YMMV / The Sheik

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• Condemned by History: It's hard to believe nowadays, but The Sheik was very popular during the 1920s. It was quickly adapted into a Silent Movie in 1921, which became a blockbuster that launched Rudolph Valentino (who played the titular Sheik) into stardom as one of the first Hollywood sex symbols. It also made "sheik" 20s slang for a cool, sexy guy and even inspired a hit song ("The Sheik of Araby", here covered by Fats Waller). By the end of the decade, the novel was reported to have sold approximately 1.2 million copies. Since then however, the Sheik frequently raping Diana, the eventual Stockholm Syndrome she develops for him being portrayed as romantic and the cheap cop-out Reveal that the Sheik is actually the son of European immigrants (to bypass an interracial marriage, at a time where American culture was rooted deep in racism) have all resulted in the novel becoming the pinnacle of Values Dissonance and thoroughly despised, often being compared unfavourably to Fifty Shades of Grey.
• Designated Hero: Eventually. For the first half of the book the Sheik is portrayed extremely unfavorably, but once Diana falls in love with him he's treated like a Byronic good guy, even though he continues to abuse her.
• Fair for Its Day: Despite the rampant sexism and racism in the story, there are some interesting elements that manage to twist things a bit:
  • Raoul de Saint Hubert is genuinely horrified at what the Sheik has done to Diana and does not fail to call him out; even the Sheik himself realizes that he has essentially destroyed her — despite this, they end up together anyway.
  • While the Sheik's true heritage definitely comes off as a cop-out, in 1919 it was unheard-of that a white man would rather be a 'savage' than a 'good' Englishman (Heart of Darkness notwithstanding). Also, Raoul mentions that his father, who knew the prior Sheik and the current Sheik's Spanish mother, thought they ought to marry in spite of the fact that it would be a 'mixed' marriage, which was also unheard-of. On the other hand, some of the Sheik's justifications for his actions undo most of this, since he flat-out says "When an Arab sees a woman he wants, he takes her." What could have come off as an unusual attitude of respect for another culture is instead reduced to misrepresenting and fetishizing the 'natives' and their 'savage' ways in order to excuse his own bad behavior.
• Moral Event Horizon: The Sheik hops right over that almost as soon as we meet him.
• Nightmare Fuel: The first half of the book, really. Diana is trapped in the desert with a man who delights in torturing her physically and mentally, with no way to escape. Her trauma in this section of the book isn't portrayed as romantic, either: she's legitimately suicidal, which the Sheik mocks her for. She comes close to hitting the Despair Event Horizon before she tries to escape.
  • The Slasher Smile The Sheik has on for much of the film.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: The novel was a bestseller when it was first published in 1919, but the titular sheik frequently committing rape and the portrayal of his victim developing Stockholm Syndrome for him as romantic are the only things most people know about it nowadays.
• Spiritual Predecessor: For Fifty Shades of Grey and, in turn, 365 Days, the latter of which has a rather similar premise to this novel despite being published nearly a century later.
• Values Dissonance: The whole story, really. Diana being an independent woman uninterested in marriage is treated like a bad thing, her falling in love with the man who kidnapped and raped her is a happy outcome, the titular character's 'Arab culture' is used as an excuse for his abhorrent behavior and so on and so forth.

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