Film and Orientalism

Many Indians in the early 19 century where looked as less or lower than the white man mainly because of the concepts of Indian in the early century stating" This concept of a separate Indian/white culture, or a "racial pluralism," was central to the films of American movie pioneer, David Wark (D. W.) Griffith. Angela Aleiss. Making the White Man's Indian: Native Americans and Hollywood Movies (Kindle Locations 161-162). Kindle Edition. " Author Angela Alesis in Making the White Man's Indian uses refences, clear writing style, and great author agenda in supporting her topic on how the early 19th century through today did not correctly model what an Indian represented.

The 1987 film documentary Ethnic Notions directed by Marlon Riggs, identifies the evolution of African American cultural depictions through ethnic stereotypes and caricatures in American culture. I feel Ethnic Notions exposes the roots of false generalization from the beginning and presents a series of classifications for racial depictions that still are noticeable in today's society. These racial depictions identified with in this film begin in the mid 1800's and continue thought to the 1960's. I now after viewing Ethnic notions agree that there are generalizations and depictions that are exaggerated in American popular culture and entertainment.

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

The film Ethnic Notions examines the various caricatures of African Americans in popular culture and the consequences of these representations from the 1800s to the 1980s. The film showed how America went through a face of injustice for a period of time. The internet defines stereotype as qualities assigned to groups of people related to their race, nationality and sexual orientation, to name a few. (Kemick) Throughout American history, African Americans have been victims of stereotypes in many ways. White majority use violence caricatures, stereotypes, dominance, subordination and the media as ways to overpower African Americans.

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

A person’s heritage and cultural identity may be lost when moving to a new country where the culture is different and other cultures are not easily accepted. In the short story “Hindus”, Bharati Mukherjee uses setting, characters and the plot to discuss what it is like to lose your cultural identity while being a visible minority in America. Mukherjee uses the plot to describe the events that take place in the main characters life that lead her to realize how different the culture and life is in the America’s. She also uses the characters as a way of demonstrating how moving away from one’s culture and heritage can change a person’s perspective and ways of thinking. Mukerjee also uses setting in her story to identity the physical differences in culture between living in India and America. Alike the setting and characters, the plot helps describe the loss of culture with a sequence of events.

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.

The movies under this category have attracted the attention of many reviewers because of some reasons. The films are widely appreciated because of their wider exposition of culture as well as sophisticated and rich subject matter. The show of culture and emotional expression that the movie contains has drastically changed the description of the category from action films to relationship film. Additionally, the movies

‘Orientalism’ is Westerners have stereotypical misconceptions about Easterners. It has been presented throughout all types of both literatures and media for centuries. The Disney films are the media that has been present ‘Orientalism.’ ‘Orientalism’ has also displayed itself within the Disney films in order to create for the entertainment of the audiences especially the children. However, there are still issues especially the stereotyped characters and settings of the East within these films.

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

“Most people pronounced his last name ‘Mee-show,’ though some who knew him insist it was ‘Mi-shaw.’ The correct pronunciation of his name is only the beginning of the ambiguities and mysteries associated with Oscar Micheaux”

Over 400 hundred years there has been slavery, racism, and discrimination in America with blacks, and other minorities. A famous man once said “I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word” – Martin Luther King Jr (brain quote). The movies ‘Miracle at St. Anna’ directed by Spike Lee, and ’12 Years a Slave’ directed by Steve McQueen both show the struggle African Americans went through during a tough racial period in American history. Even today in Modern society African Americans still deal with racism. Spike

As seen in most third transnational films from Asia countries, “popular cultural products criss-cross cultural borders everyday” therefore these cultures remain circulating in transnational cinema (Aquilia 2006). The power of transnational cinema could not be ignored as global screen reflects a transnational cultural exchange (Aquilia 2006). My clip shows that those sections of films we studied consisting crossover boundaries of actors and actresses, overseas settings and different cultures portrayed. Athique also argues that non-Indians and people with little Indian history background found enjoyment in the mixture of Bombay films (Athique 2008). Thus, transnational cinema in both ways depicted the cultural identity audiences can relate to, as well as transnational culture exchange among the globe.

“...Orientalism is not so innocent a form of knowledge as this. Instead, he redefines Orientalism as the ubiquity of a sense of the division of the world into two spheres in aesthetic production, popular culture, and scholarly, sociological, and historical texts. In other words, he is suggesting that the concept of difference between east and west is a geopolitical difference which is written up throughout the texts of western culture whether through travel writing, political texts, paintings, or in academic discussions” (Sharp 2009, 31).

For years, Orientalism had explained and talked about Orient's texts, mores, traditions, civilizations and cultures and they have been put aside because they are foreigners in Europe's eyes.