Getting Ideas Out There...With the Help of Videogames/Anime

Videogame criticism is in the perfect sweet spot culturally right now that it demands both substantial ideas as well as mass-market appeal. This turns into some very interesting videos and presentations crossing back and forth over that line in very interesting ways. Here are some of my favorite:

While not actually about videogames, this first video talks about Roland Barthes and the "death of the author" in relation to an anime series:

This next video gives a great overview of feminism and videogames, then gives some solid theoretical background and thoughts:

Orientalism: The Illusion of Awe

The Snake Charmer, by Jean-Léon Gérôme. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

Orientalism is a branch of post-colonial theory established by scholar Edward Said. In his words, orientalism is "a manner of regularized (or Orientalized) writing, vision, and study, dominated by imperatives, perspectives, and ideological biases ostensibly suited to the Orient." Basically, this theory searches for and examines the ways Eastern and Middle Eastern culture is stereotyped and "othered" across the vast majority of Western literature and thought. In the words of Danielle Sered summarizing Said's work, orientalism establishes the typical Western view of "the Oriental" as follows:

The man is depicted as feminine, weak, yet strangely dangerous because his sexuality poses a threat to white, Western women. The woman is both eager to be dominated and strikingly exotic. The Oriental is a single image, a sweeping generalization, and a stereotype that crosses countless cultural and national boundaries.

The goals of Orientalism as a theory, then, is to reestablish Western thought on Eastern and Middle Eastern culture on a firmer basis of reality, as well as allow members of these cultures to express themselves to Western audiences such that these stereotypes are broken and erased by the authentic voice of the people themselves.

The Illusion of Awe

Though Said may not have framed Orientalism specifically in terms of awe and wonder, look at the many terms of awe he uses when describing Orientalism's power in Western society:

The hold these instruments have on the mind is increased by the institutions built around them. For every Orientalist, quite literally, there is a support system of staggering power, considering the ephemerality of the myths that Orientalism propagates. The system now culminates into the very institutions of the state. To write about the Arab Oriental world, therefore, is to write with the authority of a nation, and not with the affirmation of a strident ideology but with the unquestioning certainty of absolute truth backed by absolute force.

Orientalism certainly has a powerful, even all-encompassing hold on Western thought, in Said's terms. Combing this with the description of these Oriental stereotypes reveals that Orientalism could be framed as a theory dealing with the awful power of a false awe built around the East by the West. Looking again at the description of the stereotypical oriental given above, we see this constructed awe quite readily: words like "exotic," "threatening," "dominated," and "sexuality" reveal a view of the East shrouded in mystery and wonder.

What's most interesting to me about this, however, is that Said's premise is all this awe and wonder is entirely false--constructed only by the stereotypes. The real oriental is nothing like the Western view, but that view still holds the minds of Western people in awe and wonder at the Orient. This reminds me of two of my classmates' projects. First, +Juliet Cardon's project looking at the ways language establishes awe. Orientalism adds to her discussion as it proves language can establish awe even where the reality does not. That's an amazing (and kind of scary) thought to me. Just as Shelly showed how Willa Cather uses Romantic language to establish awe, Orientalism shows how language is used to build an image of awe.

The other project this discussion of Orientalism has reminded me of is +Andrew Perazzo's. His point on how science fiction inspires reality and vice-versa takes on a disturbing twist when considered in the terms of Orientalism creating a view of reality that is actually false, but inspires people's view of how the world actually works. Also, Orientalism shows how people can be in awe of worlds that aren't real through the power of language to create those worlds in the imagination, just as he is exploring in the works of fantasy of Brandon Sanderson.

Something that both of these projects could benefit from this discussion of Orientalism, though, is the idea of the responsibilities of awe. Namely, Orientalism proves that language can create awe and distort reality in the minds of not just a few people, but through persistent replication over time literally millions can be deceived as they are caught up in the attractive trappings of the awe promised them by language. The ethical questions of such a power are obvious. When is it right to create awe where none exists? How much of the awe promised and suggested to us by the language we have encountered in our own lives is actually false, and how do we go about identifying that and correcting it? Is it safe to create intentionally fictional worlds meant only to establish awe in the mind and thus remove people mentally from reality?

It gets more complicated when we consider that many fictional worlds, especially those of science fiction and fantasy, are actually meant to reflect the real world around us in very specific ways. Why does these authors feel the need to create a fantastical, awe-inspiring world when they really want to talk about the real world? Is it healthy to pump up the awe artificially like that? (Now I'm sure +Greg Bayles would have plenty to say about all this as well.)

We have established and documented very well all the ways language can establish awe--but what responsibilities does that power bring with it? Orientalism helps us ask and answer that question, and all the other questions that come with it.

Works Cited

Sered, Danielle. "Orientalism." Postcolonial Studies @ Emory (Fall 1996). n.p. Web. 26 Feb 2014.

Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Vintage, 1979. Print.

Awe-Full Critics

Again, this post wasn't required, but here's my notes on some critics and critical theory that seems to work well with the theme of awe:

Karl Marx and Marxism-Marxism deals a lot with power structures and oppressor versus oppressed. Hidden through every Marxism criticism is a kind of awe at power, I think, and the struggle for it from above and below. Anytime power is unequal, there is a possibility for awe in the moments of realizing the insurmountable power of the greater from the perspective of the lesser. This breaks down, of course, as Marx demands for an uprising from those with supposedly less power, but also in the struggle of the oppressed to throw off the oppressor almost always comes at least some moment of awe at the force of will to carry on despite all odds.

Jacques Derrida and Post-structuralism-awe is especially evoked in Derrida's theory of play, or that meaning in language is infinitely malleable as language is arbitrary and the universe lacks and center anchoring meaning at all. Any infinite space is full of potential for awe, so a theory that outlines that the possibility for meaning in any language is infinite is prime fuel for awe.

Edward Said and Orientalism-you could frame Orientalism as the study of false awe at the "other." Said recognized the patterns of what you could call "abusive awe" or "oppressive awe" in the West's depiction of the East. The East was seen as alluring, even seductive, and mysterious, even supernatural. The West held the East as a source of awe, and Said's theory is meant to break down that false awe, but also replace it with the authentic voices of the people from those "other" groups and reveal the truths that the West had been denying and oppressing. Obviously, the desired effect of this is to open minds to a higher plane of truth--awe is bound to tread that ground often.