#orientalizing

~ Garment Applique.

Date: 650-600 B.C. (2nd half 7th century B.C.)

Place of creation: Rhodes; Place of discovery: Camiros

Female Canopic ash urn. From Castiglione del Lago, second half of 7th century BCE, impasto, H. 50 cm, Florence, Museo Archeologico

View of interior of left side chamber off the dromos showing five rock-carved seats. Tomb of Five Chairs, Cerveteri

Interior of Tomb of the Hut showing pebble bed in inner room. Tumulus 2, Banditaccia necropolis, Cerveteri. Early 7th century BCE

This is going to be a mammoth post, and one which has given me writer's block for about 2 months. I realized when I started researching Zazie's videos that although I knew a couple songs with Indian motifs, I was really going to need to look at Zazie's entire 2004 album, Rodéo. 

Zazie is my favorite French artist, and Rodéo is my third favorite album (after Totem and Zen). Though one of Zazie's early music videos, "Je, tu, ils," played on minstrelsy, I find her lyrics masterful and very perceptive. Her album Totem is especially socially conscious; in particular, the song "J'étais là" condemns armchair activism. 

I have divided the songs on the Rodéo album based on the music video that resulted. Some of the song titles are hyperlinks to the videos.

Type I: Zazie plays an Indian woman, even though the lyrics mostly provide no expectation for an Indian cultural context

"La Dolce Vita"

"Excuse-moi"

Really, neither of these songs needed to be set in India. "Excuse-moi" is lyrically about a man who has just used up Zazie's patience, and "La Dolce Vita" is a more mournful ballad about admitting that this wonderful, passionate relationship should be let go. In "Excuse-moi," Zazie is the good, ever-enduring wife, while her husband carries on with the maid. I find this paradigm uncomfortable, since it seems to suggest a gender/culture difference: that the Indian man has his ways, and the Western woman is above his mistreatment of her. It's also uncomfortable in that the servant feels Zazie's wrath for carrying on with the husband, thereby dividing the parties Zazie vs. Indians instead man vs. women. In "La Dolce Vita," Zazie alternates between narrator and lover, sometimes exchanging places with the Indian female lover. I don't quite understand the implication; is she on the inside, i.e. a part of the ill-fated couple, or not?

"La pluie et le beau-temps" 

I think this music video has the best argument for use of an Indian setting. The lyrics address an all-powerful "tu" who creates for Zazie's character a tumultuous world of extreme contrasts.

In French, as well as in Hindi-Urdu, "tu" is an informal pronoun. 

Often in Urdu poetry, the poet makes the addressee of the poem ambiguous; the "tu" may reflect either the lover (making this a 

عشق مجازی, a human love), or God (divine love being more pure, 

عشق حقیقی). By setting the music video in a temple, Zazie's lyrics echo the traditional Indian ambiguity between the beloved divine and mortal. I think this is a powerful message about the nature of faith and love.

"Doolidom" although I think the opening musical strains are Indian, and thus, the music video's setting in a Lacknavi-type dance hall of yore is appropriate.

Type II: Zazie as herself in India

"Oui" 

Made in a similar manner to "Lola Majeure," and with similar images of young Indians having fun and being carefree, here Zazie takes more of an active role in her song (she is seen singing it). The message of the song is along the lines of Carpe Diem, don't say no, etc:

         Mais oui/ but yes          Puisque c'est ta vie/so that your life          Puisque c'est ton coeur/ so that it's your heart          Qui te guidera/that will guide you

"Lola majeure"

Probably "orientalizing" is a fair critique for this video, which overlays the audio for Zazie's lullaby (Lola is her daughter's name) over images of Zazie, wearing a kameez and capris, cavorting around an Indian village. She meets the charming Indians and the adorable kids. Many video montages show the Indians doing things in their own way, and it's their unexpected, carefree approach that is supposed to charm the viewer/Zazie. However, I kind of like this video; I think it's the most authentic depiction at Zazie's experience of India that we see. Significantly, her experience of India: The Reality, is childlike.

Type III: Music video does not use images of India

"Toc Toc Toc" whose lyrics are a reflection of more Western fairy tale images, such as the wolf at the door ("le loup qui te mangera"/the wolf who's going to eat you); the dark forest; and Prince Charming ("si les princes existent encore"/if princes exist anymore). This song sets up a fantastical world, and I believe that other music videos from this album could have easily been set in the world of the Western fairy tale canon, even though I find that kind of thing ridiculously overdone. So it's interesting that instead India--and actually not a monolithic vision of India--is instead the fantastical setting.

"Ghost/Arrive"

"Rodéo" which also uses tropes of childhood fantasy, such as the cowboy, in lyrics & music video

"Slow"

No music video:

"J'aime j'aime pas"

"Sauver le monde"

The video that I'm going to display here is one of the worst of French rapper MC Solaar's otherwise great career. I find the lyrics of the song ridiculous and racist, and the video is just so problematic.

"Au Pays De Gandhi" ("In the Country of Gandhi"--also many of the places mentioned in the lyrics are not actually India, from Kathmandu to Sumatra, and Gandhi's doctrine of nonviolence shows up once):

The basic gist of the song is that MC Solaar loves India because of all its fascinations. The chorus tells us to 'move your body/in the country of Gandhi/move your body/as in all the countries.' Errm....

Most of these fascinations are about objectifying women. The first thing MC Solaar and all his friends see on their trip is an Indian woman, who is so beautiful and exotic that she can make the serpents skip and the elephants gallop. Nevertheless, the women in this video who are clearly meant to attract a sexual gaze (not the Indian back-up dancers) are white and certainly not attired in an Indian way.

For some lyrical excerpts:

Sache que ça sent l'encens et le bois de santal... Know that it smells of incense and sandalwood

Le style est original, la vache est leur animal,

The style is original, the cow is their animal

Tu marches sans piédestal avec ta paire de sandales...

You walk without a pedestal with your pair of sandals Faut beaucoup d'amour, d'espièglerie

There's [even, there must be] lots of love, playfulness

C'est le pays de Gandhi

It's the country of Gandhi.

Regrettably, MC Solaar even rhymes "malaria" with "a la playa."