This reminds me of something I read a while back (or maybe my friend told me it) that the costumes and moves of what most Westerners think of as "traditional" bellydancing are actually not traditional in the same way that some other costumes/moves are traditional, but are instead created specifically to cater to Westerners.
Thanks for this post of thinky-thoughts. I've been thinking about instituting a somewhat similar yet opposite(?) dynamic in a novelverse of mine that I'm currently working on, in which the conquered people mythologize and romanticize the conquerors to the extent of worshipping them, because if they didn't it was likely that the conquered would only get, erm, conquered more, I suppose. (Meanwhile, most of the actual conquerors don't think all that fondly of their conquered subjects...)
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Date: 30 Nov 2009 04:46 pm (UTC)Thanks for this post of thinky-thoughts. I've been thinking about instituting a somewhat similar yet opposite(?) dynamic in a novelverse of mine that I'm currently working on, in which the conquered people mythologize and romanticize the conquerors to the extent of worshipping them, because if they didn't it was likely that the conquered would only get, erm, conquered more, I suppose. (Meanwhile, most of the actual conquerors don't think all that fondly of their conquered subjects...)