Exoticised Ethnicities, take #23498

[oyceter]

I forgot to post these while I was in Michigan! Anyway, we found these in the Harlequin/serial romance rack at Borders.

In honor of rachelmanija and my Exoticised Ethnicities romance titles:

(these are all real and published, by the way)

The Spanish Prince's Virgin Bride
The Greek Tycoon's Virgin Night (his, or hers? Since only men are allowed to be Exotic Ethnicities, particularly rich ones)
The Mediterranean Billionaire's Secret Baby

I note that the list of acceptable ethnicities has expanded from Spanish, Italian, Greek and Sheikh (don't ask) to: Spanish, Italian, Greek, Sheikh, and Mediterranean.

But the best one of all was:

Willingly Bedded, Forcibly Wedded

Comments

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

Hah ha ha ha ha!

My sister and I have a long and rich childhood history of making up storylines and songs, one of which is the infamous and memorable "I AM A SHIEK'S HUSBAND" song (I think we had gotten confused about either the gender of a shiek or our own gender, I don't think it was meant to be a gay story).

I mean, that's the whole song, and I don't remember more of the story, but this whole thread made me think of it.

[oyceter]

Hee! I think we tried to include a gay romance in our made-up titles, going with the whole "Only men get to be exotic!" resulting in The Proud Peruvian's Passionate Pasha.

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

Without a doubt, those are Harlequin Presents titles!

(Brazilian is also an acceptable ethnicity.)

[oyceter]

How could I forget Brazilian?

It's like they look at all ethnicities and go "Oh, these are just foreign enough to be Exotic but not so brown that they are scary!" And of course we can never have Asian heroes.

[delux-vivens.livejournal.com]

Next you'll be babbling about how asian men can have sex. *eyes you for crazy talk*

[oyceter]

*snorfle* Well, clearly they can't, which is why there are no sexy Asian ninja parading around.

I am sure if there were, they would mutter strange foreign endearments in their strange foreign ways and have all these patriarchal ideas about the place of women, since all Asian cultures are misogynistic and the same!

[cryptoxin.livejournal.com]

I am now reluctantly imagining a Heroes/Harlequin collaboration entitled The Haitian's Forbidden Love....

[oyceter]

Heeee!

The Hired Haitian's Humongous... Husband.

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

>The Mediterranean Billionaire's Secret Baby

FTW!

[oyceter]

I know! Actual title!

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

I seem to remember reading quite a few about rich French guys.

In the historicals, of course, there were loads of Native Americans and Scots (something about being able to paint them in a loincloth/kilt on the cover, I imagine).

[oyceter]

OMG. The Native American romances are so bad! And it seems like now the Scots and the French are not brown enough to be exotic, at least not for this line. Although I could swear that Harlequin has a separate line for Scots. Possibly it is the actual historical romance line.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

I haven't read any romance novels since high school, so I am sadly behind the times. What always amused me about the Native American ones was that he was inevitably a halfbreed, or sometimes just a white boy who'd been raised by Indians, so it was like their thinking was to have it exotic enough to be exciting...but not too much!

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

LOL Apparently I should have read down further to see the convo about shieks.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

...The hero must be a half-breed, half white and half Indian, preferably
from a horse culture. He should often weep alone. That is mandatory...

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

No one knows his halfbreed pain!

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Except for all the white people who are channeling their own past lives as tragic halfbreeds, preferably from a horse culture!

(non-horse-culture, non-tragic halfbreed here, LAUGHED SO HARD I HURT MYSELF the first time I read that poem.)

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

> Willingly Bedded, Forcibly Wedded

I first read that the other way around. ::shudder::

[oyceter]

Gah, yes! I did too.

[sparkymonster.livejournal.com]

From the 80s there were many, oh so many, exotic Sheikhs who turned out to have a white parent which diluted their scariness and made them almost white. Or sometimes a local Sheikh was *so* impressed by a white guy, that he adopted him. Thereby keeping the exoticism to a safe veneer. The 80s historical romances with half Native warriors (and in one case, the hot native guy was actually the totally white long lost son of British nobility, and had a locket which proved his identity) seem to have gone away.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Actually, #1 applies to the original Sheikh, back in 1919. Plus ça change...

[oyceter]

*snort* Of course! And I occasionally will still come across books in which the hero is not actually a Sheikh, but he has traversed the Middle East! And he wears turbans and silks and reclines on cushions! But fear not, because he's actually white!

[fresne.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, the Tarzan syndrome. Mind you, the knife of Tarzan's father interested me much more than the locket of his mother as a child.

While as a teenager, the 80s series where the hero spent the 1st book as a Native American and then turned out to be the prince of the City of Gold (and therefore sort of Egyptian). And then their son, who for whatever reason goes out into the white man's world (well, okay they were trying to figure out how not to get attacked by the army) and falls in love with a woman just like ma.

Ah, romances. So, wacky.

[oyceter]

Oh romances!

[kate_nepveu]

Willingly Bedded, Forcibly Wedded

. . . I suppose it's better than the reverse?

[oyceter]

I know! Still. "Bedded"?!

[chomiji]

I was just looking at the Harlequin Presents backlist and don't know whether to laugh, cry, or drop dead of boredom ... maybe all 3 at once. The repetitiveness of the titles is both bizarre and soporific - the same ethnicities and themes repeat endlessly ... .

Except that OMG - I just saw one Australian ... how's that for exotic ... ?   XD

(OTOH, on the happy sightings list: check out Neil Gaiman with the very appropriate cast of the BBC World Service adaptation of Anansi Boys.)

[oyceter]

@@ It's Exotic Ethnicity + RICH + miracle baby!

I saw the Gaiman post! I'm really excited about it!

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

You forgot our title, Miracle Baby; Wedding-- Maybe.

[oyceter]

Oh, I did!

We should have gotten a tycoon in there somehow. Maybe it will be in the back cover: She had been heartbroken by news of her barrenness. But his Italian virility miraculously restored her womb! And now, he believed she had lied in order to trap him for his wealth and the rolling acres of his Tuscan estate!

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

I read this one this past spring:
Tycoon Warrior by Sheri Whitefeather

My comment: An object lesson in how NOT to write interracial romance. I don't think there is one Native American--or Texan--cliche she didn't hit with this. The characters were hot. The plotting was pretty decent. The execution sucked.

[oyceter]

Oh dear, will definitely avoid that!