Orientalism and Erotic Multiculturalism in Popular Culture: From Princess Rajah to the Pussycat Dolls

Said’s groundbreaking monograph Orientalism (1978) inspired critical reflection of ‘Orientalist’ discourses contained within dominant Western literature. In this article, I extend this impulse by illustrating connections between early twentieth-century erotic and exotic representations of a ‘feminised Orient’ and contemporary hyper-mediated negotiations of sex and gender in audiovisual texts. My methodological approach uncovers the musical, kinetic, visual, and aesthetic signifiers that contribute culturally to a broader symbolic configuration of subjectivities in the modern and postmodern eras. As case studies, I compare two visually mediated, gendered performances: Princess Rajah’s early twentieth-century belly dancing film (1904) and the music video ‘Buttons’ (2006) by this century’s leading music-television ‘girl group’, the Pussycat Dolls. To differentiate between prior colonial articulations of difference, my analyses foreground the recent exploitation by the music industry of what I call ‘erotic multiculturalism’; a concept which betrays an accelerated surplus value derived from references to subaltern subjects within late-capitalist cultures of consumption. My examination of Orientalist stars’ online reception constitutes an additional contribution to new analytical strategies. Ultimately, I aim to ameliorate the imbalance of Orientalist studies which prioritise male creativity, by considering symbolic female Orientalist performers who both innovate and ‘Other’ through their adaptation and exploitation of new technologies in popular culture contexts.