{"id":1377,"date":"2010-04-15T21:57:16","date_gmt":"2010-04-16T04:57:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/cms\/?p=1377"},"modified":"2010-04-15T21:57:40","modified_gmt":"2010-04-16T04:57:40","slug":"shira-mass-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/cms\/2010\/04\/15\/shira-mass-media\/","title":{"rendered":"

Mass Media, Mass Stereotypes: Beginnings<\/h3>"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Theda<\/p>\n

by Shira<\/a>
\nposted April 15, 2010<\/span><\/h3>\n

It has been over a century since the Middle Eastern dancers at the 1893 Columbia Exposition in Chicago<\/a> sparked controversy and scandal. Although the North America public today is much better educated and sophisticated than it was then, when it comes to belly dancing, many people still cling to the old \u201cseducing the Sultan\u201d and \u201cdance of the seven veils\u201d stereotypes from long ago.\u00a0 Admittedly, some of this can be explained by bad behavior by attention-hungry performers who represent our dance poorly to the public. However, it goes deeper than that.\u00a0 The mass media of television, motion pictures, newspapers, and magazines have continued over the years to reinforce the stereotypes even now, in the 21st century.<\/p>\n

From the very beginning of moving pictures technology, moviemakers have used \u201cMiddle Eastern dance\u201d as a means of adding sexual innuendo and sexy eye candy to their productions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Whether the film depicts a concubine dancing for the Sultan, a spy thriller with some of the action set in the Middle East, a harem full of beauties waiting to serve their master, or a modern-day Moroccan restaurant in New York with a dancer, the primary purpose for including the scene is often to exhibit scantily-clad women to please the male audience members.\u00a0 Often, the characters watching these performers make comments that reinforce the \u201cdancer as seductress\u201d stereotype. <\/p>\n

A list compiled by Maria<\/a><\/span>, a now-retired dancer in Boulder, Colorado contains nearly 200 movies made in North America and Europe<\/a> that feature either \u201cMiddle Eastern dance\u201d scenes or scenes of women lolling about in costumes that the public would perceive as being associated with our dance form. Maria also compiled a list of over 150 television shows with such scenes. In addition to Maria\u2019s work, I have discovered 19 cartoons, some dating back to 1926, which depict \u201cMiddle Eastern dance\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To understand how the entertainment industry\u2019s fascination with harems and belly dancers began, and why such scenes appeared in even the earliest moving pictures from the 1890\u2019s, it is helpful to look at the larger context of European and North American culture of the 19th and early 20th centuries.<\/p>\n

The earliest motion picture technologies were developed in the 1890\u2019s by the Lumi\u00e9re brothers<\/span> in France and Thomas Edison<\/span> in the U.S.\u00a0 By this time, Europe and North America had already spent a century cultivating a fascination with the exotic East. This fascination was generated by: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\"Thomas<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
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\"Daisy<\/p>\n

\"Bugs<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n