The Discourse Of Orientalism In Modern America
The discourse of Orientalism is prevalent in everyday life and is often seen through movies, TV and the media. This ideology continues to perpetuate ideas of hate and indifference to many people across the globe. This is done through misguided imitations usually done by writer’s from the West. These depictions, whether they be through art or literature, usually feature a character stereotyping a form of speech, religion, or culture. These offensive imitations keep the discourse of orientalism alive and thriving in the modern age. This will continue to influence stereotypical views in new generations from the West. General orientalism asks us how we understand complete strangers who look very different then us by the color of their skin.
Orientalism tries to ask the question why, when we think of places like the Middle East. We have a preconceived notion of the type of people who live there, how they act and what they might be thinking, even though we have never traveled there or met anyone from there. Said claims that “the central argument of orientalism is the way we acquire this knowledge is not innocent or objective but the end result of a process that reflects certain interests. It is highly motivated.” Specifically, he says that “the west, Europe and the U.S. looks at the countries and peoples of the middle east through a lens that distorts the actual reality of those places and those people.The framework that we use to understand the unfamiliar and the strange. To make the people of the Middle East appear to be different and threatening.” This can also be related to how many Asians are depicted as unthreatening and easily conquerable.
Orientalism is very much alive today, in fact it may be getting worse in some regards due to a very ignorant president. While I'm sure these setbacks are only temporary, the people of tomorrow should fear the impact of his views after he leaves office. President trump has a large fan base that supports his views and are willing to get violent towards anyone who opposes them. Politically he has set an example that it’s acceptable to be sexist and racist towards certain genders and ethnicities. This is made abundantly clear with the example of Omar, a newly elected congresswoman from Minnesota. Omar currently stands for everything Trump has targeted in his regime and fights the banning of muslims from particular places in the world like Yemen. Omar is a black muslim woman who wears an hijab and believes Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) should be abolished. This makes Omar a perfect target for figures like Trump and the system he represents. In America we now have the first congress person who wears a hijab being slandered and threatened because the president doesn’t like what she stands for. He’s using his power and influence to misinform the public for political gain.There were photos uploaded of Omar next to the image of the twin towers, making her seem as though she is the terrorist herself. This makes Omar look as though she represents terrorist groups and depicts her as an insurgent, infiltrating the U.S. government.
Unfortunately the majority of Western society sees the hijab as a source of weakness, its true purpose vanishes behind the illusion of victimization. Western society views brown men as the source of this victimization. Trump uses this idea, this discourse of orientalism, to attack her way of life and put political pressure on her career and character. The hijab has received most of its popularity from the aftermath of the 9/11 incident. During the U.S. raids women were shown in pictures wearing the hijab and running from different scenes that were under attack. Sadly, the U.S. funded the taliban for over 20 years, who ultimatum ely became the biggest threat to our national security. Their relationship to misogyny and patriarchy became a very important instrument in Orientalism. It was through U.S. military assault in the war on terrorism that muslim women became liberated from muslim men. This is also where the term saving brown women from brown men came from. This all lead to the view of muslim women as being victims.
The truth is unfortunate, but today Muslims are heavily stereotyped in general. Orientalism has created this idea that Muslims are either scared immigrants running to America for protection or are here to plan something sinister. This form of Orientalism continues to negatively impact the lives of the Muslim community here in America. They are seen as either a terrorist, are related to one, or a victim of terrorism. These are the images of today that we get to add to the repertory of orientalism for tomorrow.
“Aladdin” is a perfect example of modern day orientalism. It became one of the most popular Disney movies to date since its release in November of 1992. Disney was known for stories in cartoon animation targeted at children. The movie depicts a life of poverty that people in the Middle East experience. The soundtrack in the original movie also paints this Arabic world as a poverty stricken land, filled with blood thirsty barbarians. The movie also made sure to have all of the protagonist have American accents while all the antagonist have thick Arabic accents. This portrayal of the Middle East creates a misguided view of what life is like there and shows it to young Western audiences. This creates a stereotypical outlook of the Arab world.
The images from movies like these are the first interaction many American kids had with their “foreign” imagination. These images and stories help to shape the way kids will see that particular culture in their mind. This is the repertory of Orientalism. As people get older, there continues to be more negative information heard, which solidifies the stereotypes. In the example of Aladdin, the idea of Orientalism seems to have been pushed on all children who watched Disney movies. This isn’t the only movie to do this either, more recently another movie The Dictator which came out in 2012 also created the same misguided stereotypical portrayals of the Middle East.
Orientalism is not limited to the Middle East, but is prevalent in the far East as well. Today, Asain men and women are still being stereotyped collectively as a whole. Most American’s do not recognize the difference between Korean, Chinese, and Japanese and assume that all Asain people are the same. For the last 15 years a show called South Park has had a white man speaking in a horribly racist Chinese accent because he thinks he’s Chinese. This very popular show had people from the age of 10 to 16 speaking in this accent all over schools and playgrounds because the media illustrated it as comedy.
This sends a message to adolescent teenagers that asian men talk funny and should be laughed at and looked down upon. This also makes asain men look weak and feminized. The asain women are less than sensual and are considered passive. This makes the women appear easily conquered and passive. This behavior goes with the assumption that the western culture is trying to make the asain culture look outdated and weak in comparison to the superior Western culture. Said claims this is the discourse of the Orient, and argues that it is an invention of the West. The discourse of the orient has been maintained for hundreds of years by people simply talking about the stories they’ve heard or published articles. People in colonial times wanted the asain culture to be looked down upon for being different. Anything that was different or foreign was considered to be “less than” and worse than way of life of the colonizers. Also the view of the “little man” from the East rising up to conquer the western world seems silly if you paint them out to be savage people living in harsh conditions and speaking a language considered to be less superior then the one that your society uses. Of course it could be something else entirely.
An important author by the name of Antonio Gramsci raises the question of “who gets to decide what gets remembered and what gets forgotten”. Who decides what gets to be turned into a statue for the rest of us to reflect upon. This helps us to understand a term called hegemony which Gramsci presents as a series of shared events that everyone comes to agree to and consent to as history. Instead of listening to what other people say about history, one should look to the infinity of traces that history has left behind. This comes from a famous quote written by Gromsci in the prison notebooks that read, “history has left us with an infinity of traces.” Like Gromsci said the discourse of orient is the missing link. In terms of history, maybe things in the past happened that caused this discourse of the orient to be created in order to cover something up. The past is already twisted and disturbing, it wouldn’t be hard to imagine something even more sinister happening. It may be possible that colonial powers in charge at the time decided to spin the reality of what happened in order to gain histories favor. Perhaps anyone who knew about it was silenced or made out to be a crazy conspiracy theorist. Even if none of those things are close to being true, Gramsci’s ideas still bring significance to the way orientalism could have been formed and how people in power like the government can create imaginary news to cover up a hurtful truth. Today we pay for the decisions made in history by people in power who refused to end the discourse and promote peace.
