5/15 Said

            The film “Edward Said: Orientalism” discusses the idea of American orientalism and the way it shapes how third world people are view in American culture. Orientalism can be described as a description of others that are generally backwards, timeless, and non-modern; these people are generalized with the word, that describes them in such, “orientals”. The interesting point to consider is the idea that orientals are always the same, never changing, and timeless. Orientals represent the ideal others, whom are unlike the West. A parallel to point out is how third world feminists are seen as backwards, unchanging, and timeless to the white feminists. Whereas the Westerners were surprised by the Egyptians crossing the canal in 1973 at the Arab/Israeli war, third world feminists surprised the white feminists by drafting their own unique theories and movements. Orientals prove themselves in these ways that they are nevertheless groups of ever-changing and adapting people. What history has done to these orientals was basically obscuring their authenticity as individual cultures into a generalized pan-ethnic identity that one, as hegemonic state, can suppress as inferior beings.