Though the actual lyrics are sparse, and I don't know enough Hindi to understand some of the verses, the song seems to be about the allure of being "exotic." It struck me at first because, given my familiarity with Priyanka, I hardly found her exotic at all.
Chopra doesn't come from a small country with a stagnant entertainment industry. She is Indian (born in Bihar, though she moved frequently). India is the largest producer of films in the world. India's music industry is directly tied into the film industry. Most chart topping songs are numbers from Bollywood films (one of the many language based film industries throughout the country). Given this, Priyanka's movement in the entertainment industry is more parallel than upward.
Chopra is as "Westernized" as any other international celebrity. She speaks perfect English, is involved in global charities, lived in and attended school New York, Massachusettes and Iowa, and participated in the Miss World pageant. Not super exotic sounding.
But does this even matter? Should someone's background really have any impact on how exotic they are? What makes her more "exotic" than the millions of other Indians who are part of the diaspora living around the world?
It seems that the marketing strategies of major record labels in the West ("Exotic" was released by Interscope) relies on distilling a person down into a digestible, marketable, yet edgy product. And this seems to be exactly the case with Priyanka. There's no better proof of the fact that we do not live in a post-orientalist society than "Exotic" which plays on the ancient stereotypes of the "exotic east" and "civilized west" by playing up and commercializing the appeal of her foreignness.
Edward Said, who popularized the word "Orientalism" in his 1974 book of the same title, claims that with this otherness also comes an assumption of inferiority.
"My contention is that Orientalism is fundamentally a political doctrine willed over the Orient, because the Orient was weaker than the West, which elided the Orient′s difference with its weakness . . . As a cultural apparatus, Orientalism is all aggression, activity, judgment, will-to-truth, and knowledge" p204
Whether you agree with Said's claim that otherness, and in this case exoticness, is equated with weakness in the Western imagination, this view of difference is clearly problematic.
I am not trying advocating a post-racial and post-ethnic society in which all cultures are homogenized and therefore destroyed via assimilation. However I would argue that by promoting the idea of the exotic, Priyanka Chopra's song does not give us a glimpse of her native culture but rather distances us from it. In order to view a culture as exotic, it must be considered "other." If you become immersed in a culture, it is no longer "other." For example: more you watch Bollywood movies the less you find the winding plots, dramatic motifs, and lavish song and dance numbers exotic, and the more you begin to view them as normal. You even may even expect them to happen in the other forms of entertainment you consume (Shah Rukh Khan item song in Expendables 2 anyone?). What I'm trying to say is that the music industry's interest lies in maintaing the lack of cultural competency and understanding in order to keep the "exotic" appealing.
This exoticization is the reason that Americans (mostly on Twitter, but I would assume in real life too) couldn't wrap their head around the fact that even though Miss America was in fact Indian, she was also American. The terrible racism, xenophobia, and ignorance all seems to stem, in part, from how easy it is to lump together vastly different cultures if they all fall under the label of "exotic" (Indian=Egyptian=Arab=Muslim=terrorist=wtf?)
Interestingly enough "Exotic" reached number 1 on the iTunes India charts, and fared well in non Western countries as well. This is probably more of a testament to the prestige of Chopra's career and the size of her fanbase rather than the fact that the song is thoughtful and well-written (lets face it, Pitbull's biggest lyrical influence is Google Maps).
But as much as I find the idea of exotification problematic, Priyanka did chose to sing this song, and is even partially credited in writing it. She probably didn't give a second thought to the notion of the "exotic" and its questionable appeal to Western audiences. Which is fine. Why should she? Thats what bloggers are for. And while we might assume that she is being taken advantage of, we should avoid condescending her like that. For all we know she is fully aware of what she is doing, and views it as a necessary evil to expand her superstardom. Or maybe she realizes the idea of being "exotic" is ridiculous, but is subverting it by showing how such a cosmopolitan and multicultural celebrity can be reduced to a single primitive description by Western audiences. Maybe she feels empowered by other people's views of her as exotic. And ultimately, I am not Indian, or a POC. I will never know how it feels to be in her situation. I can only speculate.
I love Priyanka Chopra. I think she can do no wrong, and has done nothing wrong. What I don't love is the West's (and particularly America's) readiness to brand difference as something to be simplified, commodified, and distanced from, rather than something to be embraced and understood.
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