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Whatsapp Adult actress Mia Khalifa has been labelled a disgrace to Lebanon and received numerous death threats

From human-rights lawyer Amal Clooney to Hollywood actress Salma Hayek, Lebanon can lay claim to a number of high-profile women. However, the country often dubbed the most liberal in the Middle East is having trouble coming to terms with its latest famous expat, pornstar Mia Khalifa, writes Olivia Willis.

Mia Khalifa is Lebanon’s latest star. The 21-year-old Miami resident shot to fame two weeks ago when one of America’s biggest adult websites, PornHub, named her as its ‘#1 ranked pornstar’.

At the heart of it, Lebanon is still a conservative country in a very conservative region.

Though Khalifa has lived in Florida for the past decade, she has sparked outrage in the Middle Eastern nation and been labelled a ‘disgrace to Lebanon’.

‘At the heart of it, Lebanon is still a conservative country in a very conservative region,’ Australian-Lebanese journalist Yarra Bou Melham told RN Breakfast.

‘There’s still a very conservative apparatus at the top ... so this plays into women’s rights, and men’s rights to women and their bodies,’ she said.

Bou Melham said that while the government and bureaucracy are ‘stuck in a time warp’ in which women do not have ‘all that many rights and freedoms’, many people in Lebanon came to Khalifa’s defence.

‘I think for the most part, there were quite a few comedians and bloggers who came out in support of Mia,’ she said.

Bou Melham also pointed out that the backlash is somewhat confusing considering the highly sexualised nature of Lebanese pop culture.

Lebanon can lay claim to a number of high profile women, including human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, singer Lydia Canaan and Hollywood actress Salma Hayek (through her paternal grandfather).

Khalifa has received a torrent of online criticism and numerous death threats—most relating to a seven minute adult film in which she wears a Muslim headscarf or hijab.

‘You do realise that you’ll be the first person in Hellfire right?’ wrote one Twitter user, while others branded Khalifa ‘disgusting’ and ‘vile’.

One critic posted an image of her head photoshopped onto the body of an Islamic State execution victim.

While Khalifa does not identify as a Muslim, PornHub has entire sections dedicated to ‘Muslim porn’ and ‘hijab porn’, so her decision to make a short film wearing a hijab is not unusual.

The seven minute video has received 12.7 million views, and according to data from the popular adult website, searches for Mia Khalifa increased five-fold between January 3 and January 6.

Khalifa told The Washington Post that the video was satirical, and that ‘there are Hollywood movies that depict Muslims in a much worse manner’.

Much of the condemnation of Khalifa has centred on the aspects of her Middle Eastern identity that appear in her films. She has a tattoo of the first line of the Lebanese national anthem on her left arm and a tattoo of the Lebanese Forces Cross, the symbol of a conservative Christian political party, on her right wrist.

Khalifa told The Washington Post that the uproar is a cause for concern regarding women’s rights in Lebanon.

‘What I once boasted to people as being the most westernised nation in the Middle East, I now see as devastatingly archaic and oppressed,’ she said.

RN Breakfast is the show the nation’s political class wakes up to. Start each day with comprehensive coverage and analysis of national and international events, and interviews with the leaders and thinkers that matter.