John Lennon once wrote a letter to someone who did his laundry proclaiming in big, swirly letters, with many exclamation points, that, among other things, "MRS YOKO ONO LENNON DOES NOT, WILL NOT, HAS NOT DYED HER HAIR" but goes on to say, of far more interest to someone who recently waded through quite a bit of Edward Said's "Orientalism": "SHE DOES NOT SWEAT (MOST ORIENTALS DO NOT SWEAT LIKE US)."
It's the use of the label "oriental" there, as well classifying all "Orientals" as people who do not sweat simply having been in the acquaintance of one - and here we will have to take his word for it - who does not, as well as the specific, highlighted differentiation of "US" from "them" (and how did Lennon know the nationality or ethnicity of the people doing his laundry, anyway? I'm not going to assume he did, frankly, just because he implies it, a Beatle though he may be) that begs the question: can the Lennon/Ono relationship be re-examined through Said's lens? It would be completely fascinating, and would certainly leave room for the argument that not only did Lennon Otherize the Orient, but that Ono allowed and even encouraged it, perhaps even exploited it. The Beatles had, by this point, certainly exoticized India and Hinduism, among other things. It definitely adds a new and, if you're a huge dork, compelling dimension to an already complex, oft-examined, and probably little-understood public relationship.
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