Edward Saids Orientalism and Orientalism in Aladdin - Essay Example

An Introduction to Edward Said’s Orientalism and Orientalism in Aladdin (Disney Movie). Introduction Orientalism accordingto Edward Said is the study of the representation of the culture of the people of the east that is based on the westerner’s perception and depiction. Eastern people live in Asia, North Africa, and Middle East. Said explains that Orientalism is the western learning about the East, who have remained tight and inseparable to the imperial society. Orientalism is perceived to have originated from imperialism that has made the easterners slave to power and political implication. The western have lived with subtle prejudice that is Eurocentric against the people of the east and concerning their culture. This prejudice has been developed through the romanticizing the Arab-Islamic. The perception of the western together with the Europe will remain to be justifications of the continued for colonial power and imperialization. In his book, said expresses his disgust and denounces the habit of the eastern of their malpractices arising from the internalizing the images about them by the Anglo-American orientalists. The image that the people of the West have the Arabs and moles has put the world in the fear of the Arabian military aggression. The Muslims, in an overstatement, are perceived as the providers of oil and associated with terrorism. Some crude presentation and caricatures about the Arab-Moslems has been shown as an essential step towards the world insecurity (Lewis). Usually, every film that comes out to the public is put under close study and scrutiny to outline some various attributes that concern the cultural field. This scrutiny is done to figure out and study all the positively and negatively displayed themes in the and as set within a certain block of the film. This kind of analysis has been implied in the last decade into the world of Disney movies in which many things regarding culture that appear to be very bad to the viewers than what really the entertainment in it has to say. Some of these cases include orientalism that literary stand for the class of statements put forward by the West with an aim to romanticize the people of the east and categorize them (Lewis). This also encourages some manner of cultural chauvinism that people take and impose them on other people or neighbors. Implying this fact, orientalism, therefore, has been broadly handled in the world of Disney movie because any form of discrimination in the media is highly discouraged and discriminated. Disney’s popular movie “Aladdin” strongly presents orientalism. Orientalism Orientalism is a term that was coined in the year 1978. It is a large field that covers the stereotypic depiction by the west in all areas including in literature, in arts or historical grounds. However, this term existed even as early as the nineteenth century. Scholars used to study the culture of the east and their language. They called themselves the orientalists and they went further to open schools where this aspect was practiced. In the real sense, the term Orientalism provides a distinct perspective of “us” and of “others”. It gives the definition of a hegemonic gaze that creates a form of the difference between people of different cultures. Orientalism goes to the extent of exposing the particular issue of exotic, erotic and barbarism about the east. In erotic portrayal, they tend to glamorize aspect such as belly dancing, geishas and “Kama Sutra” for sexual satisfaction only instead of cultural meaning. In barbaric elements like Islam-fascism and savage tribesmen handled basing it in Africa (Macfie). Moreover Orientalism in exotic elements include such as the warrior tradition such as samurai fashion and spices of which the westerns view it differently. All these concepts enhance the conforming of the assimilationist philosophy to the proper moral standard and layouts of learning. The western involvement in the study of the Arab civilization was based on the political intellectualization according to Said. What they did is to study was based on the self-affirmation of the Europeans and not at all for any academic importance. Therefore, for the Europeans to embrace orientalism, it was just a way of applying cultural discrimination to gain imperial domination. The claim arising from the European is that their knowledge of the Orient is far above the Orientals own understanding of themselves. The colonial dominance that the Europeans have that came as a result of the political dominance to an extent eluded the western well-meaning and sympathy (Netton). In fact, the western view of the Orient as seen in their writing clearly expresses their perception of the Arabs as weak and related to feminine weakness and on the other hand the view about the western is as high and considered masculine. Their effort to create that political difference between the two is based on the cultural essence that is inherent to the oriental people. The Arab elites over the years have kept and internalized the Arab culture that was created in their minds by the American Orientalist and the European. The colonial The Islam and Orient are considered to have some extra real, phenomenally reduced status ideally putting them beyond the reach of other people except western experts. The western perspective on the orient and the eastern perception as indicated in the issue of Orientalism should not be considered in real face value. That is because they are representations of culture formulated upon fictional images emanating from the west. Indeed, the European rule of colonialization as evident in history as well as the political domination by the civilizations of the East disfigures the objectivity of the most intellectual meaning of the western orientalist. Therefore, the word “Orientalism” can be considered a pejorative word that is intended for cultures and people who are non-western (Iwamura). The Middle East use ‘Orientalism’ as a swear-word in a generalized form. This is mostly referring to people judged as too conservative, or to people who view the Arab-Israeli dispute, in the ‘wrong’ position. There is nothing to do with whether one is good in his disciplines or not, therefore, for many people ‘Orientalism’ is a substitute for thought. This way, a number of people have dismissed particular scholars and their works; this is quite wrong and probably was not what Edward said intended at all. However, the term has gradually become a form of a slogan. In his book, said shows that oriental as a myth came as a result of the European dominance of the East. He argues that, however, dull the myth could seem, it should be considered with seriousness as it is only produced in the situation of power over another. In effect, the more powerful one is the one who will always be broad enough to write about their minor and no vice versa. It is important to note that the book is entirely based on the thought the west has about the east, and it was clearly not about explaining the importance of that thought. It was even written just before any form of cultural war emerged. This was far before word such as pluralism, relativism and multiculturalism became commonly used. Some people group him as a pluralist or others relativism of which he is entirely not (Lisa Lau). On today’s world, still there is the existence of some form of colonialism through global corporations or neo-colonialism in the western relations towards the east. It is important to note that this perception led to the major terrorist attack in the world. The concept of the conservation of the neo-colonialism created opposition to the West who wanted to reign in power by the East society. They fight to free their society of the possession of their property by the foreign tyrants. The image created by the East has come to be evil in the world than the positive intention the Eastern people has while fighting to regain their integrity. The Disney Corporation, for instance, has conquered the world by enforcing some beliefs on unknowing audience living within the territories they have conquered with the aim of healing the sick world, but in the real sense they have fulfilled the opposite with these efforts. Orientalism effects, as displayed by Disney, started in the 1940’s. They started as simple rude caricatures and funny facial distortions in presenting the minority and the eccentric behavior. Many children are attracted to the basic entertainments and pleasures of life shown or displayed by the characters in the movie. For instance, girls tend to admire beautiful princesses and love young string princes and the kind of real life they both encounter after that. But the children have no capacity of digging out the insight and the knowledge of the actual discriminating theme the movie portrays. Some ideas can be curved in them such as the fear of the minority based on the dominating, cruel superiority of the West as compared to the east (Lewis). Firm neo-conservation in the agenda is advanced by the Disney. Issues of the women passiveness and helplessness by the patriarchal reign have been promoted in the Disney films. And the women in their weakness are compared to the east by the west. In other words, the real meaning as portrayed by Disney movies is the coming to power of the capitalism and forwarding their agenda to the countries that are developing and those that are underdeveloped. Moreover, this paves the way to the dominion of the world power over the other world powers. Disney has led to the damage of the local traditions of a people and therefore loss of independence to the nations in “servitude” to the towering imperialists. The phrase “it’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home” in the movie “Aladdin” in a wider view opens the depiction of the Arabs. It comes out clearly the Arabs are seen or taken to be just vagabonds. And there is an advancement of this theme in that it is apparently put out a person’s hand is cut immediately the first time hero she is found involved in theft, of which there is no truth at all. In this movie, the Arabs are shunning to live in Arabia- an Americanised wild west that is under a reign that is ruthless. Even in the second case mention above, the cutting of hands was done in the third incidence of theft as was done to Jasmine. Also the concept of meanness as shown by the greedy merchant who refuses to offer help to the needy without payment is contrary to the Islamic belief where a wealthy person is supposed to give the needy whenever he is in need and without the ability or resources to buy it (Netton). Going to the graphic image of all the characters, they are all given a high Americanised features of an eastern person. From all the physical presentation in anatomy such as the big noses and dark skin complexion to their nature, the characters of the eastern people are what the viewers would expect of them. But when it comes to the young Aladdin, the facial descriptions together with the skin color description, the understanding of the viewers is drawn from the eastern person to the western person. Almost all the audience are tempted to love Aladdin for his skillful escapes that he makes when the masters try to find him on the account of theft. The other thing that comes out clearly when handling Aladdin is the issue about the yelling of the eastern police at Aladdin, which portrays the bloodthirsty that the eastern people are taken to have (Iwamura). Conclusion Analyzing the theme of Orientalism as found in the Disney world, as compared to the discussion by Edward Said, the orientalist gaze is in many circumstances handled openly. This is because the Disney world formulated their clips based on this theme in the effort of trying though negatively, to seek a remedy to the ill-world. This paper has clearly shown that Orientalism is something that began in Disney world in the 1940’s and has on grown. It is upon mentors and guardians to educate their children to by taking the positive part of the movie as just some kind of fantasy rather than reality lest they are impacted with the evil notion about the world around them. They should be directed to unveil the underlying truth about the truth of certain by themselves rather than depending on the evil depiction brought out by the Disney movies they watch. Works Cited Iwamura, Jane. Virtual Orientalism: Asian Religions and American Popular Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. Lewis, Reina. Gendering Orientalism: Race, Femininity, and Representation. New York: Routledge, 2013. Lisa Lau, Ana Cristina Mendes. Re-Orientalism and South Asian Identity Politics: The Oriental Other Within. New York: Routledge, 2011. Macfie, Alexander Lyon. Orientalism. New York: Routledge, 2013. Netton, Ian Richard. Orientalism Revisited: Art, Land, and Voyage. New York: Routledge, 2013. Read More