Stereotypes die hard, and none more so than outsiders' stereotypes of Japan. Time and again, they are not so much reinvented as recycled, using potent but often semi-mythical symbols from a potpourri of favorite bygone eras. In the end, they tell us more about the foreigners who have dredged them up than about anything genuinely Japanese.
As with the samurai, in whose image of stoic fearlessness many Western men see a kind of quiet, macho ideal, the geisha is stood on a pedestal as the acme of an artful and exquisite femininity. She is, in this view, the embodiment of genteel, refined expression.
This notion of the geisha has been rehashed in several works of fiction and non-fiction in recent years, the most successful being Arthur Golden's mega-bestseller, "Memoirs of a Geisha." The film version of the novel, directed by Rob Marshall, opened on Dec. 10 in Japan (under the title "Sayuri") and some two weeks later in the United States. This coming week will see its release in Britain.