This week on Culture Bites, Enas Refaei and guest host Faisal Al Zaabi, The National's culture reporter, reflect on a new Netflix documentary revisiting the hit 2000s reality show America’s Next Top Model.

The docuseries, Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model, features interviews with former contestants, judges and host Tyra Banks. It has reignited debate about the fashion industry's standards at the time and the treatment of young models on the programme.

Enas and Faisal discuss criticism of the show's pursuit of ratings at the expense of contestants’ well-being, and question whether its creators have taken sufficient responsibility in the years since.

The hosts also share their favourite Ramadan cultural traditions as the holy month enters its second week. Faisal talks about Gargee’an, a popular Gulf celebration in which children dress in traditional clothing and go door-to-door collecting sweets and nuts. Enas recalls the mosaharaty, who would walk the streets at night, drumming and chanting to wake families up for suhoor.

In this episode of Culture Bites, The National’s music and culture journalist Saeed Saeed is back, this time joining Enas Refaei to discuss Ramadan TV.

Every year during the holy month, households across the Arab world tune in to watch the most popular comedies, dramas and talk shows of the season. Over time, networks – and now streaming platforms – have invested bigger budgets into Ramadan specials, as audiences spend more time watching television after iftar and late into the night.

Enas and Saeed discuss how this cultural phenomenon became so dominant in the region and share some of the shows they’re looking forward to watching. The hosts also react to a recent marketing campaign by Egypt’s Diwan Publishing to encourage young people to read and write in Arabic. Classics by authors like Naguib Mahfouz and Taha Hussein were printed entirely in Franco-Arabic, colloquially known as “Arabizi” – a way of writing Arabic words using English letters. The campaign was meant to prompt concern over the loss of Arabic language.

Enas and Saeed talk about Diwan’s previous project to make book covers more vibrant and attractive for the younger generation, and also how schools in the UAE are changing their rules to promote the Arabic language.

This week on Culture Bites, Farah Andrews is joined by guest host Saeed Saeed, The National’s music and culture journalist.

After much acclaim and debate over Bad Bunny’s half-time Super Bowl show, the hosts reflect on its massive worldwide appeal. They discuss the powerful cultural messages layered through the Puerto Rican artist’s viral performance, described as a celebration of Latin American culture. But they also question whether the half-time performances have lost some of their magic as they evolve into polished productions made for a digital audience rather than fans at the venue. Farah and Saeed discuss what this means for audiences and why it can be impactful either way.

Meanwhile, one of the world’s most famous fossils is preparing to return to its home. Lucy, the 3.2 million-year-old fossil, currently on display at the Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi, will be going back to Ethiopia next month.

Named after the Beatles song Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds, she is considered to be one of the most widely recognised early human ancestors that helped transform scientific understanding of humanity’s origins. The hosts talk about the significance of her discovery and share their own existential contemplations of Lucy’s profound cultural impression.