askchapo

As I understand it, it comes down to overly simplistic, exaggerated, or just plain inaccurate perceptions and portrayals of people from Africa and South/East Asia. Stuff like

It's basically a bunch of bullshit the amcient Greeks thought about others, especially Persia, that has been transmitted with little changes through thousands of years through "western" culture, though who exactly the "west" and what the "orient" is has changed.

The west is full of free individuals, the east are unthinking slaves to despots. Western men are properly masculine, eastern men are either effeminate or have a savage, animal masculinity. Eastern women are titillating and "exotic". Westerners are brave and noble warriors, easterners are a disorganized "horde", if they ever win its just cuz they have superior numbers and no regard for human life. Only the west has real civilization, others are either savages or overly civilized or "decadent" Etc. Etc.

Once you know about it, you see it fucking everywhere, throughout contemporary society and going back literally thousands of years in history, literature, philosophy, etc. It's sickening. The "west" needs to be destroyed, materially, morally, ideologically.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LR511iAedYU

This is a video specifically about orientalism and Middle Eastern music in films and games. I think seeing how orientalism warps and flattens a specific part of the art we're presented with is a good primer for exploring the concept further.

Strong recommendation to read Orientalism by Palestinian American scholar Edward Said, who established Orientalism as a critical concept. It's very approachable, you don't need any other background knowledge.

seconding the recommendation to read orientalism. I think @toje@hexbear.net overstates how approachable it is (it is after all still a heavily cited academic text), but it's certainly no superimperialism. if you want an example of more modern liberal orientalism, listen to the first 2 minutes of this episode of trueanon which is barely exaggerated satire

I've seen in my lifetime school kids my age in elementary school saying asian people have no souls and that they eat cats. Fast forward like 30 something years later, and those kids still have those beliefs into adulthood and are agitating for war with china.

The best way I would describe it is overemphasizing that it’s foreign, and usually part of some sinister plot. There is a large amount of overlap between antisemitic stereotypes and anti-Asian sentiment (particularly anti-Chinese) sentiment, for example.

Sometimes when anime or pokemon was spoofed in the aughts, the animators would get kind of…weird about it. Even some parents and school faculty members would see it as a bad influence, and anime had a moral panic against it. Hell, Pokemon risked having the iconic pokemon redesigned just for the US.

read Said, there's also documentaries, interviews, and lectures where he's explained the broad strokes if you're strapped for time. it's a very worthwhile book though.