Western audiences explain away Asian creators’ skills through exoticizing frames

Evidence

Ethnocentrism is the judgment of other cultures by the customs and standards of one’s own culture, resulting in the belief that other cultures are inferior in standards or values. It is usually also referred to as “Americentrism” or “Eurocentrism” when Americans or Europeans exercise bias towards their own cultures and worldviews and assume the inferiority of others by default. Ethnocentrism is usually mobilized in tandem with orientalism, a concept coined by the postcolonial public intellectual Edward W. Said to describe the prejudices of Western cultures as permeated through romanticized, false, or exaggerated cultural representations of Asia. — Crystal Abidin, Internet Celebrity, 127

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ethnocentrism and Said’s orientalism as paired lenses for reading cross-cultural reception of internet celebrities.
• XREF: Connects to postcolonial studies on orientalism (Said) and to cross-cultural media reception scholarship generally. — connects to: Electronic mass media reinforce and standardize inherited Orientalist stereotypes — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 99; Dominant cultural frames win through repetition while silencing alternatives. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 265; Orientalist style transforms its human subjects into objects of an unaccountable observer — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 784 (+2 more)
• ADDENDUM: Reinforces themes in ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’ about how Western audiences exoticize non-Western bodies and practices; also relevant to how outsider practices get read through cultural lenses.

Broader Connections

• Electronic mass media reinforce and standardize inherited Orientalist stereotypes #corroborates (0.85) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 99
• Orientalist style transforms its human subjects into objects of an unaccountable observer #expands (0.75) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 784
• Dominant cultural frames win through repetition while silencing alternatives. #corroborates (0.72) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 265
• Cultural superiority toward foreigners predated and transcended Western Orientalism #qualifies (0.72) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 625