Cultural literacy could be defined as ‘both a knowledge of meaning systems and an ability to negotiate those systems within different cultural contexts’ (Schirato and Yell, 2000, page 1). And having cultural literacy, it is then possible to discern what is hidden in media. And in the examples that I would give below, cultural literacy enables me to realize of the stereotyping of East through the eyes of West.
Below are clips from ‘The World of Suzie Wong’:
At once glance, everything seems normal. Man meets woman and falls in love and after experiencing several obstacles, both then decides to spend life with each other. However, upon analyzing the characters more deeply, it is more like West meets East and saves the latter from further ‘degradation’. This could be explained by a theory known as ‘Orientalism’.
Orientalism is a study of the discourse of the Orient exploring the systems of representations that formed stereotyped ideas and images of the Orient in the West (Said, 1995). Accordingly, West views themselves as saviour of the ‘uncivilized’ East and as if to prove their standing, the movie then shows how ‘barbaric’ and ‘uncultured’ the East are (here, presented by the Chinese), from their usage of broken English to the ‘violent’ husbands to local women whom seemed to be all are working as prostitutes and ‘hungry’ for Western men ‘enlightenments’. And this movie is not alone in showing this phenomena; below is another example of this, the dinner scene from 'Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom':
One who is ‘brainwashed’ with all the stereotypes of East may find this convincing and is hardened even more in its belief. However, for those in the know, almost immediately the exaggeration could be detected and one could not help but wonder if this is the effect of Orientalism.
Another video below also presents the same thing:
Again, West meet East and helps the latter with their objective. Although it may seem that the protagonist is being ‘Easternized’, it does not change the fact that the samurais need a Western man before they could change their fate, for better or worse. And if examining the movie posters and images of this movie, most would shown the Western protagonist is the one leading the other samurais and the one branded ‘the last samurai’. How ironic is that.
The video below also shows the same thing:
It is almost the same as ‘The Last Samurai’, and the first thing that I have realized is that the title does not fit the movie at all. The movie is called ‘Karate Kid’ but from what I can see, the protagonist is learning kung-fu in China
And apparently, the most highly-praised movie ‘Avatar’ has also debated of having the same kind of stereotypes conceals within the complex narrative:
The protagonist is human and the other are the Na’vis; while humans are cultured and advanced society, the Na’vis on the other hand are more ‘natural’ and ‘wild’. According to Orientalism, West is cultured and advanced while East is more ‘natural’ and ‘wild’, closer to natures than the former does. Knowing this, it is not hard to draw the parallel between the different species in the movie with the different races here on earth.
While watching films and movies usually serve as entertainment and mean nothing more than what is shown, but with cultural literacy, the media being shown is deconstructed and form here, hidden motives are revealed and who knows, the way we view the world might be changed, for better or worse.
References:
§ Said, E.W. (1995). Introduction (page 1 – 28). Orientalism (4th edition). London
§ Schirato, T. and Yell, S. (2000). Communication and Culture (page 1 -4). Communication and Cultural Literacy: An Introduction. Allen & Unwin. Retrieved from http://books.google.com/books?id=Js46RoWSYlEC&lpg=PP1&dq=schirato%20yell%20cultural%20literacy&pg=PA3#v=onepage&q&f=false
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