Wednesday,
February 06, 2008
Rudolph Valentino:
The
ANNOTICO Report
"The
Sheik" established Rudolph Valentino
(Rodolfo Alfonso Piero Filiberto
Gugliemi-May 6, 1895-August 23, 1926) ) as
His
untimely end at 31, propelled him to iconic status,
with over 100,000 people attempted to attend his funeral, and annual
devotionals to his burial site. Valentino was one of the first to experience
the same kind of fame as Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley.
Other Material also available at the NPR Web Site.
In 1921, a silent
film transported American audiences to a mysterious, faraway place - and
introduced an exotic, erotic character to millions of fans. ("Son of the
Sheik" in 1926)
The Sheik
starred
a smoldering Italian immigrant named Rudolph Valentino and featured a title
character who bore little resemblance to the venerated Arab leaders commonly
known as sheiks. Instead, the character was drawn from the pages of a
best-selling romance novel by the wife of a British farmer.
Written in 1919,
Edith Maude Hull's fictional The
Sheik inspired a whole subgenre of
desert romance, in which hot, swarthy Arabs kidnap reckless white women.
Valentino's
playful treatment of the character captivated female audiences and established
him as
"[Valentino]
had this intent look and you would just say, 'Oh my,'" Barkley remembers.
"And his hair was so pretty!"
The Sheik
was
less concerned with authenticity than with perpetrating a fantasy of sexual
extremes; in doing so, it promoted stereotypes of the
"It sort of
advanced the mythology of the
Though the movie
actually softens the novel's rape scenes, both versions end with the proud
beauty madly in love with her captor. In the 1920s, that part was just fine.
But since a white woman was not supposed to end up with an Arab, a final twist
in the movie reveals that the Sheik is, in fact, adopted. By blood, he's the
son of an English gentleman and a Spanish lady, which Shaheen
says, helps to create an ethnically acceptable happy ending that underscores
Western ideas about the right to empire and superior masculinity.
Shaheen says that he hadn't seen
a feature film challenging the notions of love and ethnicity put forth in The Sheik
until three years ago, when "Yes,
" with Joan Allen, was released.
"I think
it's interesting to point out it took nearly a century to see a man from the
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