Orientalism by Edward Said

But the principal dogmas of Orientalism exist in their purest form today in studies of Arabs and Islam. Let us recapitulate them here: one of the absolute and systematic differences between the West, which is rational, developed, humane, superior, and the Orient, which is aberrant, undeveloped, inferior. Another dogma is that abstractions about the Orient, particularly those based on texts representing a "classical" Oriental civilization, are always preferable to direct evidence drawn from modern Oriental realities. A third dogma is that the Orient is eternal, uniform, and incapable of defining itself; therefore it is assumed that highly generalized and systematic vocabulary for describing the Orient from a Western standpoint is inevitable and even scientifically "objective." A fourth dogma is that the Orient is at bottom something either to be feared (the Yellow Peril, the Mongol hordes, the brown dominions) or to be controlled (by pacification, research and development, outright occupation whenever possible).

I am a Wes Anderson fan. I love The Royal Tenenbaums; I love The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou; I love Moonrise Kingdom. Isle of Dogs, however, bothered me. I disliked the familiar caricatures of Japanese characters, the roles the Japanese characters fell into v. the American characters, and, in general, the othering bizarre-ness of Japan depicted.

But I had a lot of trouble with the "why." This felt like a good enough excuse to read Orientalism, which has been on my radar for a while. For the most part, I found the answers I was looking for: The Western Academic Establishment others its study of the East. This, in turn, is intimately connected to the colonizing impulse of the West.

A couple of disclaimers, because Said's always disclaiming (1)absolute statements, (2) generalizing statements, and (3) making any kind of boldfaced claims like I just did about his work in that previous paragraph. Disclaimer #1: Said is writing about the Western Academic Establishment up through when he wrote his book in the late 1970s. Although Orientalism still exists today, the Ivory Tower has improved (and this is why we don't really have Oriental Studies but East Asian Studies). Disclaimer #2: much of the Orientalism that Said is discussing is about the Middle East, but his thoughts apply the West's approach to East Asia. Finally, (Disclaimer #3), though he does discuss specific scholars, his study is not about them as specific scholars, but about the discipline in general. (For the nerds out there, Orientalism is very much Foucault-applied-to-Orientalism).

And, to turn back to Said, one more note about generalizations. The root of Orientalism's problems is the impulse to generalize, to treat individual countries, cultures, people as broadly generalizeable:

The methodological failures of Orientalism cannot be accounted for either by saying that the real Orient is different from Orientalist portraits of it, or by saying that since Orientalists are Westerners for the most part, they cannot be expected to have an inner sense of what the Orient is all about. Both of these propositions are false . . . . On the contrary, I have been arguing that "the Orient" is itself a constituted entity, and that the notion that there are geographical spaces with indigenous, radically "different" inhabitants who can be defined on the basis of some religion, culture, or racial essence proper to that geographical space is equally a highly debatable idea.

These generalizing impulses, in turn, allowed Orientalists to see what they wanted to see about people from the Orient. Namely: that the Occident is superior to the Orient. This is so even when Western writers extol the Orient's virtures. Consider, for example, fascination with Asian spirituality. Said shows how Western writers approach it with condescension, with a sense of, yes, you are able to believe that because your civilization has not reached the level of development that my civilization has; how nice it would be if I could be as uncivilized as you and believe such a thing.

So, where the West is rational, the East is mystical; where the West is developed, the East is developing; where the West dominates, the East must be dominated. The condescension, Said notes, is fundamental to Orientalism, because the construct of Orientalism was fueled by and itself fueled the West's imperialism. The academic discipline of Orientalism flourished because policy makers needed "experts" who could help colonizers, but who could also help rationalize colonization.

So Isle of Dogs. I get that there are problems of race far worse than Isle of Dogs. Still, for me, Said's book helped me come to terms with what bothered me about the movie, and other movies with Asian characters. It had to be an American who organized and led the other students because orientals don't lead, they are led. It had to be Western voice actors for the dogs because we don't experience Japan through Japanese people, but via the West. And, this story had to take place in Tokyo--instead of, for example, a fictionalized place--because the film needed to capitalize on thematic strangeness that is already familiar to Western audiences and unique to Western depictions/beliefs of Japan.

This is not to say that Isle of Dogs should not have been made. What to do with a film like Isle of Dogs is a difficult question. Do the problematic aspects of the film necessarily make the film merit-less? Should we boycott a film like Isle of Dogs? And, for me personally, this problem is exacerbated by the fact that I just didn't think it was a very good movie. (And isn't that assessment itself tied to its Orientalism?)

But what about, for example, a better movie, like The Karate Kid, which I recently watched for the first time. Mr. Miyagi's character squarely fits within the orientalist paradigm. But he's also one of a very small number of Japanese American (bonus Okinawan American) characters depicted in popular film. (And an even smaller number in 1984, when the film was made). And one of an even smaller number of references to the horrors of the internment camps. And the orientalism of Mr. Miyagi is not a fluke, the film's plot is dependent on Daniel LaRusso's exposure to Mr. Miyagi as strange and mystical. But it's also a fun underdog story that focuses on misconceptions across race, class difference, and personal journey through self-development. And, should we give allowances to The Karate Kid that we do not give to Isle of Dogs because Isle of Dogs came out in 2018.

For now, I think, my plan is to acknowledge problems, and then weigh them as part of what I consider when I consider a movie. I, personally, could still enjoy The Karate Kid, even with its problems. But, I could not enjoy Isle of Dogs. And maybe that's enough.