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Hands Off My Hips, White Girl!
Earlier this month, there was this big dust-up at Salon over white girls who belly dance. To whitesplain for a moment (if palefaces like me are even allowed to whitesplain): for white girls to do a brown girl’s dance is an act of cultural appropriation, and therefore imperialism. More generally, for Westerners to focus on any one aspect of a non-Western culture is to demean the entire culture with our shallow, Westernized understanding.
I have to give the readers of Salon credit: most of them sensibly saw right through this supposed outrage, judging by the comments they left (or humorous responses they wrote). But it did get me thinking a bit about what it is that makes something “exotic”, and why “the exotic” appeals to people, especially Westerners.
Having had an anime-addicted roommate in college, I’ve noticed that finding other cultures exotic isn’t limited to Western culture. The Japanese, for instance, seem fascinated by the symbolic trappings of Christianity in some of their cartoons – without, it seems, having much clue as to what those symbols mean. Western culture is hardly alone in showing enthusiasm for the “exotic” trappings of other cultures without really bothering to understand the cultures themselves.
I do wonder, though, whether Western culture is exceptional in the curiosity it shows towards other cultures, and whether perhaps this is part of Western culture’s strength. I don’t mean the self-loathing “curiosity” some heirs of Western culture cultivate, which consists of rejecting Western culture as “inauthentic” compared to all other cultures. I mean the curiosity that even a jingoist like Rudyard Kipling had – and had to have, to write a story as moving and perceptive as Kim. Though Kipling clearly thought West was Best, he found the whole world good and worthy of study.
So is this curiosity exceptional? And if so, where does it come from?
Does it come from a religious worldview that sees all things as part of God’s good creation? Does it pre-date that and go back to the Greek philosophers? Does it come later, from Enlightenment thinking? Or is Western curiosity about “the exotic” merely a byproduct of Western commercial and political success, as those who cry “cultural imperialism!” might claim? Not that this would make it a bad thing:
Curiosity for its own sake is something of a luxury good, not something the barely-surviving can afford. Or perhaps it’s better to call it a luxury investment, since curiosity indulged for its own sake sometimes pays unexpectedly large dividends later.
As the story goes, what got Einstein started on relativity wasn’t discrepancies between existing theory and data, but a daydream born out of boyish curiosity: what would it be like to chase a beam of light? One flight of curiosity eventually led to another – first to special relativity, then general relativity – with Einstein caring little for the practical consequences. But now we have a practical reason to care: GPS technology.
Or so I have been told. As someone who only took two years of college physics, my understanding of these theories is laughably shallow compared to the experts’. Which brings me back to belly dancing.
Yes, I’m sure white girls who belly dance often have a shallow, romanticized vision of the dance in its original cultural context(s). But then, it’s not surprising when most people’s curiosity about anything leads to only a shallow understanding: it’s the natural result of human limitations. It takes years of focused study to become an expert in another culture, just as it takes years of focused study to become an expert in physics. That not all of us pursue our curiosity to the point of such expertise doesn’t make the curiosity itself bad. Nor is it necessarily bad to have a romanticized, “exotic” vision of what we don’t fully understand, for the romance helps to entice us to further understanding.
When Tennyson wrote that “all experience is an arch wherethro’ / Gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades / For ever and forever when I move,” he was writing about the romance of what isn’t fully known. And perhaps he felt that romance so deeply because he came from a culture that could afford the luxury of curiosity for its own sake. As Tennyson was a man – moreover, a Western man – it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if what he saw gleaming through that arch included the sinuous motions of girls dressed in luminous silks and exotic jewelry.
If you’ve gotten this far, you’re probably wondering where the dancing girls are. Well, the woman who started the kerfuffle at Slate claimed that the woman in this video was one of her favorite “authentic dancers”. Note the Western-style evening gown worn in this authentic performance, a cabaret clearly designed to appeal to Westerners:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0VCc38kDKs
Here is a dancer in more, um… (since I’m not sure I can say “traditional”)… jingly attire:
(Let’s see if this last re-edit restores the videos…)
Published in General
I have tried editing it thrice now. WordPress won’t cooperate, though. I am truly sorry about this. If it’s any consolation, my comment was made in reply to Dime, so people are more likely to ignore it as nonsense.
It is better to be compared to a saint than to be told I have a paraphilia.
Obviously, no one can know that but you. That said, if you do feel that way about Orthodox music, and you don’t have to tell anyone, then I would strongly recommend sticking to Anglicanism. As noted above, that is not what the liturgy is for. You won’t just mess with your own head, but also with the head of anyone who guesses.
Unless you’re in an Orthodox country, where it is apparently not so unusual to go to services specifically to enjoy God’s handiwork in fashioning his monks; this may not just be an Orthodox thing, but I’ve never met a heterodox Christian who was into the Hot Monk Show. I’ve known Cypriots, Russians, and Turks who were.
I meet your Tarkan and raise you a Zeki Muren.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nimrxBeBYq4
Alleged sex symbol for Turkish Ladies in their sixties.
He’s not a bad singer. Though the cheesy synthesized-sounding instruments backing him up in the vid you chose are rather barf-worthy, especially the synth glockenspiel, or whatever it’s supposed to be.
If it’s a problem with music, it’s a problem with all music, or at least all music that interests me. Especially the repertoire of a high-church Anglican choir.
That’s easy enough to explain. Their monks are better-looking. Or at least can be. On the other hand, the women are also better-looking, so I don’t know why it isn’t a wash.
Picked it for the Zeki ‘look’, not the ‘sound’. But apparently he’s really well thought of as a musician and ‘identity’.
Turkey seems to have this thing for andro/trans performers. Another Big (if passe) star, Bulent Ersoy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fii8tn04pW8
What’s interesting is that they both first made a name, afaik, singing classical Ottoman music.
Hmm… How much do you think it’s a cultural thing, and how much do you think it’s a people thing?
We’ve had our share of effeminate-looking pop stars, too, as well as famous drag queens… (David Bowie, RuPaul, these guys):
Indonesia has Dorce Gamalama, and in general, it seems that waria entertainers are pretty commonplace. Thailand has its kathoey; India, its hijra; and Malaysia, its mak nyahs. (A Malaysian friend once lamented how his homeland was becoming less tolerant of such things, which can only happen if it previously was more tolerant.)
From what I can tell, several of these subcultures are quite traditional (though of course I don’t understand the traditions well), making them rather different from David Bowie wearing too much makeup. But perhaps men performing with feminine trappings tends to be universally entertaining?
I remember being slightly frightened, as a child, by the drag act that inevitably happened during our local Bar Association’s Christmas Pantomime. The hairy, middle-aged lawyers in bikinis were quite a sight to see. But now I look back on those memories with amusement.
And Japan gave us Visual Kei:
It happens
Whoah! Is that a guy under there?
That they started by singing classical Ottoman music makes sense to me (and not just because we, too, have our pop stars that started out at Julliard). Traditional music becomes traditional for a reason: People like it. Or at least like it well enough to keep the tradition going.
Ottoman traditions have a little more edge to their modern celebration, though. If you like Palestrina, you’re not making much of a statement other than aesthetic ones (and maybe some class ones; perhaps it would be better to pretend my example was Pachelbel’s Canon). If you like Birth Of A Nation, you’re more likely to be making a statement about your identity. Both Turkey’s secular and Islamic forces, particularly the secularists, engage in massive social engineering efforts that radically politicize cultural expressions.
What else have they suppose to do with their free time? Produce goods and services of genuine value to society?!?! Yeah, right.
As do Georgian traditions, for example. Such as Georgian polyphony.
When the Zedashe Ensemble invited us to a weekend music clinic, we quickly learned that they wanted to teach us that singing Georgian polyphony was not only beautiful for its own sake, but also an act of freedom-fighting.
Of course, the little Republic of Georgia is easier to sympathize with than the Ottoman empire. (And not only because Georgian men are ruggedly handsome, and Georgian women kinda look like me, only prettier.) And I highly doubt that Georgia has the resources for “massive social engineering efforts that radically politicize cultural expressions”.
I am fortunate, as a middle-class American, to feel little need to worry much about any nationalist or irredentist implications of the art I find beautiful. I realize others aren’t so lucky.
It is quite normal, at any rate, to use music as propaganda, and I don’t necessarily mean this in the pejorative sense. I haven’t yet seen the documentary “The Singing Revolution”, but it is apparently about Estonians using the power of song to throw off the Soviet yoke. Is that a plausible premise for a documentary? Maybe. Some of us react to music with that kind of passion.
Small communities are able to engage in vigorous cultural policing at least as effectively as large ones. I’m not nearly as familiar with Georgia’s domestic politics as I’d like, and Russian claims about excessive enthusiasm for Ossetian integration before 2006 are not to be given weight, but I’d be quite surprised if there were no efforts engaged in to present a pronounced national identity on somewhat mythical grounds.
“Somewhat mythical” is a great choice of words, considering how art is marketed these days: art that makes a political point is trendier than art that doesn’t, and so considered an easier sell. I half-wonder whether the Zedashe Ensemble really is into freedom-fighting, or whether perhaps they just like making music, but call it freedom-fighting to get more funding.
Supposing I did try to make a living off the music I’ve written, I’d be a fool not to sell a large chunk of my repertoire as “feminist music” simply because it’s written by a woman for women’s voices. The people in charge of repertoire selection do seem to fall for stunts like that. It wouldn’t be a complete hoax: I am, I suppose, a feminist in some ways.
Yep. Yoshiki Hayashi, leader of arguably the most important metal band in Japanese history, X-Japan. Virtuoso pianist, lightning fast drummer, prolific songwriter, classical composer… He’s a man of many talents (and notably less effeminate these days.)