The Arab World’s ‘Dallas’
Sep 5, 2011 1:00 AM EDT
Turkish Soap operas are sweeping the Middle East and luring viewers with scandalous storylines.
A handsome ottoman prince is hunting in a forest when a cavalcade of horsemen rides up bearing a fateful message. Meanwhile, a slave ship full of nubile Russian women destined for the harems of Istanbul creaks its way across the Black Sea. So begins Magnificent Century, Turkey’s answer to Showtime’s The Tudors. A bodice-ripping historical soap opera based on the life of the 16th-century Suleiman the Magnificent, it’s just one of more than 100 shows produced last year by Turkey’s booming TV-drama industry. The programs are becoming a wildly popular cultural phenomenon across the Middle East, bringing in their wake a renaissance in Turkey’s soft power and ushering in a low-key social revolution among the housewives of the Arab world.
More:Turkish Soap Operas Are Sweeping the Middle East - The Daily Beast