Early Hollywood sheik films normalized the violent Arab rapist as a romantic archetype

Evidence

In the first sheik film, Ahmed kidnaps and rapes his white captive Diana, who, despite the sexual assault(s), falls in love with him and becomes his wife (or one of his wives). In the second film, the two appear as a happily married couple, with Diana giving some measured advice to her wild husband, still posing as an Arab, when their son—also named Ahmed—rapes the dancing girl Yasmin—an act of revenge for her suspected involvement with Ahmed’s kidnapping and torture by a band of criminal Arabs. Before Ahmed Junior rapes Yasmin, he exclaims, “I may not be the first victim, by Allah, I shall be the one you remember!” This suggests that Ahmed will be as brutal as possible in the assault. Despite this, in the end, the two ride off into the desert, mirroring the rape-marriage portrayed in the first film. These two films set the standard for how Arab men (and by extension, all Muslim men) are portrayed in movies—as uncontrollably violent individuals. — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 614

Categorization

• SEED: The rape then marriage trajectory — violence against the white woman as a prelude to her consent and love — is a rich thread to pull: how the cinematic Muslim rapist doubles as a vehicle for white female desire, a fantasy the West projects onto the Muslim male.
• XREF: Connects to the rescue-narrative reading in the reader’s own thesis: the violent Muslim male as a manufactured container for white desire and fear.