“Priyanka Chopra and the Problems With “Exotic””

“Having always had a disdain for the word exotic, the stereotype really hit home for me a few weeks ago when I posted a photo of myself on Facebook and someone commented saying that I looked “so exotic.” My first reaction was “Why the hell would someone call me that?” and that led to reading on the word’s etymology. There’s a lot of interesting literature around the word, but here’s a little snippet on its fairly recent use: To begin with, “exotic” is a term that one is technically supposed to use for animal and plant species, not humans. It is a word that has historical weight — exotic has long been used to define the “otherness” of “The Orient.” Edward Said, in his groundbreaking work Orientalism, defined “the Orient” as “almost a European invention… a place of romance, exotic beings, haunting memories and landscapes, remarkable experiences.”

In her video “Exotic,” Chopra delivers exactly that. Confirming to the norms and objectifying herself as an “exotic” woman does not help the women of color and particularly doesn’t help women of South Asian decent. But more than that, “exotic” is also a micro-aggressive term — it feeds off how different that person looks. If you call someone “exotic” you are also, in a way, fetishizing them for not being white."

So real. I wrote a ranty thing about exoticism one time in college, just for myself, because I think it captures a lot about the flawed approach that “colorblind” white America can have to the scattered brown people in their midst.