The Telegraph reports Lebanese officials are considering their legal options to challenge the negative portrayal of Beirut on Showtime’s “Homeland.”
Fady Abboud, Lebanon’s minister of tourism, who has spent a small fortune trying to revive the country’s reputation as the Paris of the Middle East, expressed outrage at the “serious misrepresentation” of the city.
“We are following the case legally. I raised this at the cabinet meeting and the president asked the minister for justice and the minister of communications to see what can be done,” said Mr Abboud. . . .
Residents expressed bafflement at the episode’s description of modern day “Hamra Street”. What in the programme is a shoddy quarter where gunmen leap from cars and harass terrified women is actually a busy commercial centre of top-brand Western clothing chains and boutiques.
And to make matters even worse, the Telegraph reports, the Beirut scenes were actually filmed in Israel.