I happened across a very old movie on
cable the other day. It had the broad
shouldered Jeff Chandler playing some kind of Arab sheik and the gorgeous
redheaded Rhonda Fleming as a princess, or whatever the female version of a
Sheik happens to be, of an enemy tribe.
I’m assuming she was a princess; she had enough diamonds and pearls on
her body to fill several display cases at Tiffany’s and I’m thinking a lowly
peasant woman would not be as well dressed.
With so much of the Middle
East in the news these days, what fascinated me about the movie
were the costumes.
Gorgeous diaphanous material draped
over Rhonda’s hips and layered to the ground; a tiny sleeveless silk top with
plenty of décolletage and a bare midriff showed off her figure to perfection.
But the piece of garb that had me
truly mesmerized was the miniscule piece of transparent material that covered
the lower part of her face. This flimsy
bit of chiffon was supposedly there to hide her face from men and the rest of
the world…a Muslim tradition.
Even back when I was a kid and lapped
up these Sandie Arabia movies by the bucketful, I thought Rhonda’s facial
covering was a bit strange. I mean I
could see her face through the material, so what was wrong with Mr. Chandler’s
eyesight? It’s not as if I wanted her to
have a dish towel hooked around her ears and under her eyes, but it just didn’t
seem realistic the way it was.
Of course this was Hollywood’s version
of what Middle Eastern women wore and, since in those days we knew so little or
perhaps more correctly cared, about what they actually did wear, apart from the
face covering, everything else seemed an exotic plausibility.
What a shock it was for me to discover
that instead of silks and see-through chiffons, what Middle Eastern women actually wear
more resembles a black plastic trash bag, tied in the middle with a hunk of
rope.
And to add insult to visual injury,
instead of a miniscule piece of transparent tulle draped below her eyes, there
is a tea strainer sown into the eye area of a thick, black curtain covering her
face. I don’t think even Mr. Chandler
would be able to distinguish anything there.
Now I have to wonder…are Middle
Eastern women dressed like old black potato sacks because they actually all do
look like Rhonda Fleming and their men want to keep that a secret. Or, do they more closely resemble Marjorie
Main of ‘Ma and Pa Kettle’ fame (look it up people) and who wouldn’t want to keep that quiet? It certainly is a puzzlement.
