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Belly Questions - Page 3

© Shira

Do You Wear A Jewel In Your Navel?

Snappy Answer: No, but if you'd like to give me a 4-carat real diamond or ruby I'd be happy to wear it for you.

Earnest Answer: The practice of wearing a jewel in the navel was invented by Hollywood, under a censorship guideline known as the Hayes Code. It has absolutely no basis in Middle Eastern tradition. The Hayes Code forbade showing the navel in a movie or television show. So, during early Hollywood's fad of "sheik" and "harem" movies, the way of dodging this restriction was to put jewels into the navels of the fine young ladies who were baring their midriffs in harem fantasy costumes. Because they saw navel jewels in so many movies, both the dancers who embraced the belly dancing fad in the 1960's and "the general public" who watched them believed that they must be somehow "authentic". In those days, the U.S. had very few dance teachers who had actually gone there to research what people really did, so there was no one to tell these well-meaning people that they had the wrong idea. Consequently, misguided dancers perpetuated the myth for a decade or so, until real facts started replacing the misinformation they had been working with. Today, navel jewels are rare among "real" belly dancers, generally used only when the dancer is either doing a comedy act or striving for an "early Hollywood" theatrical effect.

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Acknowledgements

I'd like to thank The Shanmonster for giving me permission to use her snappy answer to "Do You Need A Fat Belly To Belly Dance?" To see more of her snappy answers to silly questions, visit her web site, Omphalo Stepses, at http://shanmonster.bla-bla.com/belly/ .

This article is part of the Suite101 "Middle Eastern Dance" topic area. For the other Suite101 articles, discussion forums, and opinion polls related to Middle Eastern dance, music, and culture, see the Welcome page on Suite101. For other articles written by Shira about these topics, please see Shira's own popular web site at www.shira.net.

The copyright of the article Belly Questions - Page 3 in Middle Eastern Dance is owned by Julie Elliot. Permission to republish Belly Questions - Page 3 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.