Turkish soaps penetrate Muslim culture

[pscot]

Is that a sexual allision? Seriously, the Turks are aggressive and they used to own the place.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/18/arts/18abroad.html



And it is Arab audiences, even more than Turks, who have been swept off their feet.

Led by “Gumus” (“Noor” in Arabic), a wave of Turkish melodramas, police procedurals and conspiracy thrillers — “Yaprak Dokumu,” “Kurtlar Vadisi,” “Asmali Konak,” “Ihlamurlar Altinda” and now the steamy “Ask-i Memnu,” the top-rated series in Turkey (think Madame Bovary on the Bosporus) — are making their way onto Arab televisions, wielding a kind of soft power.

Through the small screen, Turkey has begun to exercise a big influence at Arab dinner tables, in boardrooms and bedrooms from Morocco to Iraq of a sort that the United States can only dream about. Turkey’s cultural exports, not coincidentally, have also advanced its political ambitions as it asserts itself on that front, too, sending a flotilla to Gaza, defying the United States over sanctions on Iran, talking tough to its onetime ally, Israel, and giving Kemal Ataturk’s constitutionally secular state an Islamic tinge.

[noamnety]

1. oh lord.

I was five paragraphs into that article before I realized they were talking about soap operas. I thought they were selling soaps with pheromones and doing racy commercials for it or something.

From the photo, I had figured out the young guy was expecting the woman to go for him, but the older pudgy dude had showered with The Soap.

[rubberducky]

2. !

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[pscot]

3. You better cut that out

You'll give em ideas.