Orientalism

Léon Cogniet’s “L’Expédition d’Egypte Sous les Ordres de Bonaparte” (1835).

Orientalism may be a term you’ve heard, but never fully understood. At its core, Orientalism is the way in which people view the East in comparison with the west. The media tends to present Eastern countries as less advanced and civilized than the West. The term “Middle Eastern” itself is Eurocentric as it describes these countries as Eastern in comparison to European (Western) countries. Orientalist views are so deeply grained in our culture that you may not even realize the media you are consuming is affected by them.

Orientalism can be traced back to the European colonization of the Arab world. European paintings from the 19th and 20th centuries display the Middle East as a mystical and alluring realm of colorful dancers, sand dunes, and barbarians. In the early 1900s, French colonizers circulated false photographs of Algerian women, claiming them to be candid and taken “in the moment.” Truthfully, these pictures were completely staged and craftily orchestrated to reveal the mysterious and otherworldly lives of the Arab world. Instead, they show the twisted fascination and obsession that colonial France had with the Middle East. This is a perfect example of how Arab women have been eroticized and made a novelty for the pleasure of the European male.

Jean-Leon Gerome (French, 1824-1904) The Snake Charmer. 1880. Oil on canvas

In modern times, Orientalist ideas are supported by large corporations like Disney or Coca-Cola. Disney’s 1992 Blockbuster film Aladdin was created by a French writer who had no real knowledge of the Middle East. Additionally, the movie’s main villain has exaggerated Middle Eastern features (as most of their villains do). Overall, the film supports negative and false stereotypes of the Arab world.

The Thief of Bagdad, 1924 film poster.

In 2013, Coca-Cola released a Super Bowl ad which featured an Arab man and camel walking through the desert. Along their journey, they pass other characters like cowboys, show girls, and bandits- as though they all come from different eras of filmmaking in Hollywood. The goal of the ad was to encourage viewers to vote on the Coca-Cola website for who would “win this race.” Despite his feature, the Arab man was not included in the voting- as if the Arab man and his camel had no chance of beating “the West.”

“Egyptian Girl in Street of Cairo…In the street of Cairo at the World's Fair there was exhibited the peculiar manners of the Egyptians, and a veiled lady was of course one of the curious objects displayed, though she did not always appear in that unsightly disguise, thus proving that she was not a slave to this requirement of all Mohammodan [sic] women.” Buel, James W. The Magic City. St. Louis: Historical Publishing Co., 1894.