Edward Said's View Of Orientalism

For many students around the world, ethnocentrism is a real, serious issue that impedes understanding and success. One example of how this ethnocentrism invades the minds of the average American and distorts their thoughts is by asking them to compare different Asian histories or cultures, to which they will likely reply “they’re all the same.” In addition to being ethnocentric, this viewpoint is just plain wrong. Take, for example, Qing China and Tokugawa Japan. Though these two Asian empires had many things in common, they are far from being the same.

The animated classical Disney movie Aladdin has became one of the most successful movies since it was released in 1992. This movie may seem to be fairy-tale based and entertaining for children since they are the main target audience of Disney, but with a deeper look into its details this is not the reality of it. The ideas that children are exposed to from watching this movie help create and structure their mindsets as well as reinforcing unrealistic images of the Arabian world. In addition, Aladdin is a great illustrative tool in reflecting the concept of Orientalism, a term coined by Edward Said, which emphasizes on representing the Orient with certain clichés and characteristics that are misleading about the true nature of reality (Said, 1978). With that been said, this review paper will be focusing on the main characters and the way they are

Disney’s Aladdin is a fit example of misrepresentation of diverse cultures from a Westernized perspective. Disney is famous for lending representations of world from a Western viewpoint. According to Edward Said, orientalism is a way of expressing Arab peoples and Islamic cultures as compared to Western or European society (Palestine Diary). Said’s explains orientalism is the framework that we use to

In order to better understand the criticism against these Chinese writers, we must first understand what is meant by orientalist thinking or orientalism for that matter. One of the authorities on the subject, Edward Said explains the term "Orientalism" and tackles the question of East and

Considering the specific characteristics of Asian culture, the explanations can be drawn from two perspectives: what decreases the risk and what hides the risk. From general perspective to specific perspective, the following sections will compose the whole

Orientalism, as termed by Edward Said, is meant to create awareness of a constellation of assumptions that underlie Western attitudes towards the Eastern societies. While some of these opinions show the cultures in a positive light, the majority of them are biased and emphasise on depicting negative aspects as perceived by strangers to the Eastern culture.

The authors of The Bridge Betrayed and The Buddhas of Bamiyan both identify a different form of cultural eradication that occurred in within the past twenty-five years. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Serbs and Croats wanted to destroy the Bosnian Muslim symbols, culture, and population. In Afghanistan, the Taliban destroyed the Buddhas of Bamiyan, and in turn, changed the identity of Bamiyan forever. The practice of cultural eradication is not limited to these two cases. Cultural eradication has taken place throughout history involving one group’s desire to transform, absorb, and destroy a particular culture and its’ values. The desire for destruction may seem similar, however, the individual agendas that drive the eradication vary in each instance. Michael Sells explores the nationalism that is expressed by the Serbs and Croats in Bosnia that he refers to as Christoslavism. Llewlyn Morgan discusses the Taliban’s iconoclastic and political motivations to destroy the Buddhas. Both examples ultimately analyze some of the many dimensions of cultural eradication in the world.

The writers from the U.S. looks stuck in Orientalism; the perspective which believes that the Western perspective is the only way to describe the international politics in recent situations.

Kang quotes scholars saying “…there appeared to be one race, and the West had strung the tape at the finish line for others to break…” and “… many of our international-relations theories … see East Asians as identical to Westerners in goals, attitudes, and beliefs.” However, Kang argues that East Asia had a different system, even the opposite, of the European “balance of powers”. Europe’s system created unavoidable war as the states fought to stay equal.

There are fundamental differences between Eastern and Western cultures and the meeting of these cultures has had several effects, both in Asia and here in the US. Overseas, you can see the juxtaposition of American pop culture on the older modes of Asian thought and society. Here, New Age religions find new excuses in Asian religions and philosophies and Anime is appears regularly on Saturday morning cartoons. Often, this juxtaposition becomes turbulent as the younger generations are caught between two seemingly opposing cultures. As a result, crime rates rise with the integration of Western ideals and culture into Asian society. This is true here in America too as the first generation of

In brief, this study discusses about the representation of orientalism idea which is portrayed in the film Avatar. The film tells about the conflict between human and native people in Planet Pandora, where human exploits the land and oppresses the native. This study explores in what way the idea of orientalism is represented and how both narrative and non-narrative aspects of the film helped in delivering that representation.

Stuart Hall’s work introduces readers to the discourse of “the West and the Rest”, and outlines how the “system of representation” it provides serves to validate the power of the Western world (186). He highlights how the dissemination of discourse about Western superiority and the comparative “otherness” of the non-Western world work to maintain power hierarchies. Hall pinpoints several historical events, from the Crusades to colonisation, as instrumental in forming a Western identity through opposition to “the

I want to research whether portrayals of Orientalism in the media are used to retroactively justify decisions such as imperialism or the Vietnam War. I chose this topic because I found Edward Said’s theory of Orientalism very thought-provoking and wondered if it can apply to contemporary society. In addition to that, I have not seen a lot of contemporary analysis on Orientalism of Southeast Asia. My initial inspiration was when I watched the film No Escape, which seemed blatantly racist and problematic. I narrowed and refined my topic by further researching the concepts of Orientalism and otherness, and considered how they could be applied to this film. Sources that have been key in defining my research topic include scholar articles on Orientalism

The Orient refers to the space occupied by the Middle East and Northern Africa which exists in connection and opposition to the Occident--Europe (Said 5). It exists in Western eyes as the prime subject of domination and control (Said 3) as "the Oriental" is viewed as less-than-human, purely for study and academia (Said 27); it is he who is also "gullible", lazy and unmotivated, and lacks European morals such as compassion for animal welfare (Said 38). It is the "bad" Orient and must be corrected and taught proper morals (Said 99). Its women are submissive and to be spoken for by the Orientalist foreigner (Said 6), who visits not to learn about or appreciate culture but to be spectator and to gaze upon what he sees as "exotic" (Said 21), she has no temperament or lived experience beyond what is assigned to her by this outsider (Said 6). The Orient is not a real place

Orientalism is a study of language and traditions of the people and their culture in the Middle East. These studies are mostly done by people outside of the culture that is being looked at, and mostly the studies are being performed by white western men. Edward Said believed that there was a problem with the way in which other people were studying and writing about his culture. He was upset and spoke up when he wrote a booked called “Orientalism,” in his book he points out many reasons why the study of orientalism is hurting the cultures in which they are studying. The study of other cultures and countries better known as the Orient has become a popular discussion since Said’s book on orientalism was published. This paper will take a look