Eastern Male Image in Contemporary Oriental Media: The Novel and Movie of The Lustful Turk

Introduction

When the Ottoman Empire in the 17th century was on peak of power, British and French merchants who came to Istanbul were writing so called memories of Harem to their homeland and these letters composed the image of Eastern male in Orientalism and details of Muslim(or Turkish) male image which was one of the most important prototypes. The details which were written by Non Muslims who had no chance to even come near to Sultan's private life, harem recounted a period of literature to politics. Moreover, as Muslim males who were called “not lustful Turk” in the past also have to face some kind of vexatious accusations (hypermasculine, macho, aggressive, unausterity, harsh, cruel, barbarous...) today because of this created identity. The basic characteristics of these falses were prepared literary by an anonymous novel, “The Lustful Turk” which was written in 1828. In spite of the fact that the novel had been forbidden because of its obscure content, new editions could be done in the categories of “Classic English Victorian Erotica” and “Vintage Erotica” (1967).

This novel consisted of letters to England which were written by a young and beautiful English girl who was kidnapped and sent to Algerian Protector's Harem. The English girl, Emily Barlow was a slave in Harem and she was raped by Algerian Ali but then she felt in love with him just like the other women in Harem. This book was also adapted a movie by American producers in 1968. In the fragment of the movie, they tried to create a malicious perception of reality. For example, the characters of the movie were praising (to thank) Mohammed (Hz) just after they raped a suffering woman; so this was not only a defamation to Turks but also Islam. Both Turkish males and Muslims encountered accusation of barbarism enigmatically. Interestingly, the novel was too busy to recreate Turkish male image with pornographic and obscene details in letters, they ignored the truth: the man who was called as “Algerian Dayı (Ali)” in fact was not even a Turkish Sultan. Because the key point was focusing on an idea, “forcible Turkish entry of European territories” at the background.

In the same year, the producers proposed that “The Lustful Turk” movie had a big budget and an ambitious project; they were trying to affect potential audience. There were behind-the-scenes pages in the magazine: artists to joke with scourges, a naked actor who was reading a Geology book. Also, the artists were expressing again and again that in the scenes of barbaric Turk behaviours it was very difficult to act even they were not real.

In this study, The Lustful Turk’s novel segments and the movie will be analyzed in details with discourse analysis to understand top level racist accusations to Eastern male image, especially the Turkish one. Also, contemporary media approaches will be evaluated from Edward Said’s and point of view.