Post Colonialism+Orientalism

Identities and the Media: Post-colonialism & Orientalism

Orientalism is another key post-colonial theory - exploring the differences in representation between the western world and the east.

Edward Said - Orientalism

Edward Said (1935-2003) was a Palestinian-American cultural theorist and academic best known for his 1978 book Orientalism.

In it, he argued that the west – particularly colonising Europe – constructed a meaning of the east (e.g. The Middle East) that suggested it was different, dangerous and uncivilised.

Said was writing in the 1970s but his work is arguably even more relevant in today’s post-9/11 world.

Orientalism: blog tasks

To complete our work on post-colonial theory, work through the following tasks:

1) Watch the opening of Yasmin (2004) again. Does it offer a positive or negative view of British Muslims? To what extent does it reinforce or challenge Edward Said's theory of Orientalism - that the west is superior to the exotic or uncivilised east?

• In my opinion, the removal of the religious attire before and after the main character yasmin integrates with the rest of society is a negative stereotype. This is due to further reinforcing the idea that Islam is a religion full of extremists and women are heavily oppressed. When in reality, this is usually more of a cultural approach and interpretation and approach of the religion. 
• This would support said's theory of Orientalism as customs from eastern cultures are deemed as unacceptable and uncivilised traditions. 
• However, negative representation was shown through the native English character amongst the film. As there was vandalisation of the old Pakistani man's property. His reaction made it clear to the audience that this was repetitive issues that he has been dealing with.
• Also the fact that the protagonist was stopped by authoritative figures such as the police officer on the way back to work but not to work shows that racism and prejudices is heavily embedded within our society that it springs into the workforce.

2) Summarise the three theorists we have looked at this week: Alvarado, Fanon and Said.

Alvarado 

Exotic- this is when a group is seen as promiscuous and sexy - Latino and African women is experience this a lot.

Dangerous - when a group is portrayed to be a menace to society and uncivilised - Again a lot of Latino and Black men are stigmatised by this.

Humorous- A good example of this is within films- for example black and other minority groups play the funny sidekick.

Pitied- this is when we as an audience feel sorrow for a certain groups- for example many charity groups.

Fanon

Frantz Fanon theory describes the double consciousness experience of the colonised person the racially oppressed person continues to operate in their own culture, while at the same time are forced to process the image of themselves constructed by the likes of others.

Said

Said’s theory concentrates on the idea of  the civilised and uncivilised. also the "us and them" In addition, Orientalism is  the west attempt to  superioritise themselves over the the east and stigmatise them.

the protagonist plays a young girl who lives in West London with her traditional Punjabi Sikh Indian family and dreams of playing soccer professionally but her mother does not allow her from playing it because she is a girl.

This relates to the Said theory as her female counterparts do not relate nor deal with this issues she does. In addition, this presents her family as highly 'uncivilised' and old fashioned.





This relates Alverado theory as 'Mr chow' who is seen in all three movies is ironically not included in the cover which can be seen as because he is the side character (humorous category) due to his racial background which is Asian.
Therefore we can also relate this to Said's Theory as orientalism supports the 'us vs them' theory, not allowing a more roles given to minorities in Hollywood.