Le Sheikh C'est Chic? Not So Much!

Valentino and Agnes Ayres, The Sheik

Rudolph Valentino played The Sheik in 1921, based on a 1919 novel by Edith Maude Hull. Almost one hundred years later, swarthy men in flowing robes are still wooing the ladies and bending them to their lusty will in the pages of Harlequin and Mills & Boon category romances. Whodathunkit? As much a sexy captivity narrative as the noble savage Native American romances that authors like Cassie Edwards made bank on, sheikh romances have prevailed where other outdated, racist, colonial tropes have died. Neither rain nor snow nor 9/11 nor the Iraq war have killed this plot. Why?

Why aren’t sheikh romances tagged and shelved as interracial romances? Because, to a large extent, they aren’t. They are a white, largely Christian, woman’s fantasy as much as a sparkling vampire or an alphahole billionaire, largely written by and for that market. In essence, a sheikh is not real. Stripped of all true cultural markers — namely practicing Islam — pale on the book covers, bowled over by the first fiery western woman they see… this is the rhetoric. This is the narrative. And it serves only one audience — certainly not the pseudo-minority culture it portrays.

Yes, we are seeing more sheikh romances written by women of color — Olivia Gates and Tara Pammi* come to mind, and Brenda Jackson wrote Delaney's Desert Sheikh — with heroines who are also of color, but they are not the norm and they still fall into the stereotypical “Fakesheikhistan” (TM Solace Ames) paradigm. Rich, alpha male who speaks English, was educated in the west, etc. And, sure I get it: It’s a safely modern twist on the Viking raider, the Indian brave, the Highlander. You can have your sultan’s harem fantasy except with toilet paper and condoms. You’re taking that archetype and applying it to now, with the trappings of civility.

And therein lies one of the problems. Because the sheikh trope wants to be civil and savage all at once and, in doing so, erases the minority experience completely from the page.

This is where I’m sure the rebuttal comes in: So, you’re just jealous and bitter that these stories aren’t about you? And I’ll say, “You’re damn right.” I’ll own it. Of course I’m angry. People of color are not vampires or werewolves or lizard men. Real Muslim men and women fall in love every day, every hour. But those stories are not palatable, not marketable, unless they are fetishized and sanitized for majority market consumption.

Majority. That’s the thing to remember if you’re butt-hurt about this post, if you make your bread and butter on sheikh romances, if you think I’m being an angry, irrational brown girl. We are so outnumbered. Maybe not in sheer global volume, but in power and privilege. Is the U.S. ever going to have a Muslim president? When’s the last time a Middle Eastern actor or actress was nominated for an Oscar? Do most people even know where Pakistan and Afghanistan are on a map? Do you think the most popular occupation for Bangladeshis in America is “cab driver”? Can you tell the difference between a hijab, a niqab and a burqa? Do any of those things actually matter to most of the western world?   

Those of us who complain, who feel marginalized and Othered by what you write or put on a movie screen, are never going to impact your bottom line. We haven’t yet, so why would a little outcry now and then make a difference? You keep doing you, authors. You don’t need our approval.

Just don’t expect us to sparkle. 




*Tara Pammi let me know that her hero does practice Islam, and I'm sure there are other authors who can say the same. But I posit that they're the exception and not the rule.