Hollywood Adaptation of Thousand and One Nights: a Critical Analysis

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Hollywood Adaptation of Thousand and One Nights: A Critical Analysis based on Hutcheon’s (2006) Theory [PP: 21-28] Roohollah Roozbeh Department of English Vali-e- Asr University of Rafsanjan Iran ABSTRACT Hollywood has been fascinated with the Thousand and One Nights. It has adapted it from the very outset of Cinema itself. Based on Linda Hutcheon’s (2006) A Theory of Adaptation, this paper tries to examine Rawlins’ Arabian Nights (1942) to see how Hollywood adapts from this Oriental work. Hutcheon argues that adapters adapt differently; some adapt to pay tribute and homage to the author, some adapt because they want to make money; some adapt to gain cultural authority and canonicity; others adapt to critique and subvert the ideology of the text. In this paper we will argue that Hollywood occupies the fourth category in adapting Thousand and One Nights in Arabian Nights directed by Rawlins, that is to say Hollywood seeks to subvert the ideology of the text and critique what it stands for and what the text stands for is the East and mostly Arabic culture. To do that, Hollywood does not indigenize the culture of the East and critiques the culture of the Arabs through the tropes of belly-dance, veil, and harem. The methodology of this article is wholly based on Edward Said’s theory of Orientalism in his book Orientalism. Keywords: Hollywood, Adaptation, Thousand And One Nights, Ideology, Critique ARTICLE The paper received on Reviewed on Accepted after revisions on INFO 28/02/2017 25/03/2017 12/05/2017 Suggested citation: Roozbeh, R. (2017). Hollywood Adaptation of Thousand and One Nights: A Critical Analysis based on Hutcheon’s (2006) Theory. International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies. 5(2), 21-28.

1. Introduction adaptation gets: its advertising, press According to Linda Hutcheon attention, and evaluations. The prominence (2006) everyone who has experienced of the director or stars is also a central adaptation has his/her own theory of element of its reception background. Here adaptation. Her book A Theory of Without Me (2013) adapted from The Glass Adaptations tries to think through this Menagerie (1944) whose context is Iran ongoing status and the continuous critical owes its prominence to its stars Fatemeh condemnation of the over-all phenomenon Motamed Aria and Parsa Pirouzfar and of adaptation-in all its numerous media Negar Javaherian. The context of manifestations. She condemns those who conception of The Glass Menagerie is 1944 consider adaptation as a minor and America while the context of reception is subsidiary and undoubtedly never as 2013 Iran. This adaptation of Tavakoli is an respectable as the original. Hutcheon shows example of international or transcultural a strong interest in what has come to be adaptation which moves beyond the borders called “intertextuality” or the dialogic of one geographical country while that of relations among texts, works in any medium Bahman Farman Ara’s Shazdeh Ehtejab are both created and received by people, and (1975) adapting from Golshiri is a national it is this human, experiential context that adaptation. With that being said there are allows for the study of the politics of two types of adaptation: national and intertextuality. international or transcultural adaptation. Hutcheon (2006) maintains that an Iranian have adapted from other countries. adaptation, similar to the source work, Mehrjooei adapted Ibsen’s A Doll House. In invariably spring from a context that is to other countries many directors have adapted say from a time and a place, a community from other countries. Akira Kurosawa’s and a culture; it does not exist in a void (p. Throne of Blood (1957) is a well-known 142). Context also encompasses Japanese movie adaptation and main components of presentation and reception, cultural transposition of Macbeth. All the like the amount and type of publicity an film adaptations mentioned above have International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies (www.eltsjournal.org) ISSN:2308-5460 Volume: 05 Issue: 02 April-June, 2017 different contexts and it is context which insulting. As an example in the movie conditions meaning and determines adaptation of Thousand and One Nights significations, that is to logically say that entitled The Thief of Bagdad the hero time and place changes should bring about Fairbanks overtly says “Allah is a myth”. alterations in cultural relations. The context This is an example of Oriental of reception of Thousand and One Nights is misrepresentation in the movie adaptation America and Hollywood in the case of this of Thousand and One Nights which overtly movie adaptation of Thousand and One stereotype the culture of Arabs. Nights. According to Edward Said (1983), Hutcheon believes that stories that are adapted transculturally bring transculturation for Hollywood typically together ‘processes of representation and means Americanizing a work (p. 146). institutionalization’ ( p. 226). He believes However, this seems wide of the mark in the ideas or theories that move beyond borders case of Arabian Nights movie. If include four fundamentals: a set of Hollywood Americanizes and hence preliminary conditions, a distance indigenizes the culture of the source movies navigated, a set of circumstances of why there are still a lot of paraphernalia acceptance (or opposition), and a change of about the East in its movie adaptations of the idea in its new setting and context (pp. the Thousand and One Nights. The movies 226–27). When stories of Thousand and adapted from the Thousand and One Nights One Nights travelled to West, they were not still have Oriental names with Western accepted and were rejected unless Burton stars. The movies’ settings are still the East. and Galland, two famous translators, Hutcheon argues very well justified themselves. The French translator, concerning the indigenization of Galland justified himself through the Hollywood: ‘because Hollywood films are following words: increasingly being made for international ‘Without suffering the fatigue of audiences, the adaptation might end up not going to look for these people in their only altering characters’ nationalities, but countries, the reader will have the pleasure on the contrary, actually deemphasizing any here, of seeing them act and hearing them national, regional, or historical speak. We have taken care in keeping their specificities’(p. 147). This has not been the characters, and not wandering from their case with the movie adapted from Thousand expressions and their feelings’ (cited in and One Nights which not only emphasizes Yamanaka, and Nishio, 2006, p. 239). Arab details but also the characters’ names In England, when Burton was are all Arabic like Ahmad, Cassim, Ja’far criticized over the translation of the and Haroun. indecent materials of Thousand and One Hutcheon (2006) argues that Nights for the respectable British society, he adapters adapt differently; some adapt to justified himself in the light of West’s need pay tribute and homage to the author, some for knowing the orient so that to rule it adapt because they want to make money; effectively (cited in Kennedy, 2000, p. 328). some adapt to gain cultural authority and Burton and Galland make their translations canonicity; others adapt to critique and political. This makes their translations as a subvert the ideology of the text (p. 20). In repository of oriental lore. They this paper I will argue that in adapting immediately make their translation related Thousand and One Nights in Arabian with power relations of the self and the Nights, Rawlins (director) seeks to subvert other dichotomy. Their translations the ideology of the text and critique the establish the Orient as a foreign Other to be Orient. To do so, Hollywood does not manipulated as an inferior. What Galland indigenize the culture of the East and and Burton do is to make the ‘pen’ as an critiques the culture of the Arabs through imperial weapon by which to define the the tropes of belly-dance, veil, and harem. Other. Now that Burton and Galland used Despite the fact that transcultural the pen as a weapon to define the Orient, I adaptations often mean changes in racial wanted to know whether adapters of the and gender politics and that adapters purge Nights used camera as a weapon too to an earlier text of elements that their define the Orient. particular cultures in time or place might According to Hutcheon adapters find difficult or controversial, in the movie across cultures probably cannot avoid adaptations of Thousand and One Nights, thinking about power (2006, p. 152). All the the adapters do not purge elements that adapters of Thousand and One Nights have Arab audience will find controversial and freely translated characters and customs as

Cite this article as: Roozbeh, R. (2017). Hollywood Adaptation of Thousand and One Nights: A Critical Analysis based on Hutcheon’s (2006) Theory. International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies. 5(2), 21-28. Page | 22

Hollywood Adaptation of Thousand and One Nights: A Critical Analysis based on… Roozbeh Roohollah.

well as language (dialects) into Western procedure for controlling, rearranging, and contexts. This work is a deliberate and having power over the Orient (p. 4). Said, deliberately selective borrowing from the influenced by Foucault, uses Orientalism as East, an Oriental work least indigenized a discourse. His argument is that without into Western culture. Hutcheon (2006) probing Orientalism as a discourse one is argues a diverse ‘power differential unable to presumably comprehend the between colonized and colonizer often immensely organized discipline by which plays a role in the adapting process’ (p. European culture was able to accomplish 152). The colonizer will represent the and even create the Orient politically, colonized according to his own wishes and sociologically, militarily, ideologically, light. When a western director adapts for scientifically, and imaginatively during the screen some oriental work they may post-Enlightenment period (Ashcroft, 1989, recognize the possibility of unconscious p. 11). Furthermore, so commanding a colonization via vocabulary, since the situation did Orientalism have that Said action of translating Oriental words believes no one putting pen to paper, translates adaptor’s relationship to an entire contemplating, or focusing on the Orient civilization. To say that the adapter could could do so without taking into find an equivalent for every Eastern word consideration the boundaries and implies that Western culture can in a word restrictions on thought and action enforced appropriate the most profoundly reflected by Orientalism. Said likewise demonstrates notions of eastern thought. With that European culture enlarged in power and indigenizing comes accusations of a failure distinctiveness by placing itself against the of political nerve or even of less “correctly” Orient as a kind of replacement and even changing the politics of adapted works. secretive self. Besides adaption theory, this paper Said (1983) quoting Disraeli in his also relies on theories of postcolonialism, novel Tancred that the East is considered as postsructutalism, and postmodernism. Julie a career, believes that Disraeli meant that to Sanders (2007) has argued in her book be absorbed in the East was something Adaptation and Appropriation that optimistic young Westerners would adaptation studies have been influenced by discover to be an all-overwhelming desire; academic schools, like structuralism, post- Disraeli does not mean, Said shows, that the structuralism, post-colonialism, East was only a vocation for Westerners (p. postmodernism, feminism and gender 6). Said also refers to Denys Hay’s notion studies (p. 5). Therefore, this makes benefit of Europe set against all "those" non- from Orientalism. One theoretician Europeans. Thus, a binary opposition of influential in this regard is Edward Said Europe and Non-Europe comes into being who is well-known for the explanation and with the first term given priority over the examination of Orientalism as the basis and second and thus dark human qualities, such foundation of the imprecise and erroneous as corruption and brutality, are attributed cultural and intellectual representations that from the Westerners themselves, to the are the source and basis of Western thinking Non-Westerners (Barry 192); these about and towards the East, of how the West qualities are consequently taken from “the recognizes, distinguishes, and characterizes archive of ‘the self’” of the Westerners the orient. Orientalism articulates and (Ashcroft et al. p. 103), and have, therefore, characterizes that section traditionally and “helped to define Europe” by describing even socio-politically as a manner of what it is not deemed Western. discourse with auxiliary organizations, Accordingly, it is the Westerner terminology, scholarship, descriptions, who deals with the orient. He is to represent principles, even colonial red tape and the orient in every media: books, paintings, colonial styles. What is more, the massively travelogues, diaries, and poetry books. Why prolonged American political and economic should such a representation exist in the part in the Middle East requires first place? The question of representation understanding of that Orient. gives the presenter a position of power. This According to Said (1983), we can representation will have a sort of examine and scrutinize Orientalism as the subjectivity with it. It makes the presenters organized tradition for coping with the very subjective and biased. The presenters Orient—examining and coping with it by become interested in their objects of study making declarations about it, authorizing and try to have a sort of mastery over it. interpretations of it, unfolding it, by training Said (1983) asserts that due to thee it, solving it, governing it: in a nutshell, west’s interest in the Orient, many figures Orientalism as a Western manner and like William Beckford, Byron, Goethe, and International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies (www.eltsjournal.org ) ISSN:2308-5460 Volume: 05 Issue: 02 April-June, 2017 Page | 23

International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies (www.eltsjournal.org) ISSN:2308-5460 Volume: 05 Issue: 02 April-June, 2017

Hugo rearranged ‘the Orient by their art and a historian, a biologist, a politician, an made its colors, lights, and people visible economic theoretician, a novelist, a lyric through their images, rhythms, and motifs’ poet came to the help of imperialist (p. 23). These personalities were provoked orientalism to make it as it has been known to their insights and wrote about the orient and now we have to add a filmmaker and a helped by their figment of their own director to the list of helpers. imagination. 2. Critical Analysis of the Adaption To write about, talk about, involve 2.1 Representations of the Orient oneself with, and deal with the Orient The movie’s setting is Bagdad. signified being conscious, though Scheherazade is an Arab girl. The movie indistinctly, that one is superior to the object offers stereotypical images of the East. he deals with. The western man is proud of Nearly all male characters wear beards dealing with the Orient because he thinks he suggesting Arab culture and life. Men all is about to know all about it from a position wear turbans and Arabic clothes. One of the of power and supremacy. Since he belongs concerns of the present author is that why to a culture wholly different from the does this cinematic adaptation only pay Orient, he feels a sense of belonging, a attention to the Arabs while the text of the sense of belonging to a superior culture, Thousand and One Nights encompasses a race, region and mentality. Thus, he feels lot of nationalities and ethnic groups like he belongs to a part of the earth with a better Persians, Chinese, Indians, and many other history. This was the case with European group? Here Scheherazade has changed to figures who were curious about, and dealt an Arab woman while in the text, she is a with the Orient. Persian woman. The answer to this question According to Said (1983), can be found in the ideas of Foucault’s Orientalism is a circulation of geopolitical discursive circulation of stereotype about consciousness into artistic, academic, the East. To do so, a system defines itself financial, sociological, historical, and against others. In this case, Western philological writings. Thus, Orientalism is hemisphere of the World gives negative examined here as a vigorous discussion images of the East in order to define itself. between individual adapters and the large The East is erotic and sexual while the West political anxieties fashioned by great is the other way round, that is to say the countries in whose intellectual and West is rational and pure. In this movie imaginative region the films were adaptation, the East is represented as sexual, produced. What is fascinating on my part is erotic, misogynist, and violent. not the unpolished political truth but the Every Eastern man is shown to have overwhelmingly worked over and tempered a defining interest in female bodies. They evidence of directors and filmmakers’ become happy as they see woman flesh. In detailed work within the very extensive one sequence of the movie the buyers of the space opened up by that truth. slaves ask the seller of the slaves to make Taking a look at the majority of her bare so that they can see her body in works written about the Orientals, it will be order to decide to buy her or not. The mere noticed that intellectual, aesthetic, sight of the body of a woman when shown scholarly, and cultural energies have gone in an auction stirs Arabs, the movie into the making of imperialist Orientalism. suggests. For this reason women are Philology, lexicography, history, biology, represented as sexual objects only. The political and economic theory, novel- Arabs are misrepresented as having a writing, and lyric poetry came to the service defining interest in sex and female bodies of Orientalism's broadly imperialist view of only. They are lazy spending their times the world. It is not military at all as either buying slaves or having fun looking demonstrated earlier, the whole culture was at the dance of Scheherazade. This involved in the making of the process of representation of the Arab people is flawed orientalism. It is a soft war where the and defective. We don’t see any individual dominant country makes uses of a lot of qualities on the part of the Arabs agents or apparatuses in order to enforce represented in the movie, they are and implement its ideas. The same is true represented to fight for power and fight for about the West making the East its inferior sexual gratification. not through force and military action but To see how the movie represents the through the power of intellect as Foucault Orient, I have sought to consider the graphic would like to put it through discursive images and related symbolic meanings. The formations. A philologist, a lexicographer, picture below is an image taken from the

Hollywood Adaptation of Thousand and One Nights: A Critical Analysis based on… Roozbeh Roohollah.

movie Arabian Night (1942) which tends to The audience too will ridicule the Arabs and represent the Arab people who are there to laugh at them. watch the belly-dancer Scheherazade. Figure 2: Picture of Old Shaikh being helped. Figure 1: Arabs have gathered to watch the dancing girl Scheherazade

The narrative of wealthy Shaikh has always been used to stereotype the Arab people. As the picture shows, there are many old sheikhs who are much of a muchness. We can see a form of The movies Arabian Nights (1942) homogeneity in depicting the Arab people stereotypes Arabs here as sexually oriented like the previous image shown above. The and full of corporeal whims. They have Arabs in this image and those who are not gathered here to watch the dance of shown in this picture but are shown in the Scheherazade. They just want to see her movie are all homogenous and are here to dance and they enjoy her dancing. They are pay as much as they can to buy slaves. The all tanned and wearing turbans and are narrative of slave-buying is another, say, impatient to see her dance. Taking a look at motif which is to depict and stereotype the the faces of all these men, we see them as Arabs as lustful and licentious. They buy young and old together. Some have white slaves to satisfy their lustful desires. This is beards and have come to watch the dancing shown numerous times in the movie. They of the girl Scheherazade. What the image sit on a small carpet or rug to avoid dust, implies is that all the Arabs including young where they meet new slaves and buy them. and old are sexually oriented. In the movie Scheherazade herself is sold This picture represents the Arab into slavery and is sold at the price of one people as feeling-oriented and emotion- thousand dinar. oriented. They are displayed as mindless What is of significant is that when creatures whose only drives are fulfilment the women are about to be sold, the slave- of their corporeal desires. When the picture holders or owners use sexual phrases in shows a lot of Arabs, this is meant for the order to arouse the feeling of sex in the men whole of a group of community otherwise it so as to sell women, even they make women should account for his choosing a group of have transparent clothes and they make people. Old people who are at the door’s them almost naked. Phrases like ‘so sublime death are shown to be sexually potent and a slave’, ‘young, beauteous damsel’, this is misrepresentation. At another ‘ravishing vision of loveliness’, ‘tempting sequence, the movie shows an Arab or and tantalizing morsel’, ‘the exquisite Arabs who are gathering to buy slave- flower of the Nile’, ‘an exquisite creature’, women to satisfy their sexual desires. What ‘What poise, what grace’ are few example is of interest is that among those wealthy to tantalize Arab men to buy women-slaves Arab-Sheikhs are too old ones who cannot to satisfy their sexual desires. These phrases even walk and are willing to pay a lot of further stereotype the Arab-Orientals, money to have a lot of slaves for the representing them as interested in the bodies purposes of coitus, one such person is of the women. The movie misrepresents shown to pay the highest price for the them. The women are shown to be woman he buys and when he stands to fetch considered, as the movie shows, by Arabs the woman, he can’t even stand up and he as juicy flesh out of whom they get only a stands up with the help of his attendant and kick. Sensuality, the movie suggests, is one when he is about to walk, he falls and this characteristic of the Arabs. In the movie the brings about the laughter of the rest of the Arabs are ready to compete to have a slave group and also raises the laughter of the by offering higher prices and higher rates of Western audience when they see such a the dinars. The more beautiful the woman, thing. This is by all odds a stereotypical the higher the price an Arab should pay to picture of the Arab society and community. possess her. In this very movie, the rhetoric

International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies (www.eltsjournal.org ) ISSN:2308-5460 Volume: 05 Issue: 02 April-June, 2017 Page | 25

International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies (www.eltsjournal.org) ISSN:2308-5460 Volume: 05 Issue: 02 April-June, 2017 of ‘possess’ is used for a slave. The seller love for the fatal Schehrazade. overtly says “Think that she can be yours or Scheherazade’s beauty entangles Nadan yours or yours to possess for all time” while who is about to kill three people to achieve pointing to the Arabs (00:42:52). The movie her which finally led to his own death. presents Scheherazade as the most beautiful When Haroun Al- Rashid sees her for the slave, and when she is sold into slavery, her first time, he is attracted to her and price is the highest price. When she is somehow justifies his own brother’s presented as the most beautiful woman to be rebellion against him. sold to the buyers, she is priced one 2.3 Representation of the Orient as Power- thousand dinar and is immediately sold. loving 2.2 Representation of Scheherazade The movie represents every Oriental The movie Arabian Nights (1942) character as loving and admiring power. represents Scheherazade differently from Kamar and Haroun Al-Rashid as two the text. In this section, I will critically brothers are represented to love power. analyse her character as represented by the Kamar tries to rebel against his brother only movie through her depiction as a lover of to win Scheherazade. He rebels and is power and also as an object of desire, and captured and is sentenced to slow death by her depiction as a fatal woman for whose his brother Haroun Al-Rashid. He is sake many kick the bucket. released by the help of Haroun Al-Rashid’s She is represented “as avid of power Vizier who betrays Haroun. Haroun and riches as a shipwrecked mariner of escapes. He is later saved by Ali and water”(00:03:02). She loves power very Scheherazade. When he sees Scheherazade much. This arrogant Oriental woman has and asks her name, he says ‘I now know promised jokingly to marry Kamar only if why… why he risked so much’. It is he can be the Caliph of Baghdad. She will interesting that the same thing happens to not marry anybody except those who are Haroun when he falls in love with either kings or princes, crown princes Scheherazade. Now it is he who is because it is her destiny to be the queen. It represented as a person who loves is interesting that the movie works to the Scheherazade and is willing to sacrifice same course her destiny to be the queen at everything for the sake of her. Almost all the end as she desired to be a powerful Eastern people want to possess Scherazade woman. Even though she marries Haroun as their source of sexual pleasure. Indeed Al-Rashid because of love, the movie, in the Oriental men are presented as actual fact, shows her destiny to come true competing for achieving her. Every oriental as a lover of power. The movie after all man is shown as having a great desire in her. represents her a lover of power. From ordinary men who come to the show Universal Pictures represents to highly powerful men they show a desire Scheherazade as an object of desire that in having her. everyone wishes to have, from Kamar, to Nadan the Vizier is also represented Haroun and Nadan, the Vizier. A brother is as sacrificing everything for the sake of willing to kill his brother for the sake of her. power and for the sake of Schehrazade. Even the people of Baghdad are represented Nadan is represented to betray Haroun Al- to have her dance for them. To be Rashid when he is condemning Kamar. represented as an object of desire, she When the subjects of Kamar come to save should be very beautiful and lovely. For this Kamar, Nadan helps Kamar rather than reason, Universal Picture made use of Haroun. He becomes a favorite of Kamar. Maria Montez who acted the female leading Nadan tells the commander not to search for roles in the genre of Thousand and One Scheherazade and let her go. Not to let Nights movies. Everybody is attracted to Kamar understand what has happened to her when they see her for the first time. Scherherzade, Nadan kills the commander. Scheherazade is also represented a He is shown as a sinister character who is fatal woman for whose sake Nadan and about to do anything. Nadan is represented Kamar die. She is represented as a seductive to even harbor the death of Kamar in mind. woman whose attractions entangle her He plans to kill Kamar and marry lovers, often leading them into bargaining, Scheherazade. This seems to work when he hazardous, and fatal circumstances. finds out that Ameen and Scheherazade in Scheherazade’s beauty makes Kamar rebel fact love each other. Nadan is about to get against his own brother and brings about his Scheherazade at any cost killing Ameen and imprisonment. At the end, Kamar is dead many others. He makes advantage of the and his death fell upon him because of his weak point of Scheherazade when he

Hollywood Adaptation of Thousand and One Nights: A Critical Analysis based on… Roozbeh Roohollah.

understands she loves Ameen. He promises person. When he usurps the caliphate, he is not to kill Ameen if Scheherazade marries still in search of Scheherazade. His harem is him and helps him to kill Kamar by shown when Ali is going to send a message poisoning the drink which Kamar will to Scheherazade. The movie represents the drink. He gives Scheherazade a ring with a women of the harem as having a passionate hollow in which he has hidden some poison. desire in sex and when they see Ali, they all Scheherazade promises to do what Nadan run for him in order to touch him. Some run tells her. Nadan’s plan does not work at the and catch him and some say bring him and end and he is killed at the end. let us see him. The movie suggests that as 2.4 Representation of East as a Misogynist these women are so many and the king is The movie represents the East as a one, they are deprived of sex so much so misogynist. The Eastern people are that when they see Ali they all run after him represented as having no esteem for and want to touch him. They bring him women. At the very beginning of the movie, among them and all touch him in a way Kamar is sentenced to slow death. When which suggests a desire to satisfy their Haroun meets his brother, he says “a slow sexual desire. They are about to tear his death for the love of a woman” meaning it clothes and make him naked till he implores is not worth it. The phrase slow death for them to let him go. the love of a woman is meant to stereotype The situation of the girls and women women. Just for the sake of a woman is of the harem is also represented in a way another way of telling that phrase. The which depicts the Oriental harem girls as phrase is made to belittle women. The having no specific qualities just to sit, eat, movie shows that the women are in the harem. They are all half naked and downgraded by the Orient. enjoying themselves. The movie sees, and At another sequence, in order to represents the harem as a space for pleasure cheat the guard, Ahmad and his group trick only. It inculcates the idea of harem as the guard simply by telling him there is a nothing more than a locus for pleasure on very beautiful woman in the house. What is the part of the men and women residing in of note here in this sequence is that women the harem. There are nearly forty women in are shown as a tool to trick others. Because the harem as the movie shows the women the guard is represented as a lustful man, he when they are enjoying in the sun near a is made to be duped through a tool and that pool where some are swimming and some tool is the mere mention of the name of a are loitering near the pool. Generally, they woman. Since he is shown to be a lustful are represented as being passive and as man, he is deceived by a man disguising as objects of desire. While in real harems of a woman. When the guard sees the man- the East, or Muslim monarchs, women had disguised-as-woman he says “what a power and influence. Sex for the Caliph beautiful distribution of flesh”( 01:11:21). Kamar is represented to be purely pleasure. The guard is represented to have a defining Though he has usurped the caliphate, he is interest in the beautiful distribution of represented to have a passionate desire in female flesh. This is true about not this women of the harem whose prime is guard but about any man in the film from Scheherazade for whose sake he is to risk the highest to the lowest. At another and even kill his own brother. His harem is sequence when Kamar orders captain to full of voluptuous beautiful women whose find Scheherazade, the Vizier orders the features show that they are there for only captain not to find her so that the Caliph one thing and one purpose. He is there to should not worry about a dancing girl. This have access to any woman of the harem he situation also represents the misogyny of desires. The movie represents harem of the Eastern people. Kamar surrounded by many wives or 2.5 Arabian Nights (1942) and Harem, Veil, concubines in a lavish, beautiful setting. and Belly-Dance Condemning the The movie represents a recurring theme of Discourse of East Patriarchy the lazy, sumptuous harem women, weak Harem: except for their sexuality, having no The movie is a parody of the way a occupation other than waiting to sexually king or kings’ ways of life is in the East. The serve their caliph. The movie also presents harem of the king is represented as a place hints of lesbianism in the harem woman of sensuality. Though the king has a lot of presumably because the women are too women in the harem, as it is represented, he many and are not satisfied by the king. is searching for another one who is a Veil: The only woman in the movie who dancing girl. From the very beginning wears veil is Scheherazade and she does it Kamar is represented as sensual, lustful just when she is sold into slavery and when International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies (www.eltsjournal.org ) ISSN:2308-5460 Volume: 05 Issue: 02 April-June, 2017 Page | 27

International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies (www.eltsjournal.org) ISSN:2308-5460 Volume: 05 Issue: 02 April-June, 2017 she is to be sold again. She wears a veil so representing Arab women of the East. Her that the slave traders shall not see her belly-dancing at the last sequence is erotic, beautiful face in order not to buy her. The with her movement of her hips, and graceful movie makes a parody of the veil. Women body as if she has no bone in her body. The were supposed to wear veil. Scheherazade movements of her hands and the posture of is a dancing girl. Where she is supposed to her body and the movement of her legs wear Veil, she does not wear it. For represents her as nothing more than body in example, she should wear a veil everywhere the dichotomy of body and mind. among men. However, she wears when veil 3. Conclusion helps her. That is to say, she wears it The Hollywoodian movie Arabian subjectively and according to her wishes. Nights (1942) directed by Rawlins depicts The next time is when Ahmed disguises Arab cultures according to the whims and himself as a woman and wears a veil. This wishes of Hollywood. Hollywood launches parody of veil in the character of Ahmed into a tirade against the culture of Arab who we, as viewers, known as a man in people by showing them as lustful, illogical, disguise ridicules the East and on the erotic, sexual and misogynist. Adaptation account that this disguised man should wear which shows the crossroad of cultures, veil while other women in the movie don’t where a work influences another so that wear veil even if it is an obligation on the they influence each other. However, in the part of the women. case of this movie, it is otherwise. That is to Another time when Scheherazade say, adaptation is at the disposable of wears veil is when she is to dance for Hollywood to stereotype the East and its Kamar. She is brought in front of the Caliph culture. What is interesting is the adaptation where caliph watches her dance. She wears targets the culture of Arab in spite of the a veil and when she is about to dance she fact that Thousand and One Nights is about takes it off and starts dancing when all different cultures of the East like Indian, people and guards are present. Generally in Persian, Chinese and Mongolian. This the harem, no one was present to see the shows that the Arabs are Moslem who dance of a woman of harem except for the should be represented differently according women and the caliph and no one else. But to the whims and wishes of Hollywood. here women and men, the vizier and all are References present and see the dance of Scheherazade Ashcroft, B., Griffiths, G., & Tiffin, H. who is going to dance for the caliph. This is (2003). The empire writes back: Theory misrepresentation of course. Even women and practice in post-colonial of the harem are presented as not wearing literatures. Routledge. veil. The reason Scheherazade did not wear Barry, P.(2009) Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural veil until she is taken to harem signifies the Theory, Third Edition. Manchester: fact that she is now not free in comparison Manchester University Press. to the time when she was a dancing girl. The Kennedy, D. (2000). “Captain Burton's Oriental implication of this process is that the caliph Muck Heap”: The Book of the is a patriarch who makes it obligatory for Thousand Nights and the Uses of Scheherazade to wear veil. It can be Orientalism. The Journal of British considered as Scheherazade’s slavery from Studies, 39(03), 317-339. the point of view of Hollywood. In the case Hutcheon, L(2006). A Theory of Adaptation. of Scheherazade, the movie tells us that, New York: Routledge. veil symbolizes Scheherazade’s oppression Said, E. W(1978). Orientalism, New York: and eroticism brought about by the tyrant Georges Borchardt. Sanders, J. Adaptation and Kamar. Appropriation.(2007) Routledge. Belly-Dance: The concept of belly-dance Stam, R.(2005) “Introduction: The Theory and also finds expression in this movie like the Practice of Adaptation.” Literature and other movies of Arabian Nights genre. Film: A Guide to the Theory and Belly-dancer in the movie is Scheherazade. Practice of Film Adaptation. Oxford: The movie represents her as a belly-dancer. Blackwell. Eds. Robert Stam and What the belly-dance trope means in this Alessandra Raengo. 1–52. movie is the sexual, erotic associations Wanger, W. (producer) Rawlins, J.(producer ) related to this trope. Scheherazade now (1942) director. Arabian Nights. United becomes a voluptuous sex object for Kamar States. to watch, to gaze and to contain as Yamanaka, Y., & Nishio, T. (2006). The Arabian Nights and Orientalism: Universal Picture represents her. She is now Perspectives from East and West. IB a lascivious, exotic, and sensual woman Tauris.