Orientalism in music videos

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One aspect of the electronic, postmodern world is that there has been a reinforcement of the stereotypes by which the Orient is viewed. Television, films, and all the media’s resources have forced information into more and more standardized molds. So far as the Orient is concerned, standardization and cultural stereotyping have intensified the hold of the 19th century academic and imaginative demonology of ‘the mysterious Orient’.

—Edward Said, Orientalism (1978)

Sting’s collaboration with Cheb Mami bears some of these elements [in its visual depictions]. There are obvious allusions to fetishism: the concealing of the driver’s face and her uniform, which repeats, in an Occidental fashion, the fantasy of the veiled woman. These themes are especially prominent in the remix version, which invokes the sexuality of the dance club.

Yet one should not simply toss this visual experiment into the same bin of confusion with the Brightman fantasy, for at least two reasons. First, Sting’s desire to reach out musically to Cheb Mami is indicative of a larger theme in his work: his transculturalism. He constantly experiments in a variety of musical genres and sounds. The use of Rai music is an acknowledgement of its humanity, its importance as a form of popular music. This is in stark contrast to Brightman, whose musical selections have often forgotten the reasons for their own existence, reducing themselves to kitsch.

Second, while the vision of Desert Rose is classical Orientalism, it does twist it by internalizing it. The desert is not some far away place. The passions are... our own. The song leads back to the Occidental world and holds up a mirror to our own hypocrisy.