Thread: "Le dernier" in orientalism - "Opium" YSL perfume ad

thought it would be fun to watch. Aways the same. The ecstasy, the being carried away in a shady twilight world...the blonde woman being contagiated, transformed into a mystic, erotical stranger...100% juicy cliché. Orientalism at it's best. What do you think? Couldn't they have gone more full blast with a prettyish zaar? How do you feel about the superblonde type in it?

btw. censored in the UK

Originally Posted by Nouria

thought it would be fun to watch. Aways the same. The ecstasy, the being carried away in a shady twilight world...the blonde woman being contagiated, transformed into a mystic, erotical stranger...100% juicy cliché. Orientalism at it's best. What do you think? Couldn't they have gone more full blast with a prettyish zaar? How do you feel about the superblonde type in it?

btw. censored in the UK

Blonde looked kind of spastic to me! I think the add would have been more effective if they had actually used a real belly dancer.

By the way, when I used to dance I ALWAYS wore Opium. The original scent of course.

Originally Posted by norma

Blonde looked kind of spastic to me! I think the add would have been more effective if they had actually used a real belly dancer.

By the way, when I used to dance I ALWAYS wore Opium. The original scent of course.

She gives me the impression of being a pro modern dancer.

(Now there's something the internet can't give us... now I want to remember what Opium smells like and Google is just no help.)

It actually didn't remind me of orientalism or belly dance. I thought it just looked like a mishmash of various thrashy/sexy/exotic images. LOL--I thought she was going to turn into a werewolf or a vampire, or she was under a voodoo spell or something.

It's a bizarre mix. A bit Hollywood superdiva (the Golden age of Hollywood of course), a bit of this metamorphosis stuff horror films have used - but they've drawn themselves from spiritual rites of ancient cultures, like a zaar or a voodoo, they didn't invent it. Actually Mélanie Thierry is a dancer, not a bellydancer. I like the setting though - they could have done better with lights and shades and obviously didn't want to go totally orientalist if not they'd sure not have chosen a blonde-blonde icon. A beautified zaar with a bellydancer could have been very much more atmospheric here. Just the ayoub rhythm only...

In my opinion this clip totally relies on orientalist cliché. There the orient was a world were travelling artists, war veterans and colonial officers - and their blonde wives! - would leave the safe grounds of their culture and probably try out forbidden things without the watchful eyes of their neighbours and family back home. Drug consumption, extatic religious rites and music and encounters with mysterious people, the smoke of pipes (shishas, maybe opium pipes?), mixes some very tempting esthetics of sin, halfconsciousness, lust and beauty - somehow unmatched!

So...anybody wanna guess why this is censored in the UK? It is weird, but no nudity, so what is the element that has caused it to be cut? Could it be the "open legged in a Mosque" pose at the end?

I read somewhere that this gesture she does (like cutting her right underarm) this was supposed to hint at drug consume.
Maybe they're also leery because of other YSL-Opium ads, notably the one David Lynch has filmed?
I guess the message drugs=fun is the problem.

Originally Posted by Nouria

I read somewhere that this gesture she does (like cutting her right underarm) this was supposed to hint at drug consume.
Maybe they're also leery because of other YSL-Opium ads, notably the one David Lynch has filmed?
I guess the message drugs=fun is the problem.

I took that finger in the elbow around the 0:30 mark to be a reference to injecting heroin.

Whatever. This ad doesn't make me want to go out and buy Opium perfume, but maybe I'm just old and crabby.

Never saw a junkie move that fast...honestly, I am more offended by the sexual context in a mosque aspect. Very poor taste. But then, I was equally offended by the Modonna Like a Prayer vid of long ago.

No it doesn't work for me neither. The cool clean look of the "diva" sort of destroys the mysterious atmosphere of the light/shade interplay of the surroundings and all in all it isn't fascinating enough, visually.

Anala, ok I didn't pay attention that it was a mosque - or that it couldn't be anything else. I don't perceive her dance as particularly sexual or lascivious though - bellydance is way more sexy in my eyes, f.e. - it's obviously meant to be ecstatic - the one moment where the thigh comes out of the dress in a side move - but all in all it seems "prude" enough to me. But then again, a woman with luscious hair- and dancing...for other feelings this is enough - especially in a religious surroundings.

I don't think that if I'd see a couple having sex in a church in a commercial ad it would hurt my feelings. But for my religious feelings, the church doesn't play a decisive role neither.

It doesn´t look like a mosque to me?Rather a hammam?

Anyway...happy I don´t have my TV connected to anything than an old VHS& a DVD player-that way no loud commercials can get in;)

I don't have a tv neither...ok you folks don't like it.
IMHO they could have made the ad better - I picture a dancer dancing to ayoub...could look wonderful.

There's a major drug reference in here when she "pricks" her right arm. After she does that, her dancing gets a bit more frenzied and erotic. I don't really pick up bellydance or orientalism in this one. To me, it was a total "opium" (drug) spot.

I don't see this as being any more ridiculous or offensive than any other perfume ad. They're all over-sexed, over-promising, nonsense designed to sell sell sell something that would probably make me break out in a rash. Just another ad using the female body to sell gods-know-what.

I didn't think the dancing looked at all like belly dancing. More just modern/theatrical/over-the-top, so I don't think it's mis-representing anything (except maybe female sexuality). And I didn't get a mosque vibe from the setting either. Just thought it looked like a very orientalist, idealized backdrop.

Frankly, I'd never buy perfume because I saw it on a commercial. Perfume has a scent. The TV/computer does not (unless it's on fire - lol).