Example Of A Geisha Argumentative Essay

Geisha, shrouded in mystery, is an understandably fascinating subject. However, it is precisely the elusiveness of geisha that makes their image vulnerable to misconstruction. Geisha have been romanticised in much of Western literature to become for “male entertainment and pleasure” (Foreman, 2008, 2). I argue that the popular portrayals of geisha as being the Oriental feminine ideal, which has been “fetishized as the embodiment of perfect womenhood and genuine exotic femininity” (Le Espiritu 1997, 96-7 cited in Foreman, 2008, 10) are not only inaccurate, but highly problematic as well.

First, the inaccurate portrayal of geisha is problematic because it constitutes a type of morally flawed cultural appropriation. The controversy surrounding

Golden’s selective omission and reconstruction of details lead to wilful misrepresentation that is harmful to geisha as a cultural group. Further research reveals Golden’s depiction of geisha as being a form of prostitutes to be erroneous. While the erotic aspect of a geisha’s work is omnipresent, it is arguably product of the artistic aspect of their work and hence secondary, rather than overt and central to their work (Foreman, 2008, 114). The exploitation and perpetuation of a stereotype that portrays geisha to be little more than glamourized prostitutes (which at best has partial accuracy) as exemplified by Golden deprives geisha of the “right” “all people have…to their culture” (Margalit and Halbertal, 1994 cited in Young, 2008, 24), in this case specifically to accurate representation. This is a problem exacerbated by geisha’s fast dwindling numbers, which “leaves them vulnerable in ways that cultures with millions of members are not” (Young, 2008, 107). Geisha hence face significant difficulty in correcting this wrongfully sensationalised legacy of their cultural group once imbibed by mainstream