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Example research essay topic: East And West East And The West - 2,370 words

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Orientalism in Film The word orient comes from the Latin orient which means the east. During the history Orient was the shifting term and it changed according to historical changes. First Orient used to be the eastern part of Europe. In nineteenth century the North Africa and the Middle East and India were called Orient.

For America Orient is the East Asia. In more general sense Orient is the opposite to the West and means something different, foreign or exotic. The term Orientalism defines the study of Eastern civilization society, culture and traditions by Western civilization. Many theorists stressed that East and West exist exactly like completely different civilizations that had different features in their development, but despite their contrast they had to be studied in their interaction. Edward Said in his book Orientalism referred to this notion as the simple of the Western power and patronage over the East. Orientalism contrasted stranger or newcomers and natives and insiders not only geographically, but also religiously and culturally.

According to Ella Shohat Orientalism is multi valued and continuous. At this point it is evident why complex approach is required for the study of orientalism, that separation of the East and the West civilizations and their simultaneous interaction are true on many levels. Within any Western or within any Eastern community there can exist newcomers newcomers / strangers and natives / insiders . Insiders and newcomers of this community are most usually the members of the same Culture, for example Western, they all have similar mentality, cultural, moral values and most often even religion.

In such society the newcomer can rise above the others only due to his intellectual, fanatical or military advantages. But when the stranger comes from the society with absolutely different mentality, view of the world and religion, like western person would came to the East, he is different only due to his way of life. And here arises the concept of Orientalism in its wider form of colonization and discrimination. Colonial discourse is based upon a difference between the West and the East.

It centers the West as the dominant norm and situates the rest as its other. Inevitably, the other recognizes itself, and hence constructs its cultural identity, only in relation to the West. Edward Said laid bare the concept of orientalism as the relations of power between the colonizer and the colonized based on cultural difference and face sense of superiority. Colonial discourse constitutes its subjects as colonizer and colonized. Just as every discourse constitutes and is constituted by its subject both parties the colonizer and the colonized are responsible in producing and legitimizing the colonial discourse.

The number of theorists cites Said's work to undermine long-held, often taken-for-granted European ideological biases regarding non-Europeans in scholarly thought. Some post colonial sc theorists say that the Western idea of itself was constructed largely by saying what others were not. Said's work is very essential both in terms of the development of the field of post colonial studies, and in the wider sphere of analyses concerned with politicized discussions of culture and specifically with the politics of representation. One of the most obvious areas for such analyses is film and cinema studies.

Said's stated that Orientalism was not an academic notion, it was a but an historically specific discursive move that makes "an epistemological and ontological distinction between the West and East." Professor of cultural studies at New York University Ella Shohat in her works Gender and Culture of Empire: Toward a Feminist Ethnography of the Cinema and Israeli Cinema: East/West and the Politics of Representation discusses the colonial view of the Orientalism, various essential features of Orientalism in Hollywood movies, such as dark continent or terra incognita, gendered or serialized geographies, fantasies of rape and rescue in desert or harem, and she analyzes the influence of these feature on the overall perception of Orient by the public. The word Orientalism reflects the perception of Orient by Western art, architecture, literature, and other cultural features. From the very first of American cinematography it was greatly influenced by Oriental them's. American cinematography widely popularized Oriental themes and motives, it influenced the cultural perception and formed the Western estimation of Orient, formed the certain overall image. And American cinematography was not picturing an attractive picture of orient.

Usually Hollywood was making stereotypes of Orients as villains, sexual predators, and more recently, terrorists. It narrowed the image of East to the description of harem girls, sheiks, and flying carpets, scary mummies and Arab terrorists. Hollywood fabricated an erotic and exotic perception off Orient tempting the audiences with adventure, romance and exotic landscape. In all times the Oriental themes cinematography were abundant with exotics, eroticism, adventures and slavery. The plots usually pictures Orientals as the villains and Western as good guys. One of the most early and he most famous Oriental films was The Sheik filmed in 1920.

This movie is about the Arab sheik who tried to seduce a good western girl who suddenly got to his harem. The movie describes sheik as lustful alien and a girl as honest and fair western lady who got into nasty circumstances. Gradually the sheik transformed into decent man under the influence of a good woman (here the transformation symbolizes the good influence of the West). But the movie makers go further and not only transform the sheik into a good fellow, but they also make him a western man, who never knew his backgrounds.

This movie propaganda insists that Orients not only aspire for assimilation with western civilization, but they are ready to forget their roots, because the best and the greatest of them, like sheiks are not even Orients. Seduction is one of the most common themes of films with Oriental topic Usually women in these movies are chased or harassed by rude Asians, who by the end of the movie turn to have western roots and transform into good men or turned fell from the hands of white heroes. This theme is the most recurrent in the Oriental movies and according to Ella Shohat this theme symbolizes the eternal desire of the West to be seduced by the exotics of the east, as well as eternal fear of it. This theme the most vividly shows how the Eastern civilization alienates itself from the East by subjecting anything new or unknown as evil.

Here we can trace the ancient and eternal religious wars between the East and the West when Muslims were the main enemies of the Christianity and subconsciously this war continues in the movies with the Oriental themes. It is different, then it is evil and should be defeated as all evil. Another stereotype of the Oriental cinematography is the introduction to the public of such movie phenomenon as sexual woman-vamp. This type represented the gradual approach of feminism an along with it the woman who is independent and aware of her sexuality. The introduction of this female type as Oriental woman expressed the suspicion of the society to this new strange and exotic phenomenon, the archetype who used her sexuality to dominate men.

This new feminism phenomenon was categorized as oriental influence because the East has already been considered as the root of all evils as we have discussed above. It is important to mention one more traditional feature of Oriental movies. The stories of the Orient movies are usually set in the desert. Here the environment plays two roles. First it contrasts the reality of the western world which is abundant with green plants and sees the change of seasons.

Second, it symbolizes the undeveloped and primitive world. All these features portray the East as fossilized in its monotony world which requires Western civilization. In the movie King Solomon's Mines the deserted scenery of Africa symbolizes the wild and untamed woman in all her sexual beauty and independence. And this symbol carries the additional undertone of traditional chauvinistic and colonization outlook: as the woman needs to be tamed and conquered by a man, the same is with the land which should be civilized by Western civilization.

The camera shows the female body as the map for King Solomons diamond mines and this episode ensures the spectators that the woman and the land are begging to be conquered. Ella Shohat openly protested such cinematographic tendencies. She stated that such attitude formed false outlooks and social values. Such examples essentially contradicted the ideas of feminism and liberty. During the history the aspiration for social and state freedom was the major moving force of the progress. These moral values were formed by centuries of struggle and were savaged for the sake of several minutes of sexual innuendo.

It becomes evident that Orientalism is still distinguishes two cultures even the art which is called for tying people. Orientalism in film carefully distinguishes the East from the West, the male gender dominance over females, or patriarchy, in metropolitan societies: the Orient was routinely described as feminine, its riches as fertile; its main symbols the sensual woman, the harem and the despotic, but curiously attractive, ruler. And again, this fertility symbolizes that the East is ready to accept the seeds of goodness and civilization and the desert is ready to transform into the green blooming garden. We can see that years passed, new generations came and gone, but the human consciousness has not changed.

The ideas of racial and sexual discrimination were abundant on the screen and the movies proclaimed that all the women were supposed to be slaves and all the men were supposed to be masters. The introduction if these ideas in the form of a fairy tale neared those ideas to the myth of the American Dream. This idea was introduced as heavens on earth and offered everyone to taste it while watching the movie. And not many people paid attention that those dreams were completely opposite to the celebrated idea of the American Dream, which symbolizes freedom of choice and action in the democratic state. In the sixties, murder escalated from twenty seventh places to second place. Slavery, theft, and adulation all moved into the top ten, and new negative characteristics appear, explosion, prostitution, treason.

With the beginning of the War in Viet Nam Hollywood cinematography received the perfect set for new oriental movies. This war was the major turning point both in American external politics and American cinematography. The events of war allowed the movie makers to openly state their opinions, to insist that the East should be conquered and transformed. The ancient fear of the East was expressed in the portrayal of Vietnam's severity and mercilessness.

It is interesting to trace the reasons of the gradual change in themes introduced by cinematography. The fairy tales and legends about heroic men and sexually available woman were slowly but firmly replaced by detectives and horror movies. Such changes reflected the state of the society. During the depression and unstable state of the United States at the beginning of the century people were offered the sweet surrogate of happiness and confidence in the form of Oriental movies.

After the World War II the political and economical state of the country was rapidly stabilizing and in success people did not mind to watch detectives and thrillers. Ella Shohat in her works implies that cinematography offers the escape from the reality, serves as the last resort for tired minds and it should not let down such trust. In the 80 s and 90 s of the twentieth century American cinematography again turned to the Oriental themes, which was the reflection of American Iraqi conflict. Very often this conflict was reflected in the comedies, for example the movie Hot Shots.

The hilarious portrayal of the American Iraqi conflict in this movie is the old story-tellers device, which portrays the deepest fear in the form of a funny thing and thus reduces the fear. And again in this movie Iraqi symbolizes the whole Arab society. The old fear of the Western society came to the surface and ruled. This is the feature of the Oriental movies which Ella Shohat criticizes the most. The utter generalization of the Arab world in the face of Hussein would be the same nonsense as if the generalization of Germany in the face of Hitler. The movie makers continue stubbornly popularize such image of the Arabians, and to the great degree this depends on American external politics.

Here the cinematography consciously serves as the strong agitator. The current political state of American external politics to is greatly dependant on gradual but effective agitation of Hollywood films. During twentieth century the cinematography has become one of the main educational means all over the world. The cinematography is available in any apart of the World and its language is understandable even without words.

It makes cinematography a great force in forming of outlooks and priorities. That is why in her writings Ella Shohat calls for care and responsibility. The recent years showed that the cinematography can be used not only as the entertainment but also as the weapon in the hands of politics that can form the public opinion. The main desire of many theorists is to make that cinematography free of any political influence and social influence. But in all centuries the art served both as the means of entertainment and as the means of political influence and any censure only amplified the political implications of art. So the roots of cinematography ideas lie in the complex development of the society, its educational and social values.

Art mostly reflects and distributes the already existing views. The main idea of Orientalism in cinematography is the reflection of social fears of the East and perhaps these fears would remain for many more centuries. Old tales would be passed from generation to generation and continue to amaze our descendants. And as Kipling said East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet (Kipling). Bibliography Kipling, Rudyard. The Ballad of East and West.

web Said, Edward. Orientalism. Vintage, 1979 McClintock, Anne Mufti, Aamir and Ella Shohat, eds. , Dangerous Liaisons: Gender, Nation, and Postcolonial Perspectives, (1997). Stam, Robert and Toby Miller. Film Theory: An Anthology Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, Ltd. , 2000.


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Research essay sample on East And West East And The West

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