Analysis of Religion and Popular culture using an orientalism lens

When orientalization and racialization are brought together their binding can promote consumable and immediate widespread. In virtual orientation, Iwamura (2010) narrates the cultural-historical genealogy of the oriental monks’. In popular culture and medial, noting its complexities contradictions and contemporary manifestation is vital. It is through popular media that the predominantly Christian and virtually sensuous way is improved Iwamura (2010) argues that there is commercialization and fetishism of the oriental monk icon, begging in the 1950‘s and ending with today's spiritual commence having delivered to the spiritual media a rap canalized figure is easily recognized today the oriental monk did not do not miraculously appear from out of nowhere. Rather, we have been primed for his appearance. Attitudes can also be part of those factors that influence how different groups of people receive the knowledge.

Just from back in the days, the way the West looked at the Middle East is the same way they still do up to date. This made Said to define orientalism as the acceptance in the West of the basic distinctions between East and West as the starting point for elaborate theories, epics, novels, social descriptions and political accounts concerning the Orient, its people, customs, and destiny and so on. It is also believed that the issue of Orientalism is not a new thing. It started from those days of even before World War I and II. As a result of these early paintings and photographs, the early Europeans depicted the Arab world as an exotic and mysterious place consisting of sands, harems, and dancers.

All these depictions reflect long history orientalist fantasies which have continued to evolve and maneuver its way in the current contemporary popular culture. Good example of how religion appears in pop culture through orientalism lens is the movie Aladdin. This is an animation movie produced by Disney in 1992 and is set in a mythical town called Agrabah meaning scorpion in Arabic. In this movie, the original opening song is described as a land “where they cut off your ear if they don’t like your face, it’s barbaric but hey, its home”. g. a Frenchman or an American announcer. Genie makes fun of Aladdin but helps him, making Genie into the figure of a Western “rescuer”, where Western influence is seen as beneficial for the “barbaric” (Aladdin) from the strange and dangerous ways.

Napoleon military campaigns can also be considered as an aspect of Orientalism. This was majorly associated with taking military campaigns to the Middle East. Each form was one of its own kind and they had no any comparable features. Throughout the century in France, these directions were replicated and repeated year in year out. The results of Napoleon war were very severe and the people who embraced the culture of orientalism started dropping it. After the war, that feeling of superiority among French army and the citizens started diminishing slowly. Their orientalism and boastful nature reduced. In the turn of history among the Jewish intellectuals, many of them directed their scholarly gazes to the pasts of their people and religious traditions.