Cypress College Orientalism Sociology Muslim Discussion

 

 

After  watching the video on Orientalism by Edward said, respond to one of the  questions below. Also, reply to another student’s comments.

1. How is Orientalism tied up with the political and social project of war, colonization and imperialism?

2. Said was writing this in the late 1970s. Do you still see signs of orientalism today? If so, provide examples.

You need to write at least two paragraphs and your post must  connect to the class material and you must cite an external source for  full credit. Also, you must write a reply to another student’s post! The  reply post can be a short three-sentence response. However, the reply  post must be meaningful and connected to the class material in some way.

Video:

reply to this students post

2.) I was honestly shocked watching this video, seeing just how little has changed since the 1970s. Everything from the one-sided, uncritical support of Israel to paranoia about Islamic terrorism. I’m a bit embarrassed about my ignorance, but I had always assumed that Islamophobia and Orientalism began with the attacks of September 11th. I had no idea that the bombings perpetrated by Timothy McVay were originally blamed on Muslims.

I also hadn’t considered how the exoticizing of MENA individuals in television and films could contribute to the fear and hatred many in America and Europe harbor towards those peoples. In Same As It Ever Was: Orientalism Forty Years Later (2018), Philip Metres talks about his experience watching American films like Indiana Jones, and how hurtful it was to grow up watching the violence and stereotyping in those movies. In Jack Shaheen’s “Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People,” (2001), Shaheen looked at over 1,000 movies and found only twelve that depicted MENA people in a complex or positive way. (Metres, 2018). It’s been proven over and over that exposure to stereotypes in media contributes to unconscious bias, which can lead to real harm towards people.