280 Mediated Publics
to make this apparent breach of custom palatable. These arrangements
between the gendered parties at times require consensus and at other
times the submission of one or the other party. The common vision and
familial perspective are codified by what the parties themselves call “cus-
tom and tradition” that prescribe, for mixed sex groupings and for cross-
generational groupings including groupings of the same sex, a certain pro-
priety in what is shown and seen. For those who are well-off and possess
the necessary space, the solution appears to be the purchase of several
television sets, one for viewing national programming, the other for satel-
lite transmissions. In certain cases, men and women can view the same
shows (including variety shows) but do so separately, in order to avoid
the unexpected appearance on screen of a naked body or an embarrass-
ing scene. One also finds improvised arrangements such as “turnovers,”
where one group watches while the other sleeps (an arrangement found
even among brothers of the same generation), or simply frenzied zap-
ping. There are also the borderline cases where women are ejected from
the room where the television viewing takes place (or they leave of their
own accord). “I have a cousin on my mother’s side who was with ‘them’
[the FIS] and he owned a satellite dish. He watches sporting events all by
himself. Certainly not with his daughters! He closes the door” (Naima, 23
years old). But the force of numbers affects the balance of power and leads
to situations of “applied cleverness.” “At my grandmother’s there have to be
three or four women in the room where the television is. My cousin tells
me that when she is alone, he [her brother] has the upper hand. However,
just before he arrives home, she calls us, my sister, a neighbor and myself,
to come over so that he leaves when he sees us all there” (Naima). But the
matter is not so simple. This play of permission and prohibition, this stag-
ing of modesty and propriety, this performance violating women’s space,
is counterbalanced by a new type of relation that is based on knowing the
unacceptable. The covertness—or rather, elusiveness—of this knowing is
key, providing passing indications of how father-son and mother-son rela-
tions have been dislocated by the actualization of the unacceptable (such
as viewing pornographic films at home) and especially by the tolerance
demonstrated toward the actualization of the unacceptable. Such practices
assert male power at the same time they render intergenerational relations
brittle by undermining the sacredness of the home.