Said's Concept if Orientalism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Saids Concept if Orientalism - Essay ExampleThe Orient (comprising of countries like the Middle East, India, China, and those lying further east) has always occupied an area of interest in spite of appearance the realms of American cultural arena. Various topics that include men, women and children from the Orient, tend to appear persistently in different cultural discussions, with the greatest and most presumably, the highest influence seen in US based TV programmes and movies. Right from the time of its initiation, Hollywood has persistently represented characters from Orient (like Chinese, Indians and Arabs) in specific exotic terms that highlight their ethnicity (Irwin, 2007, 106). Thus, against a background knowledge of stereotyped Oriental Otherness stands the Western good guys, a design of the Eastern world by its Western counterpart, which is often biased and conventionalised (ibid). It is this (mal) representation or portrayal of variousnon-western culturesby western film makers, writers, and artists, which primarily arose from European colonial/ imperialistic attitude during the 18th-19th centuries, which has been termed Orientalism, a concept derived from Edward Saids famous reserve Orientalism published in 1978. ... The Hollywood films-makers have held a continuing dominance all over the worldwide box-office right from WWI, without whatever strong or semipermanent competition from any other rival film industries. Even though there were major setbacks to Hollywood during the Great Depression and later during 1960s, their dominance over worldwide cinema remained unparalleled, thus spanning unquestioned influence over millions of viewers from all parts of the world for more than ten decades. Thus, it is understood that representation of any character(s) shown by Hollywood is bound to cast a strong influence on viewers all across the globe. Hence, one can contend that the detrimental and imagined portrayal of Orientalism has created a negative im age of these countries on the global viewers, which is purely based on lack of adequate knowledge and presumptions on the part of Hollywood. In this context, we will examine the importance of Edward Saids concept of Orientalism while analysing the dominant cinemas (Hollywoods) representation of people outside West. Discussion East is East, West is West, and neer the twain shall meet Rudyard Kipling (1932) Saids concept of Orientalism In actual perspective, Orientalism refers to Orient or East, akin to the term Occident, which means West. Said in his book Orientalism perceives the term as comprising of many false presumptions, misconceptions, and various wrong assumptions as conceived byWesterners towards those residing inEastern parts of the world (however, here it must be noted that Said primarily relates Orientalism to the Middle East, where he had spent some years as a child). As Cheryl McEwan informs, Said in