Swimming Fish or Sexy Arabian Dancers?

What can I say, long time no posts.  Needless to say the past several months have kept me incredibly busy.  Finals, a taxing yet rewarding job, returning to university, and starting a new and exciting job in the world of libraries and archives has left me little free time.  As an avid podcast listener, I used to look down in disdain after refreshing a podcast that had not updated in weeks or even months.  Here I have become the very person that I disdain.  Nevertheless I hope that you all will forgive me, as I have forgiven those who have slacked off on producing content.

It is going to be a little difficult for me to jump right back into Fantasia when I have so many other places that my mind wants to take me, but I will do my best to stick to my arbitrary, though chronological schedule.

Had I just been going off of memory here I would have thought that we would finally get to move on to the Pastoral Symphony, but a quick Wikipedia search of the program has informed me that the scene with the dancing fish is set to the "Arabian Dance" movement of Tchaikovsky's  Nutcracker Suite.  This means that we can't move on quite yet.  This clip takes place right after the dancing mushrooms and right before the dancing thistles and flowers, so I apologize for breaking chronology here.  Take a look at the clip below. 

I will be the first to admit that I do not know my Middle Eastern history as well as perhaps I should.  My focus has always been, throughout my University career, on North American settlement, so forgive me if my historical references are a little scant.

Concept art - note that the character is called "Ballerina Goldfish"

I think that the best place to start here is to establish a location.  While today we think of Arabia as almost a mythical place, the Arabian Peninsula is in fact a real place.  It is a peninsula of Western Asia, located North East of Africa.

Arabian Peninsula

Historically there are two points that this region is remembered for.  Firstly it became the cradle of Islam in the 7th century.  During the mid 20th century, vast oil deposits brought the region back into the hot seat.  Though we cannot for certain say what time period Disney intended the Arabian Dance scene to take place, I think that we can safely say that these two historical points are not of great significance to our discussion.  Thus, we shall press on.

Although I did not even think about it until I found out what this segment was titled, it not seems incredible obvious that the fish are meant to portray the sensual hip swaying and bodily movements of Belly Dancing.  Belly Dancing itself is a western bastardization of more traditional folk dances of the region commonly known as Rags Sharqi.  These dances are identified as solo improvised dances based on torso articulation.  While the age and evolution of Belly Dancing are uncertain, it is certain that it is rooted in this region.

If we look at this segment from the ballet, we will see that it is not the "tantric" movements associated with Belly Dancing, but rather much more controlled movements.  Indeed is seems more like Tai Chi.  

This interpretation makes sense with the slow, pensive quality of the composition, however, Disney's interpretation leads to something much more sensual in nature, at least if you happen to be a fish.  If you have not watched the clip, go back to the beginning of this post and watch it.

Fantasia 1940

Fantasia 1940

Notice how the fish are kept in shadow for the first half of the segment.  This adds a sense of mystery to them and makes the viewer anticipate their emergence.

Fantasia 1940

The fish move in a seductive and tempting manner, their tails imitating the movements of a Belly Dancers hips, and body.  We can also interpret their tails which are mostly translucent in nature, as veils and scarves not unlike those used in Belly Dancing that we are familiar with, as in the below video.

This excerpt of Fantasia portrays the foreign women who are being represented by the fish as seductive, temptresses.  One even wonders if they are meant to be sexually deviant.  Certainly these women bore their bodies, and moved their bodies in ways that were not at all characteristic of how American women in the 1930s and would have presented themselves.  This adds an air of mystery and seduction to this scene that once may not pick up on the first several times you watch it.  I certainly did not.

I am sure that I could find other things to say about this segment but frankly, I do not feel that I have the authority to delve into it further.  If you have any ideas or comments I would love to hear them so leave them in the comments below.