House Of A Hundred OCs

When you say “orientalist” v-neck or that Asra’s design is orientalist, can you elaborate on what that means? I’m trying to learn so my own characters don’t fall into anything racist or offensive

As a precursor, I'm not arab or desi so while I can give an overview on orientalism, I'm obviously not an expert and it's worthwhile reading up on actual middle eastern perspectives on this topic

But overall, orientalism is what you find when you google "middle eastern clothing", "Aladdin", or essentially any time you see someone throw in a "sand and swords" desert culture

See below:

It's based in Victorian misinterpretations of India, the Middle East, and North Africa and the idea that a lot of their culture is interchangeable. Famously, the British monarchy would take people from these countries (primarily India) and dress them up in costumes because their own clothing wasn't "authentic" enough for them

Unfortunately, most if not all outside depictions of these countries will be flavoured by orientalism because it's an ouroboros of artists being influenced by other artists' ideas of what these cultures might be. Despite a lot of it stemming from british misinformation, orientalism is also a massive issue in east asia, as you can see from the Free! outro designs. It's omnipresent and once you notice it, you can't stop

Common themes include: overly revealing clothing (deep v-necks, open shirts, crop-tops, tiny silk skirts), misunderstanding of turbans (hair exposed underneath), lots of sashes, massive puffy trousers, an overuse of gold accessories, etc.

Like many stereotypes, there is some basis for each of these concepts. modern lehenga blouses, dhoti, and indian jewellery form the basis of the crop-tops, puffy trousers, and lots of gold. Many saharan cultures wear turbans and bright looseclothes, and the short jacket + puffy shirt and flat hat comes from Albanian traditional clothing. But that's talking about countries a continent away from each other, with vastly different climates and cultures

Naturally, this leads to the Arcana. Contrary to popular belief, the aesthetic is not based on any one place. It takes inspiration from over Europe and North Africa, (along with India and Central Asia) + extra fantastical and modern inspirations.

Asra and his family are the main examples of the Arcana drawing from arab cultures. Now, the devs did take the criticism on board and they made an effort to change Asra's outfits and on avoid playing into orientalist design elements in future designs, but unfortunately, orientalism is baked into most attempts to represent the Middle East because it's just everywhere.

I also would say that the fandom's apprentice designs tend to lean much harder into orientalism because of the common misinterpretation that the Arcana is just based on the Middle East + wanting to make their designs "sexy" (you can't even count all of the "bellydancer" apprentice designs...)

Like with avoiding most stereotypes, the key is research. It is incredibly difficult to avoid orientalistic designs even from "proper" sources, but if you narrow your field to specific countries and cultures, you're less likely to create an unknowing mishmash. If you want to make a character along these lines, maybe choose if you want them to be primarily Tunisian, Egyptian, Iraqi, Pakistani, North/South Indian, etc. and try to find photos of people who live in those countries. These countries have both long histories of clothing culture and modern fashion industries you can take inspiration from

Fantasy design doesn't have to be purely based on existing cultures, but especially when borrowing elements from cultures you're not part of, you should put the effort into understand what those elements mean before modifying them. Especially when trying to modify them to be sexually appealing!

One example I use is when you want to include a face veil. Face veils are typically for modesty or protection from the sun or sand. As a result, when you make the veil transparent or make the outfit revealing and provocative, you can end up objectifying modesty wear and looking ridiculous

Another example is when you mix cultures without realising it and you end up putting a character in a Scottish kilt and French beret

Like... it can be a look, but only if you know what you're doing

This entire issue is in no way limited to orientalism. As a welsh person, I know it's impossible to find sources on traditional welsh clothing without running into "viking celtic neopagan savage" moodboards...

But it's most important to understand how this happens with non-western cultures because of the western power structure using these misinterpretations to contribute to everyday racism (e.g. sexualising hijabi women, assuming desert cultures are barren and criminal, treating all brown people as interchangeable)

baewatch CG we could have had if they weren't cowards /j