The Artful Construction of the “Other”
Racism, prejudice and discrimination rely upon an “other” to act as scapegoat, a scapegoat that is mirrored against the dominant racist culture as inferior making the dominate culture appear superior. As Windschuttle maintains, “The construction of identity in every age and every society involves established opposites and ‘others.’ This happens because the development and maintenance of every culture require the existence of another different and competing alter ego,” (31). While art is often thought to be apolitical, such is seldom the case. In the writings of Edward Said, we see that literature is often one of the key mechanisms for defining an “other” in order to provide an aggrandized ethnocentrism to those formulating a culture or people that are different and inferior. As Whalen-Bridge maintains, Said’s analysis of Orientalism is fundamental in removing the façade of art to get at the political currents underneath, “In the scholarly discussion of Orientalism…Said’s writing is useful as a way of unmasking the imperial dimension of supposedly apolitical art,” (197). It is largely through the revisionist, even artful, construction of an “other” that racism, prejudice and discrimination are manifested in a culture and its peoples. An examination of Apocalypse Now, Flower Drum Song, and Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life demonstrate how different cultures are often represented by a dominant culture as inferior, threatening, and “other”.
The West led primarily by Europe and the U.S. has primarily been imperialistic and ethnocentric in its treatment of other cultures. To reinforce the values of the West as superior, such relations often mirror other cultures as inferior. In his discussion of the diplomacy and the politics of the Kissinger era, Said writes in Orientalism that such perspectives also enable the wholesale takeover of other...