Sometimes we happen upon cliché when we aren’t even looking for it. Jean-Pierre had this experience recently and sent me the following submission:
I was googling something entirely unrelated to belly dance or princess leia; when I found this article with these videos embedded:
The artists combined really cliche tribal belly dance with really cliche Star Wars costumes to create an entirely new original horror
I would hesitate to call belly dancing “cliché,” but it seems these so-called belly dancers are mediocre at best. I also shy away from anything that combines the terms “dance” and “fantasy.” It just never bodes well for those of us who are legit.
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Was working Gentle Giant’s booth at San Diego Comic Con last year when we had a Golden Bikini Slave Leia photoshoot that G4 coordinated. It was there that I first witnessed the live action Star Wars belly dancing. No idea if it was cliche or not, but you can see for yourself at about 48 seconds in.
http://www.nerdmatic.com/2008/07/25/golden-bikini-leia-photo-shoot-video-from-g4/
“I would hesitate to call belly dancing “cliché,””
I really don’t see how an entire dance form could be in itself a cliché.
Especially as oriental dance is an ethnic dance, and under its umbrella includes both performance and social dance. (well, Tribal style is a fusion style that mixes middle eastern dance with other western and world dance influences, but still) I don’t think the dance as a whole can be cliché any more than the cultures it comes from can be themselves be considered clichés.
To me, it’s like calling Mexican food a cliché. I mean, sombreros and enormous margaritas can be clichés in Mexican restaurants, but I wouldn’t want to be the one to tell somebody’s Mexican grandmother that her style of cooking is overexposed.
That said, there are certainly clichés *within* middle eastern dance (like the sombreros in Mexican restaurants) and I think the Princess Leia/sci-fi convention dance is one of them.
Oh hello again! I don’t think belly dance is cliche, actually I quite like it. However, once you’ve seen too much “tribal belly dance” by mediocre performers, its starts to look pretty cliche.