Xerxes was racialized, sexualized, and dehumanized through orientalist exoticism

Evidence

Keyvan, when identifying “the way they portrayed Iranians” was in part bringing attention to the film’s binary aesthetic depiction of its Persian characters. There were the homogeneous hordes of Persian soldiers: dark, threatening, overwhelming. But there was also the detailed rendering of the main antagonist, King Xerxes. Monstrously large like the Persian soldiers, Xerxes was also portrayed as exotic and effemi-nate: completely hairless, with painted eyebrows and metallic maquillage across his body, and jewelry adorning his thighs, abs, shoulders, and face. In the film, Xerxes consorted with half-goat humanoids and maintained sexual slavery in his court through drugs and violence. On the battleground, too, Xerxes relied on cheap tricks and chicanery despite his army’s size advantage. Played by a somewhat famous white Brazilian television actor, King Xerxes was presented as a monster in racial, sexual, and even human drag. — Neda Maghbouleh, The Limits of Whiteness, 438

Categorization

• XREF: The feminization and exoticization of Xerxes echoes Edward Said’s Orientalism and similar readings of Hollywood’s orientalist villain tropes. — connects to: Delacroix depicted the Oriental despot as cruel, powerful, and sexually deviant