Imperialism began with Western European countries looking to expand their reach of influence on the East. These countries would conquer and colonize any region not of the West in hopes of bettering their economy or to help the native people they found in the East, carry up the “The White Man’s Burden.” When meeting the native people, Westerners named the things from the East “Orient,” and along with this name came many stereotypes and assumptions of the people and the land. Although, imperialism is no longer present, effects such as orientalism still resonates within the culture being expressed through media such as the Academy Award winning movie of the year Argo. Orientalism is the misconception by Westerners of foreign people from the …show more content…
Argo, a movie about the Iran-American conflict of 1979, is primarily set in the Middle East where all the inhabitants are wrongly depicted as full of mindless rage, screaming, irrational, and reasonless mobs. In 1891, French economist and journalist, Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, stated about the colonies of the Orient “a great part of the world is inhabited by barbarian tribes or savages, some given over to wars without end and to brutal customs, and others knowing so little of the arts and being so little accustomed to work and to invention that they do not know how to exploit their land and its natural riches. They live in little groups, impoverished and scattered.” Argo having strikingly similar depictions of Eastern people over a hundred years later raises the question “has the Western perspective of the East changed?” Even though a century has past, orientalism is still present, and it is being fueled by media, technology, and even Hollywood, a place thought to have the most authentic representations. Since Westerners discovered the Orient, they have been characterized generically as …show more content…
Through the whole movie there is never an intimate interaction between two Iranians, they have no opportunity to humanize the Iranian country as a whole. Therefore, the audience is led to believe that all of Iran is represented by the generic description and hostile toward Americans. The closest interaction is when the house maid gives up the six diplomats, and even in that the Iranians are shown with more flaws, treachery and betrayal. This puts Iran as a country the antagonist of the movie based on these false characteristics and the events in the movie, many of which were exaggerated or created. Argo proves that Orientalism is still impactful today, and the West still sees the East in a like manner of that in the 1800’s. Because Orientalism is still a factor, the question then therefore would be “why does Orientalism exist and what is its purpose?” Edward Said, a literary theorist and critic poses the response as “Orientalism can be discussed and analyzed as the corporate institution for dealing with the Orient—dealing with it by making statements about it, authorizing views of it, describing it, by teaching it, settling it, ruling over it: in short, Orientalism as a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and
Imperialism is the practice by which powerful nations or peoples seek to extend and maintain control or influence over weaker nations or peoples. By the 1800’s, the Western powers had advantages in this process. They led the world in technological advances, giving them a dominance when conquering other countries. The European Imperialists made attempts to conquer China and Japan. In this process, they succeeded by influencing Japan greatly. However, they were not as successful with China.
Imperialism is the colonizing of weak peoples by stronger nations and sucking all of the natural resources out of their land. The age of Imperialism was in the late 1800s through the early 1900s. The main region that was the sovereign states in this time period was Europe. Imperialism is viewed negatively because it was enforced with excessive violence. Avatar mirrors the Age of Imperialism and how it was enforced with the military powers at play, the attempt to use economic influence, and the attempt to assimilate native people.
Orientalism is the way that the Middle East is depicted by its’ friendly acquaintances over in the West. In other terms, it is a “racist discourse which constructs the orient for Western aggrandizement.” The way that the Afghans are depicted in the film alongside Rambo makes the audience sympathize with them. The little boy also looks up to Rambo. He looks up to him a masculine father-figure. Using th...
It is often said that history is written by the victor, and in the race to industrialization of the past two centuries, Western Europe and the United States have emerged as the victors. This enabled them to write a history in which their rise to power was preordained and inevitable and in which Eastern cultures are viewed as backward and intolerant. These Eurocentric histories have so fully permeated the global psyche that the stereotypes they have perpetuated inform our cultural interactions to this day. However, an unbiased look at the premodern history of Asia and the Middle East reveals the inaccuracy of the Eurocentric paradigm. Contrary to the Eurocentric view, there is nothing inherently intolerant about Islam or Middle Eastern and East Asian culture. In fact, many of the societies that have existed in the East have been extraordinarily tolerant and heterogeneous.
Orientalism, which became famous as a term after Edward Said’s book written in 1978, explains a power relation between the Orient and the Occident inspiring from the Foucault’s The Archeology of Knowledge and
Introduction: The epoch of imperialism cannot be defined simply as a proliferation of inflated egos tied to the hardened opinions of nationalists, but also a multi-faceted global rivalry with roots of philosophies tainted with racism and social Darwinism. The technique of each imperialist was specific to the motivations and desires of each combative, predominantly Western power and subsequently impacted the success of each imperialist and its colonies. Driven by industrialization, Europeans are aware of the urgent need for raw materials and new markets to maintain a constant rate of expansion and wealth. Imperialism became a competition; in general, the European countries led with fervor while the non-Western regions deemed likely to be stepped on.
This leading to the east to Occidentalism, the negative, positive and/ or stereotypical perspective of the west by Eastern societies. After World War II, the English language and subject manner were found in Asian culture, specifically Japan, which has incorporated such themes in multi-genre based cartoons called animes. However, a huge margin of people from countries such as Iraq finds the west overbearing and power hungry. (Said, Orientalism,1978)
Although it is assumed that most movies in social studies classes have no relevance to the content area, the movie “Avatar” is viewed in social studies and displays multiple examples of Imperialism, a content area of social studies. In Avatar, humans are colonizing a foreign planet named Pandora without any regard to the indigenous people, the Na’Vi with the sole intentions of obtaining unobtainium, a resource. This is just like how the British colonized foreign countries for their resources, such as Africa. The notion of colonizing other nations to require resources is a part of Imperialism and the movie portrayed it. Also, Colonel Miles Quaritch from Earth talked about how if the Na’Vi didn’t subdue to Earth or cooperate then war against them
Ebrey, Patricia , Anne Walthall, and James Palais. "The Age of Western Imperialism." Modern East Asia From 1600. Second Edition ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2009. 295-367. Print.
Imperialism - the dominance by one country of the political, economic, or cultural life of another country. European Imperialism did not begin until the 1800's. Because of its significant gain in power, and economic and military strength, Europe began an expansion that modern historians call the "new imperialism. " This process leads to Europeans feeling racially superior. Because of this, "they applied Darwin's ideas about Natural Selection and survival of the fittest to human societies" (Various).
The West uses its superiority, creating a bubble, filtering facets of the unknown to its own liking, further altering the unfamiliar, creating the separation of the Occident and the Orient, which instills a fear to truly understand unfamiliar. “…[T]he hegemony of European ideals about the Orient, themselves reiterating European superiority over Oriental backwardness usually overriding the possibility that a more independent, or more skeptical, thinker might have had different views on the matter” (Said 15). The West in many ways was born from the East, it provided the foundation for the development of Western civilization and was a main source for the expansion of the West’s languages. The West did not believe that the East was synonymous with itself, whether it was because of skin color, language barrier, cultural differences, political disparities, or social discrepancies, the West exploited these differences and characterized them as “evil”. With this new ideology, the West emerged itself in a one-sided struggle for power with the East, and the struggle was powered by the boundaries set in place for the fear of a potential loss of self-identity. This was how the binary thought process was born, and it gave the West justification for the false labeling of the East, and with
Imperialism resembles Hurricane that spins all over the world in order to demolish the countries and crush the people. Imperialism is the oppression and enslavement of other people’s like European colonialism in the 19th century that appeared the Nationalism as a powerful force. Imperialism, sexism and racism are all kinds of dominations. In the nineteenth century, the European empires had racism towards the non-white people, and they served only to whites. The novel Heart of Darkness and the Apocalypse Now are examples of the Imperialism.
People of different cultures have always intimidated other humans. From the beginning of time people have been hesitant of those who looked different or believed in different things. In the past when humans do not understand something, they try to create an explanation. Sometimes throughout history when people try to explain phenomenon they don't understand their explanations have no substantial merit or rationel. This has caused myths, legends and beliefs about other ways of life that are horrendously inaccurate. The world is much more progressive and insightful now than it was 500, 300 or even 100 years ago. Sadly, despite this improvement our world still suffers from segregation. Orientalism is a theory written by Edward Said, that
When in 1978 Edward W. Said published his book Orientalism, it presented a turning point in post-colonial criticism. He introduced the term Orientalism, and talked about 2 of its aspects: the way the West sees the Orient and the way the West controls the Orient. Said gave three definitions of Orientalism, and it is through these definitions that I will try to demonstrate how A Passage to India by E. M. Forster is an Orientalist text. First, Said defined Orientalism as an academic discipline, which flourished in 18th and 19th century.
The orient has been fundamental in defining the West as its contrasting image, idea, personality, experience. The West comes to know itself by proclaiming via orientalism everything it believes it is not. European culture gained its strength and identity by setting itself off against the orient as a sort of surrogate and even underground self (Said 3).