Said, Bald and an honest attempt at Swetshop Boys
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The reason that Said insists that the Orient is not merely imaginative is that, as he described it — “The Orient is an integral part of European material civilization and culture…supporting institutions, vocabulary, scholarship, imagery, doctrines, even colonial bureaucracies and colonial styles” (Said, 2). This description of the Orient shows that rather than being an imaginative or theoretical being, the Orient is critical to the foundation of European society.
This ties in directly with how Europe benefitted from the Orient as a surrogate and even an underground self. It is not only represented through the fact that the West has constructed an image in the head of its inhabitants that the Orient consists of backwardsness and “exotic beings”, but also becomes much more prominent when this false picture is used to acquire and maintain power in the West. As Said puts it on page 5 — “The relationship between the Occident and the Orient is a relationship of power, of domination…”. Rather than building an identity on their own, the Orient is used as a means to contrast and compare with the “advanced and modern Western culture”, reinforcing Western hegemony.
This ties in directly to Bald’s description of Bengali experiences in the West, as in order to make a living for themselves, Bengali peddlers resort to the preconceived notions that the West has of South Asian culture, regardless of the extent of its truth. Bald uses the term “Indianness” which I think directly shows that the West has a desire to collapse entire parts of the world into a select few stereotypes and then use them as a means to entertain themselves (the rich going to the South and interacting with these peddlers). While some aspects of the Bengali culture may have been accurately rehearsed, Bald’s writing shows that these peddlers leaned deeply into the ideals set by American society.
Taking it a step further, in order to navigate the political circumstances in America at the time under the Jim Crow laws in the South, African Americans often chose to represent themselves as Hindu in order to escape the persecution that was imminent. This was a very interesting part of the reading to me as a lot of Orientalism talks about the aspects of power dynamics and inherent inequalities, but experiences like African American men trying to pass as Hindu adds a certain nuance where this Western notion of “Indianness” allowed for survival rather than oppression. It is important to consider while we review the drawbacks and where Orientalism lacks, that it also allows for an upside in Western society for other underrepresented groups who may have to adopt a new identity for survival.
As for the Swetshop Boys video, I found it very weird. The imagery used was flashing in and out, cutting back and forth, and contained a combination of videos including South Asian dancers and what looked like military clips. Additionally, the artists’ videos were shown in the corner of the screen rather than a typical music video and occasionally flashed on the big screen. As for why this collage was used, I am really unsure. If I were to connect it to the topic of Orientalism, I would infer that the South Asian dance is a representation of the typical oriental view, and is similar to what Bald described as “Indianness”. However, the military clips threw me off, maybe hinting at how Middle-Eastern and Muslim men can be prescribed as extremists. But again, that is a long shot.
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Overall a great post by @shouzab_awan, very adroitly describing Orientalism’s operations of power and also reading both Bald and “Batalvi” through them. The video’s panning between Bollywood entertainment and images of Islamic violence is important; hopefully we’ll talk about it in class.