They are not Arabs, they are BAD ARABS

   “Oh I come from a land, from a faraway place

   Where the caravan camels roam

   Where they cut off your ear

   If they don't like your face

   It's barbaric, but hey, it's home”

The above lines are taken from the song, Arabian Nights from the Disney classic Alladin. This itself portrays how to Arabs are stereotyped as being barbaric and belonging to a far off land away from the rest. Arabs have been associated with matters like polygamy, early marriage, honour killing, illiteracy and lately terrorism. Ever since 9/11, the situation for Arabs has worsened specially in America and Europe.

Arabs are universally treated as criminals and hence are looked at with suspicion everywhere. Soon after 9/11, America tightened its security where White americans only went through he basic security checks and non americans were made to go through intense security checks. It further intensified when arab women were asked to remove their burqa (the covering on their face). Arab women are not permitted to show their faces to unknown men which they were made to for the reasons of security.

Moreover, American residents started treating Arabs and Muslims as being different from them and socially unacceptable. so much so that Arabs were seen replacing their flags with American flags outside their apartments and businesses to avoid being victimised of racial discrimination. Click here for more information

The problem is seen from its surface but its roots lie deep inside. Muslims have been associated with terrorism in a while. The acts of terrorism in countries like India, London and the Middle East had been intensely covered by the media and the entire world was well aware of it. However, they did not pay much attention to it since nothing major had happened. However 9/11 shocked the Americans since now the terrorists had targeted America and caused the death of many innocent civilians. Since terrorists are always thought of as Muslims, the first target of aggression were Arabs itself since Arabian countries are Islamic countries too. Many of them were forced to shave and remove their burqa because they didn’t want to fall victims to this social distress. However, it did seem like the entire world was on one side and Arabs were on the other side.

The question lies in the fact that why do not people understand that not every terrorist is an Arab and not every arab is a terrorist. I do understand that a small sect of the community performs such acts but it is the ‘mark of the plural’ that every Arab bears the consequences of acts performed by someone else.

Media has played an important part in portraying thr Arabs the way they are. In lieu to present videos to the audiences about what is happening around, they mostly show clips of brutality performed only by the Arabs. It is very rare to come across a report where Arabs have done something good for any country apart from their own. People’s ideologies are shaped and reshaped by the media itself since media is the only source of information to them, and hence they develop their perceptions according to what is told to them. Media should try and portray the negative and the positive side of Arabs and not only concentrate on the negative ones. Ultimately it is more about understanding the need to spread peace and information than a need to spread information and earn money.

Hi-there-you-suspicious-looking-person

All along I considered myself to be non-racist, being a member of an ethnic minority myself.  Until recently I realised that I was undeniably bound to the mark of the plural.

On my way home in an empty bus, an African male sat next to me when there were plenty other vacant seats.  Shamefully, I’ll have to admit that I was disturbed – immediately I became sceptical of his intentions and held dearly onto my bag for life.  He said ‘Hi’ with a smile, but at that stage I had all these mental calculations going on in my mind: What does he want? What should I do?  I quickly replied a short ‘Hi’ and shoved earphones into my ears so I wouldn’t have to keep a conversation with him.  I was certain that my accusations were correct when he refused to let me pass when I tried to get off the bus.  But after viewing this commercial, I’m beginning to think differently…:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHCqz-J51IU&NR=1&feature=fvwp

The commercial gives an insight into typical racist behaviour: this one in particular is about racist behaviour towards Blacks.  It instantly reminded me of my encounter with the African male on the bus, and my racist behaviour: clutching onto my bag, avoiding conversation with him, slowly shifting to the other side.  Perhaps the reason why he did not let me pass when I tried to get off was because he was aggravated at my behaviour.  Now I realise that perhaps he might have just sat next to me to ask for directions to a certain place, or for some other innocuous reason.  Like the commercial suggests, it was probably my racist behaviour that provoked him to not let me pass.  It’s surprising how unmindful we are of the mark of the plural that applies to our daily lives.  

Orientalism in The Memories of a Geisha

Geisha has been indicated as one of what Said called ’orientalism’ by depicting ‘Orient’ or nation or cultures that is seen as inferior to west as sexually exploitable female such as harem and geisha. For example of representing orietalism in Hollywood movie, I want to write about ‘Memories of a Geisha’.(2005)

　Ken Watanabe, Japanese actor who acted Chairman and patron of heroin, said that he didn’t correct lots of misunderstandings about Japanese culture and Geisha because he knew it was a kind of fantastic film in his interview.

Indeed, The memories of a Geisha did not have such a misinterpret or deformation of Japan like Kill Bill as an entertainment, but still it was western film even everything in story was related to Japan. It was not because they acted in English or there were slight difference such as hairstyle of Geisha, but it was because it was Hollywood movie and it was for western audiences. The most significant thing was actors’ small actions when they move. Their movement was bit rough, and occasionally we can see their arm or leg from Kimono. In Japan, there is a proverb which means ‘The less said about it the better’. It includes means that Japanese culture tends to find value in things that is out of sight, thus it can be said same thing in Japanese definition of ‘beauty’ or ‘sexy’ of female. This characteristic of Japanese to value silence rather than declamation has been criticized even from inside Japan because of inadequacy toward internationalization, but it is still a significant particularity of Japan and it might be a big defect of the film that can’t depict cultures made root in the nation in even the small action when they try to represent foreign country. However, in today’s system of Hollywood, it is almost impossible to appoint local actors who are minor in the world. This system, which is compulsory for actors who want to appear Hollywood movie to belong to The Screen Acrtors Guild in States and gain rank which is suitable for each film’s budget, realize me that Hollywood movies are films by west and for west after all. And it also seems that every film depict foreign country going to be a fantasy film and counted suits to the notion of ‘Orientalism’ .

Racism and Regulation in media

It is obvious that there are evident discriminatory expressions against Jews in story of The Merchant of Venice written by Shakespeare. Sherlock, the Jewish lender, is depicted as such a cold-blooded and greedy man. In many editions, he is introduced just as ‘Jew’ and frequently not called in his own name, but just ‘Jew’. We can assume that the fact that Sherlock is Jews is most important for the people, and his race is the priority for his identity in the story.

The story has written as comedy, but when we change our position into Sherlock side, it is such a tragedy about the old man who suffered for the racism and forced to convert to Christianity. There are lots of expression that shows racism against Jews including Sherlock’s speech, but I never heard that there are regulation on publication of The Merchant of Venice. It is very different from what happened to The Story of the Little Black Sambo, published in 1899 in Britain for the first time. The book brought about controversy against racial discrimination to black people and many of editions became went out of print since early 1930’s. Of course, there are also differences that it took such a long time for several studies started to insist that The Merchant of the Venice is the story includes stereotype of Jews and discrimination against them since the piece was published for the first time and it has already been classics at that time and The Story of Little Black Sambo was not.

Series of Dr.Dolittle is also one of the examples of publishing regulation. In the first book, Dr.Dolitlle went to Africa and he was be arrested by African black King. The King asked him to grant his wish instead of release, and the wish was to make King to transfer into whites because he was in love with white girl who rejected him because of his skin colour. This part of story has made alteration in 1997, and new story doesn’s mention about skin colour at all.

Nowadays, we can recognize how racism infested the time through The Merchant of Venice, but what about corrections of the part which is inconvenient such as Dr. Dollitle or The Story if Little Black Sambo?? I think it should be preserved and inherited as it is with annotation about racism in the story to tell people about the fact of racism especially in these kinds of juvenile stories.

'Liking' racist Facebook 'like' pages

The other day I was scrolling through Facebook news feed and found myself laughing at a certain ‘like’ page. 

As funny (or not funny for some of you) as it seems, I thought it was ironic how I laughed at something about my own ethnicity.  What’s more, it seems like the majority of people who ‘liked’ these mocking pages are Asians themselves.  (Also note the enormous amount of people who ‘liked’ it)

Cultural cringe is more evident in the face of rising social network sites.  It has become somewhat like a casual joke to take the mickey out of your own culture, admitting to ourselves of our inferior complexes and informing others (usually to White people) that we know of it.  So why do we do this?

It seems like, to those of us who consider ourselves ‘Kiwi-Asian’, cultural alienation takes a large part.  As immigrants of New Zealand we assimilate into New Zealand culture, and at the expense of immersing ourselves into New Zealand culture we, to an extent, have to abandon our own ethnic cultural background.  Looking at myself, I can see how music, clothing, and even way of socialising have over the years shaped to meet the cultural standard of New Zealand.  Regrettably, I have inevitably come to devalue my own culture (although not entirely) and have a weak sense of cultural self-identity.  Although I hate to say it, this is probably why I find these:

‘like’ pages amusing, rather than being outraged at the racism in these texts.

Not only are such stereotypical texts evident in social network sites but are also increasingly being shown (and rather blatantly) on television shows.  In one of my favourite shows ‘Family Guy’, the character Peter sits an Asian male (who looks rather passive) on his desk during a test, and says ‘Cmon, do math!’

Link for anyone who wants to see:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2EA2nA2ar0

Should I be concerned that I can’t help but find this funny?

NZ's official languages

During the TV1 and TV3 news coverage of the Christchurch earthquake earlier this year, there was a strong emphasis on getting the new across visually to the hearing impaired through the use of a signer, signing when announcements relating to the earthquake were made.

With sign language being one of the official languages of New Zealand, it was great to see that the news was picking up on this, and making sure the news got to those who are hearing impaired. This was the first time i had noticed this happening in the media.

Maori, however, is the other official language of New Zealand and i found it disappointing to see that while one of our official languages was being emphasized, the other was being ignored on these two mainstream channels. On Maori channels this news was reported and discussed but they are not mainstream channels and target a smaller percentage of the population.

The Ministry of Educations New Zealand Curriculum (2007) states that "Te Reo Maori and New Zealand sign language are official languages of New Zealand, english, the medium for teaching and learning in most schools, is a de facto official language by virtue of its widespread use".

Although it is vital that this news was to be presented in english, it was unfortunate that the Te Reo Maori was not emphasized as much as New Zealand's other official language 'sign language' during this tragic time.

Eurocentrism and whiteness in Korean Media.

In one of the lectures, I remember Sue saying something about in Japanese media, white people are not being portrayed according to western media. This got me thinking whether the Eurocentrism is also applied to contemporary Korean Media. My argument is that Eurocentrism in media has left a huge implication to Eastern society. As a Korean myself, when I lived there, I had seen a lot of things becoming westernized. For example, people started to mix up Korean words with English, so called “Konglish” like ‘office + hotel =Officetel’, more often. Although they say people in the 21^st century should get out of the imagined community called nations, it is no doubt that certain groups of race are looking up or should I say, “sucking up” to the Western Culture too much. This is clearly shown in Korean media. Dying hair colours that are more natural to white has become common in K-pop artists in the past 20 years to look ‘prettier’ and ‘extraordinary’. Since they are the leading trend of fashion in Korea, the consumers of media tend to imitate the things they do. As a result of this, it has now become a stereotype that Koreans, even the guys, dye their hair. This is seen as the form of accepting Richard Dyer’s “Whiteness”, which he argues that whites have the dominant image in media thus becoming idealized, naturalised and universal. However, in my opinion, Koreans should be aware the fact that by accepting the whiteness, they are actually degrading themselves because they are neglecting their heritage and accepting the other’s heritage in them, thus, losing their own identity as Koreans.

A Korean super star Rain (Bi) dies his hair to look more westernised

Another way Eurocentrism is evident in Korean media is through advertisements. Take a look at this advertisement for a cosmetic brand called ‘Isa Knox’ starring a Korean Superstar Hyori Lee and Jessica Alba.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Owhgz1f7WLo&feature=player_embedded

When I watched this advert, I wondered why they had to use such Westernised background, white males and Jessica Alba, when this advert is clearly written by a Korean and targeted to Korean consumers. The advert certainly portrays the notion of Whiteness as the creators probably thought that westernised background is more appealing and luxurious and white males are more suitable for these glamorous women.

In addition, Jessica Alba is portrayed ‘white’ although she is quite tanned. This indicates that the color white symbolizes beauty.

Although her colour of the skin is edited to be white in the ad, she is not white!

The use of white models in advert is quite common in Korea.

A mountain wear advert showing white male and female.

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVYEIy8qQLE

An advert for Galaxy S in Korea

These two adverts suggest that if you use this product, you could appear fancy and ‘cool’ like the white people in this advertisement. Giving the idea that although they cannot BE white, they can do things that white people do. This, I think is ‘sucking up’ to whites.

However, despite the portrayal of white people as ‘superior’ in Korean media, Western Media only use the stereotypes of Korean and other Asian in their advertisement.

Here, Beijing Olympic Spanish basketball team is making their eyes slanted (too look like Asians) for some Spanish courier company.

In this famous Hell pizza advertisement, they used the stereotype of Thailand that Thai women are generally masseuse

In conclusion, the implication of having Eurocentric media left Asians to strive to be like whites, whereas, whites look down on them. This directly sets up superior and inferior relationship between them in terms of the race.