Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 18 May 12 - 06:30 AM

Just why did the Red Shadow have to be a White man?

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 18 May 12 - 02:35 AM

ETa: That's if you think about it too hard...

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 18 May 12 - 02:33 AM

In the play, Pierre (the Shadow) kidnaps Margot to give her "romance". The Riffs object to this, understandably, because it puts them in danger from the French. But he doesn't, so eventually he's set up to fight his own father, and when he refuses, they exile him for being a coward. It's kind of a bad message. Basically, "It's perfectly OK to throw away your ideals and your friends for your true love."

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 18 May 12 - 02:05 AM

What I don't understand is why the Shadow had to be French. Was it just so she could see the guy (Pierre/Paul)'s other side? I've always thought of doing a story where he's not French, but an actual Arab and basically, Pierre/European guy and the Red Shadow are two different men.

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 18 May 12 - 01:29 AM

That was always quite obvious, I think. There wasn't a suggestion that I recall of her deep understanding of an ancient and sophisticated culture. She was a product of the European "Enlightenment" and the intellectual hierarchy it implied.

SRS

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 18 May 12 - 01:08 AM

As I said before, the idea in all these versions is that Margot is attracted to El Khobar/ the Red Shadow because she sees him as "savage" and "exotic".

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 18 May 12 - 12:39 AM

I think that Gargoyle issuggesting that no-one here has heard of Orientalism. Newsflash: I have. And The Desert Song in all its versions, is Orientalist. But that doesn't mean that the songs aren't good.

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 18 May 12 - 12:31 AM

The non-subtle touch of Gargoyle arrives in the thread. Are you suggesting that no-one here has heard of Orientalism? Let's add Seven Pillars of Wisdom to your reading list, and here is a story about T.E. Lawrence on NPR.

Morwen, you are right - it was Kathryn Grayson. I didn't look it up before jotting an answer. Grayson and Blythe crossed my path via film so often when I was kid watching the various musicals that they were sometimes interchangeable.

SRS

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 18 May 12 - 12:27 AM

that should be a space. And emphasis on "some".

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 18 May 12 - 12:24 AM

I'm not saying The Desert Songreflects reality at all, GUEST. It doesn't. That's like a White person saying that Disney's Mulanreflects reality. I'm Chinese, and I can say it doesn't and never has, except in some cultural aspects. What I'm trying to do with the steampunk story mentioned above is to do a different take on the same story as Harbach and Mandel in TDS.

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: GUEST
Date: 18 May 12 - 12:14 AM

Read City of Gold

It is the truth behind your fantasy...and it shapes the Arab world today.

ENJOY

xenophobia

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 18 May 12 - 12:06 AM

IMO, the racist element is the idea that "the locals need a White man" to lead them. In all the versions, the Red Shadow/El Khobar is always White. If you changed it, it wouldn't be The Desert Song.

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 17 May 12 - 11:51 PM

Song of the Brass Key- Marie Wells as Clementina and Roberto E Guzman as Sid El Kar in The Desert Song (1929)

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 17 May 12 - 11:47 PM

ETA: The 1929 movie version is the most faithful to the play.

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 17 May 12 - 11:42 PM

According to IMDB, it was MacRae and Kathryn Grayson. My English teacher last year told me she saw the early version as a child (I'm Australian). The early version isn't seen in the US, because it was made before the Hays Code. Here's a clip from the early version: Song of the Brass Key- Marie Wells as Clementina and Roberto E. Guzman as Sid El Kar from 1929 The Desert Song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPoqQdSeAXc

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 May 12 - 11:35 PM

I didn't see the early version, but I think it was Gordon McCrae and Ann Blythe in the later musical version I remember from childhood.

If you want to see one that is colossally politically incorrect, take a look at Kismet.

SRS

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 17 May 12 - 10:58 PM

ETA: "story" should be "operetta". "If One Flower Grows Alone In Your Garden" in the "Eastern and Western Love" sequence. And even though harems in the stereotypical conception were only common in the Ottoman Empire.

Subject: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 17 May 12 - 10:36 PM

I've recently been watching the earliest movie version of The Desert Song on YouTube, from 1929, partly for enjoyment, and partly because I'm doing a steampunk novel inspired by it (but the Red Shadow is an actual Arab chieftain, removing the secret identity/racial impersonation aspect. And he doesn't fall in love with the White girl, but the mixed-race one). Anyone share my mixed feelings about the story? Basically, that while the music and lyrics are great, the story is a little racist and Orientalist (Azuri is eeevil and petty! Ali Ben Ali is a stereotypical Arab sheikh, complete with harem! The men in the Shadow's band are oversexed!)