Hollywood: The Orientalist

Hey, I enjoy Jake Gyllenhaal as much (if not more) than the next guy. He’s definitely got the talent as an actor with performances like “Nightcrawler” under his belt. However, I think amongst the people who remember the “Prince of Persia: Sands of Time” movie—which is few—there was a consensus that one of the most blatantly wrong things about that movie was the fact that he, a Caucasian male was cast as a Prince of Persia. Now granted, I haven’t seen this movie, I only know of it. However, this controversy is easily one of the most openly distasteful and ignorant happenings that the west has done to the image of the east in a long time. Thankfully, for the creators of “Prince of Persia: Sands of Time” the movie has been buried deep in the vault of people’s minds with its overall sub-par quality and an unfortunate reoccurring history of misrepresentation of the east in western media/cinema to cover it.

I mean, at least Ben Kingsley has some type of Indian roots.. Even though he’s born in England.

 

 

This occurrence is now just one of the many instances of misrepresenting of the east in Hollywood today. I wrote more in depth about the theme of language as a tool and asset in breaking the barriers amongst empires in the movie “Arrival” however, this quarter, with Professor ‘s slides, it struck me that maybe this depiction still might be a very well disguised way of wester views towards peace, given that the whole eastern land is seen as the enemies of the movie with American and western influences mostly being portrayed as the saving grace. Most specifically, however, the irony of a doctor of linguistics calling one of the middle eastern languages “Farci” instead of what it’s actually to be called by those who aren’t native to the land that that language is spoken in [I believe it, too, was Persia].

Still from the Arrival showing the eastern Most Countries disrupting the worldwide collaboration and the Americans retaliating in a “defensive” sign off as well.

Remaining in the Asian continent, the new blockbuster from 20th Century Fox, “Deadpool 2” has been criticized by east-Asian demographics for portraying east-Asians as always having eccentric colored hair in teen pop movies especially. While I feel that this is one of the milder infractions of western Hollywood, it still weighs in on the “orientalist” scale of our culture—framing the east in our own way without real foundation or attention to accuracy.

For an industry that I admire so much, it hurts to realize how deep that these orientalist views reach into, especially within my favorite movies. Some are as harmless as dying a person’s hair every time, other instances are as simple as pitting the east as the demented and the west as the saviors of the world (a common racist sentiment, as you may know.)
The fix is quite simple, just cast different people and pay more attention to detail. However, I feel like the studios would shy away from this in favor of staying where they are in the spectrum of representation (where they offend an equal amount of both sides of the sociopolitical conflict). I suppose this is better than every movie being a “Birth of A Nation”… but there still is a long way to go, and the end is what I’m excited for.