Orientalism and the Novel

I only just realized readers might find the horrific Orientalism that turns up in the novel's crimes hard to believe. Not to spoil things, but vapid, cruel Orientalism shows up in Western art, literature and films of the day. Here's a prime example. "The Sheik Steps Out" (1937) an American musical/comedy. A sheik abducts and forces an Englishwoman to marry him - she's a lost explorer - only afterwards the sheik reveals that he is really a Spanish count, so there's no "danger" of an Englishwoman marrying an Arab. Books and movies full of these racist tropes were wildly popular throughout the West. It's sobering to think that at the time of my novel (1936) most Muslims, including Moroccans and Tangier, were under European control, one kind or another. Even the United States governed the Muslim population of the Philippines. Any sense of the "Orient" Westerners' had usually came through inaccurate, sensationalist and racist portrayals. All I did was imagine how fetishes, fantasies, sexualized violence and bigotry might have inspired crimes - real and imagined. Tragically, we are by no means free of these tropes today.