Orientalism, what is the problem here?

[grude]

I’ve seen this term applied with negative connotations to basically any work made by western artists that features heavy thematic or visual inspiration from asian or other cultures, even when that influence doesn’t really have a connection to the real world. I’ve seen it used to describe a sci fi story set in the middle east for example.

Orientalism

The wiki page is even more open ended, including even The Adventures Of Tin Tin. I would assume then that stuff like Indiana Jones and Stargate fall under it as well?

Now what exactly is the negative thing here? Is it simply that western artists are somehow “stealing” foreign style or themes, or using foreign locations as a setting?
Is it that simple that its a criticism of westerners using foreign styles and themes?

I mean in modern works, I can understand why a colonial era work that is basically propaganda falls under the term.

[GovernmentMan]

Read Edward Said’s Orientialism

[CalMeacham]

@GovernmentMan

Read Edward Said’s Orientialism

This isn’t much help. It would be better to at least include a link to something about the book. The first line of the Wikipedia article answers the OP’s question:

Orientalism is a book published in 1978 by Edward Said that has been highly influential and controversial in postcolonial studies and other fields. In the book, Said effectively redefined the term “Orientalism” to mean a constellation of false assumptions underlying Western attitudes toward the Middle East. This body of scholarship is marked by a “subtle and persistent Eurocentric prejudice against Arabo-Islamic peoples and their culture.” He argued that a long tradition of romanticized images of Asia and the Middle East in Western culture had served as an implicit justification for European and American colonial and imperial ambitions. Just as fiercely, he denounced the practice of Arab elites who internalized the US and British orientalists’ ideas of Arabic culture.

So far as the United States seems to be concerned, it is only a slight overstatement to say that Muslims and Arabs are essentially seen as either oil suppliers or potential terrorists. Very little of the detail, the human density, the passion of Arab-Moslem life has entered the awareness of even those people whose profession it is to report the Arab world. What we have instead is a series of crude, essentialized caricatures of the Islamic world presented in such a way as to make that world vulnerable to military aggression.[1]

—Edward Said, The Nation

Orientalism (book)

[MrDibble]

Mostly, it’s because it is used as a way to emphasise the exoticism and moral/intellectual/cultural inferiority of the East and its peoples. And hence assert the superiority in regards same of the West. It’s reducing entire civilizations to cyphers, in a way that Western authors don’t tend to do for their own cultures as much. It is a common form of Othering, and a dominating political gesture.

[CalMeacham]

It’s only because of the way Said re-defined the term. As the wikipedia article I cite above points out, plenty of people have disagreed with Said’s definition and about the motives of those practicing “Orientalism”. Said seemed to feel that virtually all non-Middle Easterners who wrote fiction or painted pictures set in the middle East were guilty of contributing to the dehumanization and oppression of those in the Middle East. That seems to place a great big restriction zone about that geographical region labeled “Thou Shalt Not Depict This”, which seems kind of extreme to me.

[grude]

@CalMeacham

Said seemed to feel that virtually all non-Middle Easterners who wrote fiction or painted pictures set in the middle East were guilty of contributing to the dehumanization and oppression of those in the Middle East. That seems to place a great big restriction zone about that geographical region labeled “Thou Shalt Not Depict This”, which seems kind of extreme to me.

Thats kind of what I was wondering about, where is the cut off point?

I mean just for example Avatar The Last Airbender is set in a fantasy world with no relation to our Earth, but each kingdom of magic users has pretty clear real world inspiration(water kingdom=inuit for example) and the entire world has an asian feel culturally, is that orientalism?

[Ranchoth]

@grude

I mean just for example Avatar The Last Airbender is set in a fantasy world with no relation to our Earth, but each kingdom of magic users has pretty clear real world inspiration(water kingdom=inuit for example) and the entire world has an asian feel culturally, is that orientalism?

Hell, more than that, regions within the kingdoms even have distinct real-world inspirations; the writing seen onscreen is [classical and archaic Chinese/url], each form of magic “bending” is based on a [URL=“http://www.avatarspiritmedia.net/martialarts.php”]different form of martial art…

The live action movie, on the other hand, is a frog in a blender. Artistically speaking, of course.