Harem of Jewish slave traders to supply eunuchs to harems depended on whether they could acquire castrated males. European artists and writers envisioned and presented the Oriental harem in a romanticized, albeit historically inaccurate manner. The dark eunuch was held as the embodiment of the sensual tyranny that held sway in the fantasized Ottoman palace, for he had been "clipped" or "completely sheared" to make of him the "ultimate slave" for the supreme ruler. In the Ottoman court, white eunuchs, who were mostly brought from castration centers in Christian Europe and Circassia, were responsible for much of the palace administration, while
What Is a Man Without a Moustache? Times" had also expressed opinions of a divided nature. He called the film "pleasant if inconsequential", offered an opinion that it contains "good-natured sensibility" and a "slightly fabulous tone" while still feeling like "magic realism, without the magic", and concluded his review by stating that "the pleasant pointless of it all is laced with a tantalizing tease of allegory suggested by the dialectical twins and the strain of mellow nationalism in the dialogue." Reviewing the film for "TV Guide", Maitland McDonagh awarded the film three stars out of four calling it "sardonic" and "absurdist". What Is a Man Without a