The Continuation of Colinialism through Caricature (Orientalism Essay)

Tiffany Ward
Orientalism & Occidentalism
February 2009

“Arrayed in the brilliant colors of exoticism and exuding a full-blown yet uncertain sensuality, the Orient, where fathomable mysteries dwell and cruel and barbaric scenes are staged, has fascinated and disturbed Europe for a long time” (Alloula 3). In the world of colonialism, imperialism and Orientalism, caricatures must be created for the continual survival of such systems. The heathen, barbaric, violent Arab, the seductive, lustful, submissive, harem and the greedy, ravenous, chauvinistic ruler fill the world of oriental caricatures. They were created with the intention of colonizing an “other” world. From their inception centuries ago and into the 21st century, these stereotypes have been effective in continuing western colonialism and resistance to tolerance.
In the creation of Orientalism, white men shaped a hierarchy of power which they controlled. “[The] principle was to make sure that no Oriental was ever allowed to be independent and rule himself” (Said 228). The rhetoric used within Orientalism serves the ultimate purpose of excusing and explaining colonialism. The Orient is a region filled with people to be controlled. In The Colonial Harem, a volume of “educational” postcards featuring eastern women, photographers portray women within a similar framework. “Barbarism substitutes the weight of premature paternity and maternity. Young girls do not play with dolls but already rock flesh-and-blood babies in their arms-when they are not feeding them from their barely formed breasts” (Alloula 40). Even the young women are delegated the image of the unrestrained orient. Their images needed to be studied and reproduced in photographs just as they needed to be colonized, according to the Occidental thought.
During the 19th and 20th centuries the Oriental character of the heathen Arab became alarmingly prevalent in film. In Jack Shaheen’s 2001 novel, he surveyed more than 900 film appearances of Arab characters, of those, only a dozen were positive and 50 were balanced. Shaheen writes "Seen through Hollywood’s distorted lenses, Arabs look different and threatening” (Shaheen 9). The Oriental image continued to be propagated despite the increased access to the eastern world. A more developed period only brought another art form to exploit these caricatures. The portrayal of Arabs in film was one-dimensional and unrealistic, yet it was the news media that greatly distorted their humanity. TV’s Promised Land is an examination of the American News Media portrayal of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The film features a montage of news clips featuring the familiar image of evil suicide-bombing Palestinians juxtaposed with good, humane Israelites. While the news will feature reports and specials on different events in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, it is unjustifiably one-sided. Promised Land presents examples of these stories and the common thread is the lack of humanity and victim hood spared to the Palestinians. The families interviewed are always Israelites. This denial of humanity is a modern continuation of centuries-old Orientalism.
In the western world, Easterners were often viewed with a sense of sensuality. “The popular image of slave girls, harems, and concubines…continued to horrify and titillate Western critics of the Muslim world throughout the colonial period” (Alloula xv). Eastern women became the markers of exoticism in the western view of the Orient. They were constantly placed into the stereotypes of erotic yet submissive harems. “[Women] have long been [used as] phantasmic representations of Western designs on the Orient” (Alloula xiv). Westerners created an image of the Orient based on the features of its women, yet the women themselves were viewed simply as “slave girls, harems, and concubines”. These stereotypes were necessary to create the image of the Other. These women were viewed as vastly different from European women of the time; their dress, dance, and display of sexuality greatly differed from that of the conservative Victorian woman. “[Orientalism] set the stage for the deployment of phantasms. There [was] no phantasm, though without sex” (Alloula 3). The “open” sexuality of the Oriental women provided a validation of their otherness.
During the process of colonization the sexualitization of the Orient served the purpose of justifying European colonial interference. The construct of western-defined eastern femininity was seductive yet submissive. “[The Harem was] the ideal figure…hidden, yet available, core, always throbbing with restrained sensuality” (Alloula 74). This ideal harem desired and needed control, and in the minds of the Europeans, the harem needed to be controlled by them. “The British…had attempted in India and Africa to collaborate with the women under the pretext of liberating them from oppression by their own men” (Alloula xviii). While, the British and other colonizers may have been misogynistic in their goals and actions their ignorance of Eastern traditions allowed them to solely demonized Arab men.
The Oriental man with his multiple wives and excessive wealth became the emblem of Arab masculinity. According to Occidental thought women were ignored by the by Arabs, because of their belief in polygamy. Early westerners created this thought, starting with the Greeks. Herodotus wrote an account of the Persian Wars, and discussed the Arabs lack of appreciation for women. “The Asiatics, when the Greeks ran off with their women, never troubled themselves about the matter” (Alloula xiv). As early as the 5th Century, ignorance of different cultural customs was interpreted into degrading rhetoric. In the modern version of storytelling; film, this rhetoric continues on a visual level. One of the repeated caricatures of Arabs is the image of the absurd wealth and greed. The repetition of these characteristics dehumanizes the Middle Eastern man.
Heathens and harems fill the literature and cinema of colonialism and Orientalism. Europeans were mystified after reading tales of the Middle East, and thereafter roused to colonize the people. Now, Americans “leave movie theaters with a sense of solidarity, united by their distance from these peoples of ridicule” (Shaheen 15). The old ideas founded during that original colonial period are as relevant now as they were then. The sensualization and dehumanization of the Middle East was used to excuse and perpetrate the 20th and 21st century manifestations of colonialism.