever the action on-screen reminded me of the tragedy unfolding in real life, I took a photo. The result is eerily similar to citizen-filmed videos of violence uploaded to YouTube and picked up by news media. Taken together, these images offer an unexpected allegory for the war in Syria, where many conflicting narratives have also made it difficult to discern fact from fiction.