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Riyadh Season: Jennifer Lopez's performance, set design spark controversy

Many social media users criticised the dance performance and stage design in the ‘home of the two holy Muslim mosques’
Actor and singer Jennifer Lopez performs during ‘The 1001 Seasons of Elie Saab’ fashion show celebrating the fashion designer's 45-year career, as part of Riyadh Season in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on 13 November 2024 (Hamad I Mohammed/Reuters)
By Firdevs Bulut
Published date: 19 November 2024 22:14 GMT | Last update: 2 weeks 6 days ago

Saudi Arabia's Riyadh Season, one of the "world’s largest winter entertainment events" hosting fashion shows, concerts, and dance performances by celebrities and pop icons through February 2025, has sparked controversy this week due to Jennifer Lopez's performance and the similarity of a stage prop to Islam's holiest site.  

One of the fashion shows featured a runway with a cube-shaped display resembling the Kaaba in Mecca. Models circled around it, much like the ritual of Muslim pilgrims circling the Kaaba during the Hajj pilgrimage.

Many viewed the juxtaposition of the models against something resembling the holiest site in Islam as disrespectful to the religion. 

The viral controversy continued to grow on Tuesday after social media users this week shared stage footage from the 2023 Riyadh Season, during which another cube-shaped stage structure was used.

Riyadh Season started in October and is generally seen as a positive development for the kingdom's nascent entertainment and tourism industry after being launched in 2019 under Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 initiative.

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Many online said the stage prop was not meant to emulate the Kaaba, but that it was a display screen used by several entertainment companies.

The Anti-Rumors Authority, an NGO in Saudi Arabia, also confirmed it was not a model of the Kaaba, but the similarity and imagery still angered many people.  

Many have been divided over the Riyadh Season amid debates about "disrespectful" dance performances.

While many support Saudi Arabia's cultural promotion and the country's international recognition, others have said the shows were disrespectful to the most important and holiest sites of Islam, such as the Kaaba, Masjid al-Haram or the Great Mosque of Mecca, and the Prophet's Mosque in Medina.

Lopez’s concert on 13 November continues to spark a lot of criticism online, with people calling out the "hypocrisy" of her being free to dance in revealing clothes in Saudi Arabia while many women are frequently punished for the way they dress or for their dissenting voices about women's rights. 

Some in the audience during Lopez’s performance refused to watch her show by looking at their phones, and social media users also noticed this, saying that people were offended by her performance and felt their religion was being disrespected. 

Muslim religious leaders around the world, such as Mehmet Gormez, former president of the Presidency of Religious Affairs in Turkey, also joined the conversation on Tuesday and criticised the event as “a violation of God’s sanctities and boundaries, and the use of a model of our holiest sanctities, the Holy Kaaba, as a stage for actors and a decoration around which naked dancers and models walk”.

Many social media users said it was disrespectful of Saudi Arabia to host such a large-scale entertainment show while Israel’s war on Gaza is continuing.

The death toll in Gaza is now approaching 44,000 people, while 1.9 million are displaced and face a severe threat of famine. People said the show is in bad taste,while so many in Gaza and Lebanon are suffering from Israel’s wars.

Saudi Arabia has come under scrutiny for human rights violations and executions of foreigners.

Even though Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman last week denounced Israel's war on Gaza as a "genocide" and has backed calls for a ceasefire and a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, critics of the country argued that this was a recognition that came too late.

Mohamed bin Salman has recently said that his government will not normalise relations with Israel without the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

This is not the first time Saudi Arabia and its cultural events and symbols have sparked controversy. Earlier this year, Saudia Arabia started construction on the Mukaab, a large gold cube structure in Riyadh that may become the largest building in the world, amid criticism that it resembles the Kaaba in Mecca.

The $50bn project is set to be 400 metres tall, 400 metres long, and 400 metres wide.

While some called it a good way to diversify Saudi Arabia’s oil-reliant economy and open it up to tourism, others criticised its resemblance to the Kaaba.

The project is also part of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, which has received some backlash due to continued human rights abuses in the country. Some rights groups have dubbed this as an effort to whitewash the country's crimes.

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