Representations of Asians/Africans in Hollywood Films - Literature review Example

ESSAY By Name Course Instructor Institution City/State Date Representations of Asians/Africans In Hollywood Films in the Context Of Edward Said's Thesis on 'Orientalism', Stuart Hall’s Re-Representation Approach, and Western Hegemony in general Introduction Edward Said’s work on Orientalism is until now considered to be very controversial. According to Said, Orient is indisputably an invention of the Westerners, a means through which to differentiate between the West and East, brown man and a white man. Even though this Orient is nonexistent, the concept has defined and continues defining the world. Oriental has been defined by Said as the ostensibly opposite of the Westerner or Occidental. Said argued that when people distanced themselves from their opposite, they appropriate the entire cultures free of the responsibility of defending their colonialist actions. This piece seeks to demonstrate how the West continues to visualise Africans and Asians in Orientalist-terms, particularly in the cultural stereotypes that the Hollywood’s film industry produce and promote. Without a doubt, the film is a crucial facet of multiculturalism and it is Hollywood’s main export which deprecates all inherent politicalness, but all the characters are politicised. Films are ubiquitously in all countries, languages, cultures, and society levels. Film mass production has spread to different cultural domains such as software, photography, painting, television, and radio. That is to say, the cultural production is no longer dominated by literature. Therefore, if the members of the audience fail to decipher the difference between a stereotypical African/Asian content and a real one, then the whole race is likely to descent to the distorted images that portrays them. The objective of this piece is to examine the Asians/Africans representations in Hollywood films in the Context of Edward Said's thesis on 'Orientalism', Stuart Hall’s re-representation approach, and western hegemony in general. Analysis As mentioned by Horton et al. (1999), Africans have continually been treated as second-class citizens considering that they were taken to America forcibly as white man’s slaves. Hitherto, Africans are yet to be treated as entirely equal to whites. They are normally stereotyped as spineless, stupid, lazy, unwise, irresponsible, submissive, self-indulgent, aggressive, sub-human, as well as animal-like creatures. Such demeaning stereotypes have been supported and improved by the negative portrayals of Africans/blacks in Hollywood’s films. In early films, the directors refused to hire black actors for the roles of the black characters; therefore, this resulted in debasing stereotypes since the films were presenting the blacks in an inauspicious manner. Besides that, the films deliberately portrayed the Africans with negative stereotypes which buttressed the white supremacy over the minority groups. As a result, the way the society view Africans and other black people have been impacted tremendously. The films, according to Horton et al. (1999), set the tone for the images, values, as well as morals of the people’s culture. The majority of people in America believe that the demeaning stereotypes of Africans are real rather than fiction. This demonstrates that what people see on the films can define the way they perceive other people. Therefore, the representations of Africans as aggressive and irresponsible creatures are still evident at the moment and if such representations are not extinguished from the films, the white will continue regarding the Africans as second-class citizens. Children can hardly differentiate stereotype from reality; therefore, when ideals and images presented take hold and get reinforced over years, they could become reality. In his thesis, Edward Said attacks Orientalists for misrepresenting as well as stereotyping Orientals. Said argues that the Orient was invented by Europeans, and since the olden days Europe has been a place of haunting memories, exotic beings, romance, as well as extraordinary experiences. According to Said, Orientalism is a major dimension of contemporary political-intellectual culture, and it is more unrelated to Orient as compared to ‘our’ world. Therefore, the Orient was imagined, created and it infiltrated all those writing and thinking about it. Said emphasises that the manufactured Orient was a contributor to and an outcome of Western power over the Orientals and Orient. The connection between Orient and Occident is the relationship of domination, power, and different levels of complex hegemony. Said stresses that Orientalism is not unintentional, but an element of power structure; therefore, the power/knowledge system is a durable and powerful structure everywhere it exists (Scurry, 2010). According to Wang (2014), when Americans started being obsessed with appropriation of Mesoamerican architecture, art, and history in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as a means of promoting American exceptionalism, the inclusion of the traditional Western values into films started happening in the ‘Orient’ in reaction to the increased patchy shifts in acceptance of anti-gender inequity, anti-homophobia, and anti-racism in society. Wang (2014) argues that Hollywood was the balm to the disquiet amongst the people in the society since it was compelled to face up to the slow but insightful societal shift into a diversified population. Therefore, fiction turned out to be an escapism tool; fantasy films and science fiction were essentially utilised as suitable genres where to either ward off the changing paradigms or criticise the ongoing social repressions by portraying the world that had different paradigms. Clearly, superimposing a different culture or setting using the white supremacist, heteronormative, and patriarchal Hollywood’s conventions that are well understood by the audiences helped to remove anxieties; thus, foreignness was made more palatable for the viewers. Late in the 20th century, Hollywood’s films started featuring some Asian-American actors such as Margaret Cho and Jackie Chan so as to facilitate a smooth transition to the mainstream popular culture, particularly amongst the filmmakers. Besides that, the growing fame of Japanese trading card, game, and animation exports like Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokémon resulted in numerous new children’s programming pieces in the early 21st century such as Warner Brothers’ Jackie Chan Adventures, Cartoon Network' Samurai Jack, Disney’s Jake Long, and many others. The majority of these new series were purposely made for the youth demographics, and they featured context-appropriate and positive representations of various cultures, particularly East Asian cultures. The filmmakers’ desire to explore Asian cultures can be evidenced by ‘Avatar’ movies, whereby the Pacific Islander and South Asian and aesthetics and cultures were incorporated; thus, making the movies the most culturally-inclusive film up to now. Negative representations of the Asians in the Hollywood’s films have been extended to their bodies; for instance, when it was reported by news outlets that Lucy Liu, an Asian actress was to play the role of Joan Watson in the Elementary film, many white viewers expressed their dissatisfactions. This resulted in an outbreak of heated debate that ranged from optimism to uncertainty to indignation. The majority of the critics were angered by the fact that Lucy Liu, an Asian American woman was playing a role originally meant for a white British man. The critics emphasised that casting Lucy Liu in the series would destroy the source material’s sanctity. Many believed that if Liu played the role of Watson in the film, she would inherently turn out to be inferior since she was neither British nor white. This clearly indicates that the society is undecided towards reversing ‘Anglo-heteronormativity’. Elementary film is a contemporary example of how the Asian Americans are being represented in the mainstream media. Furthermore, it appears that the filmmakers have started opening their doors to characters of colour. Still, many films are representing Asians together with their culture as people focussing more in their ancient past. Although Asia has started becoming more competitive as compared to the Western markets, it is evident that globalisation is not one and the same with cultural homogeneity. Whereas martial arts stars like Jackie Chan and Jet Li managed to enter the American markets devoid of watering their Asian identities down, many other Asian actors are still struggling to enter the market. According to Berry (2009), stereotypes have enabled the audiences to identify the behaviour expectations or the value system of the film characters, in terms of their possessions, accent, appearance, name, and so forth. As a result, such cues enable the viewers to weigh the character against their individual value system as well as identify their character’s role. A bad character, for instance, is normally dressed in dark clothing, grins mischievously and has a weapon while a hero wears light or white clothing and is well liked and good-looking all through the film. Therefore, stereotypes have become shortcuts to the development of film characters and create a starting point for mass entertainment. Orientalism, according to Said, is a Western style for restructuring, dominating, as well as overpowering the Orient. This can be evidenced by the relationship between the Egyptian courtesan and Flaubert, whereby the former was neither allowed to speak of herself nor represent her history, presence, or emotions. Instead, Flaubert represented and spoke for her. Flaubert was a foreigner, somewhat affluent, and masculine. These were historical specifics of dominion that enabled him not physically possess and speak for Kuchuk Hanem. Said posit that this type of Oriental woman demonstrates the common Orient representations; in the Hollywood’s films, the representation power belongs to the West rather than to the Africans and Asians. Africans have continually been represented by the West since the film has made their audience believe that Africans cannot represent themselves. In the Marco Polo film, there are scores of exotic scenes that satisfy the viewers’ desire for something thrilling and different. The Weinstein Company’s film was initiated by John Fusco, an enthusiast of martial arts, Chinese culture, and admire of Marco Polo (a Venetian merchant traveller). As a result, the film generates a more fantasy as compared to historical reality representation, with Marco Polo involvement in the war between the Song court and Kublai Khan, Kong Fu fights, as well as the passionate relationship between Princess Kokachin and Marco. The film was shot in Malaysia in order to provide representations of Chinese and Mongolian cultures when representing the Song court as well as Khan’s court (Yan, 2015). With the view to the film, it is evident that it is exceedingly challenging to avoid the ‘Other’ representations; therefore, stereotypes are there for reasons. The Orientalism theory could be applied to China as represented by the Western films. The Marco Polo film has placed stereotypical and ‘Othering’ elements in a way that is a non-offensive. By including both the Mongolian and Chinese culture cultures, the film offers an expression of ‘Othering’ and it shows the audience that Marco Polo turned out to be an important historical figure because of his bravery, intelligence, his fondness to the ‘Other’, and curiosity to new things. Clearly, the ‘Other’ will forever be different from the ‘self’ in the diversity world and stereotypes are there to stay. At its core, Orientalism, as mentioned by Lachenal (2016), is a validation for imperialism, where the East is represented as undeveloped and somehow inferior to the West. Molina-Guzmán (2016) posits that although women are these days included in films as directors, creators, and writers, ethnic and racial minorities are still being excluded from all realms of the film. Hollywood is until now functioning as a club for superior whites, where minority groups such as Africans have to apply for jobs. Cultural representations were conceptualised by Stuart Hall as a complex set of interpretative as well as production practices informed by the society’s values and norms; thus, they are permeated with social meaning. As an international dominant producer as well as supplier of cultural representations, Hollywood is still plagued with racial and ethnic challenges. Hall argued that historical ‘Othering’ reproduction through distinction of racial and ethnic stereotypic binary representations was indicative of hegemonic pull and push of power. Therefore, Hollywood’s unchanging nature is attributed to the fatal coupling of power as well as difference while racial groups and majority ethnic try to retain political and cultural control. The tendency of the mainstream media toward binary representations, structural stability, and homogeneity of Otherness is brought forth by explicit and implicit racial biases by those who can control the popular narratives and images production such as Hollywood. According to Molina-Guzmán (2016), contemporary conflicts with regard to Hollywood’s lack of diversity as well as the produced representations demonstrates the role played by the civil society to balancing relations between various societal forces. With view the exceptionalism frame, Hollywood has made some improvements through exceptional individuals’ narratives as demonstrated in the films Fresh off the Boat and Empire. This frame is operational in the environment of news media which privileges success stories as well a cultural setting which allows for ‘entrepreneurial self’ branding. How filmmakers frame minorities group can be evidenced by the Lone Ranger, which demonstrates that stereotypes in films cannot fade away; instead, they show the audience how to fit in different contextual realities (Stiffler, 2013). As mentioned by Aucoin (2014), asian characters are normally featured in superhero films to primarily fulfil stereotypes, where they are defined through their identity as Asian. Akin to Africans, the Asians, particularly Chinese normally play the roles of ancient mystery, sensitivity, decadence, cruelty, asceticism, hedonism, as well as frugality in Hollywood’s films (Harrison et al., 2017). Power disparities between racial groups’ access to and ownership of cinematic production demonstrate that the Africans and other marginalised groups still have limited control over the mass media production and this limit their ability to face up to unending racial stereotypes which affect the social behaviour. In addition, the cinematic images production underrepresentation has limited Africans ability to include their cultural values and worldviews in Hollywood’s cultural artefacts. As mentioned by Erigha (2017), insufficient cinematic production representation has resulted in multifaceted disadvantages, which consequently, have limited the Africans ability to disseminate ideologies and perspectives, support work opportunities for other minorities, sustain their job as film producers, and to create their cultural narratives and myths. In Hollywood, black directors are strangely underrepresented at major studios and also on the core cultural products. For Hollywood to be deracialized, integrating the blacks into Hollywood as film directors have to be improved. Although the racial landscape in America has experienced major changes, racism is still systemic in Hollywood. Clearly, social practices, institutions, and relationships are not racially connected through the racialization process, but they have been offered racial meaning. Conclusion In conclusion, this piece has examined the Asians/Africans representations in Hollywood films in the Context of Edward Said's thesis on 'Orientalism', Stuart Hall’s re-representation approach, and western hegemony in general. Despite the political power as well as rights that Africans and other minorities have gained, the racist beliefs and supremacist ideologies which were indoctrinated into the Americans’ mind have been reversed in recent times. Still, the ideas which were embedded in the Americans mindset for many years have resulted in segregation, which is a less cognisant variant. Segregation has become a subtle practice, which is the ‘crown jewel’ of the film, media and entertainment industries. The minorities group (Asians and Africans) normally cast as leeches to the American whites or as criminals. The inescapable stigmas, as well as negative stereotypes which many people think were disregarded after the segregation shackles were broken, are being propagated by Universal Studio's, NBC's, Paramount Pictures, and ABC's of the world. Regrettably, segregation is resurfacing in big screen movies, newscasts and sitcoms. In the past, how minorities were portrayed in the films was not ideal. Most of the minorities groups appear in the Hollywood’s films in disparaging roles and sometimes they fail to appear at all. Africans have become victims of the film industry, which depends on old ideas in order become appealing to the ‘majority’ to the detriment of the inconsequential ‘minority’. Still, it is unfair to entirely blame the white males running the film industry since even some black entertainers are also perpetuating such stereotypes. In Hollywood, Asians representations are almost non-existent. The blacks are equated in Hollywood to diversity while the Asian characters are still swamped with whitewashing or stereotypes. References Aucoin, J., 2014. The Superhero Diversity Problem. [Online] Available at: HYPERLINK "http://harvardpolitics.com/books-arts/superhero-diversity-problem/" http://harvardpolitics.com/books-arts/superhero-diversity-problem/ [Accessed 6 June 2017]. Berry, E.F., 2009. A Comparative Study of African American Representations in Film from Original to Remake as Influenced by the Civil Rights Movement. Thesis. Orono, ME: University of Maine. Erigha, M., 2017. On the margins: black directors and the persistence of racial inequality in twenty-first century Hollywood. Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 33, no. 3, pp.1-18. Harrison, P., Yang, Y. & Moyo, K., 2017. Visual representations in South Africa of China and the Chinese people. Journal of African Cultural Studies, vol. 29, no. 1, pp.25-45. Horton, Y., Price, R. & Brown, E., 1999. Portrayal of Minorities in the Film, Media and Entertainment Industries. [Online] Available at: HYPERLINK "https://web.stanford.edu/class/e297c/poverty_prejudice/mediarace/portrayal.htm" https://web.stanford.edu/class/e297c/poverty_prejudice/mediarace/portrayal.htm [Accessed 8 June 2017]. Lachenal, J., 2016. Orientalism, Whitewashing, and Erasure: Hollywood’s Historic Problem With Asian People. [Online] Available at: HYPERLINK "https://www.themarysue.com/orientalism-whitewashing-hollywood-history/" https://www.themarysue.com/orientalism-whitewashing-hollywood-history/ [Accessed 6 June 2017]. Molina-Guzmán, I., 2016. #OscarsSoWhite: how Stuart Hall explains why nothing changes in Hollywood and everything is changing. Critical Studies in Media Communication, vol. 33, no. 5, pp.438-54. Scurry, S.T., 2010. Orientalism in American Cinema: Providing an Historical and Geographical Context for Post- Colonial Theory. Thesis. Clemson, SC : Clemson University. Stiffler, M.J., 2013. Arabs, Muslims, and the Legacy of Media Stereotypes. [Online] Available at: HYPERLINK "http://www.arabstereotypes.org/blog/201307/31-419" http://www.arabstereotypes.org/blog/201307/31-419 [Accessed 6 June 2017]. Wang, A., 2014. 21st Century Orientals: The Displacement of Eastern Identities in Contemporary Hollywood Adaptation. Thesis. Wellesley, MA: Wellesley College. Yan, X., 2015. The Representation of China as the “Other” in Western Films and TV productions: a case study of Marco Polothemed Films. Thesis. Groningen, Netherlands: University of Groningen. Read More

Such demeaning stereotypes have been supported and improved by the negative portrayals of Africans/blacks in Hollywood’s films. In early films, the directors refused to hire black actors for the roles of the black characters; therefore, this resulted in debasing stereotypes since the films were presenting the blacks in an inauspicious manner. Besides that, the films deliberately portrayed the Africans with negative stereotypes which buttressed the white supremacy over the minority groups. As a result, the way the society view Africans and other black people have been impacted tremendously.

The films, according to Horton et al. (1999), set the tone for the images, values, as well as morals of the people’s culture. The majority of people in America believe that the demeaning stereotypes of Africans are real rather than fiction. This demonstrates that what people see on the films can define the way they perceive other people. Therefore, the representations of Africans as aggressive and irresponsible creatures are still evident at the moment and if such representations are not extinguished from the films, the white will continue regarding the Africans as second-class citizens.

Children can hardly differentiate stereotype from reality; therefore, when ideals and images presented take hold and get reinforced over years, they could become reality. In his thesis, Edward Said attacks Orientalists for misrepresenting as well as stereotyping Orientals. Said argues that the Orient was invented by Europeans, and since the olden days Europe has been a place of haunting memories, exotic beings, romance, as well as extraordinary experiences. According to Said, Orientalism is a major dimension of contemporary political-intellectual culture, and it is more unrelated to Orient as compared to ‘our’ world.

Therefore, the Orient was imagined, created and it infiltrated all those writing and thinking about it. Said emphasises that the manufactured Orient was a contributor to and an outcome of Western power over the Orientals and Orient. The connection between Orient and Occident is the relationship of domination, power, and different levels of complex hegemony. Said stresses that Orientalism is not unintentional, but an element of power structure; therefore, the power/knowledge system is a durable and powerful structure everywhere it exists (Scurry, 2010).

According to Wang (2014), when Americans started being obsessed with appropriation of Mesoamerican architecture, art, and history in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as a means of promoting American exceptionalism, the inclusion of the traditional Western values into films started happening in the ‘Orient’ in reaction to the increased patchy shifts in acceptance of anti-gender inequity, anti-homophobia, and anti-racism in society. Wang (2014) argues that Hollywood was the balm to the disquiet amongst the people in the society since it was compelled to face up to the slow but insightful societal shift into a diversified population.

Therefore, fiction turned out to be an escapism tool; fantasy films and science fiction were essentially utilised as suitable genres where to either ward off the changing paradigms or criticise the ongoing social repressions by portraying the world that had different paradigms. Clearly, superimposing a different culture or setting using the white supremacist, heteronormative, and patriarchal Hollywood’s conventions that are well understood by the audiences helped to remove anxieties; thus, foreignness was made more palatable for the viewers.

Late in the 20th century, Hollywood’s films started featuring some Asian-American actors such as Margaret Cho and Jackie Chan so as to facilitate a smooth transition to the mainstream popular culture, particularly amongst the filmmakers. Besides that, the growing fame of Japanese trading card, game, and animation exports like Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokémon resulted in numerous new children’s programming pieces in the early 21st century such as Warner Brothers’ Jackie Chan Adventures, Cartoon Network' Samurai Jack, Disney’s Jake Long, and many others.

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