Orientalism depicts MENA people as static and essentially religious despite modernity
Evidence
When the film Sex and the City 2, set in Abu Dhabi, was released in 2010, several reviewers rightly panned it for its racist stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims. It was as if the producers of the film had gone back to the 1920s, revived the Ali Baba film template, added a few iPhones and five-star hotels as a nod to the modernity of Abu Dhabi, and left everything else more or less intact. How do we understand this view of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) as a region that does not change—a place where, despite high technology and consumer luxuries, the people remain static and essentially “Muslim”? This view of Islam emerges from a body of work known as Orientalism that came into being in the context of European colonization, which reached its peak in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 101
Categorization
- XREF: Echoes Said’s Orientalism and the classic critique of the timeless ‘Muslim’ other; connects to modern analyses of Hollywood’s Arab stereotypes. — connects to: Orientalism presents Arabs as static types rather than historical agents; Orientalism’s colonized subjects are abstracted figures rather than real human beings; Orientalism reflects the producing culture rather than its putative object — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 91 (+6 more)
Broader Connections
- Orientalism treats Islam as a fixed essence rather than living society
#corroborates(0.95) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 771 - Orientalism reduced multifaceted Muslim societies to a single doctrinal Islam
#corroborates(0.92) — Hamid Dabashi, Brown Skin, White Masks, 424 - Orientalism presents Arabs as static types rather than historical agents
#corroborates(0.90) - Orientalism treats Islam as an essentialized cultural synthesis insulated from economics and politics
#corroborates(0.90) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 294 - Orientalism’s colonized subjects are abstracted figures rather than real human beings
#expands(0.85) - Orientalism’s coherence depends on the permanence of its object
#expands(0.80) - The secular-religious dichotomy itself is an orientalist construct
#responds-to(0.80) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 677 - Orientalism reflects the producing culture rather than its putative object
#complicates(0.75) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 91 - Said’s static-views claim nullifies Orientalism’s own historical impact
#complicates(0.72) — Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing, 514