Friday, April 5, 2019

Homescapes is Prejudiced??

With the introduction of Orientalism in the past three weeks during English class, this concept has been appearing all around me. One thing that really stood out to me was in a very silly (in my opinion) way. I have a game on my phone that I have been playing for only a little bit of time called "Homescapes". I am afraid to admit I am pretty addicted to it, and my very serious case of senioritis has not been helping with my game use. But, as I was completing the tasks in the game, a mail woman delivered a box to me. With the delivery the woman stated that the "box from an unfamiliar and mysterious land", aka India. This truly struck me because it completely fit the main idea of Orientalism. 

We have learned that Orientalism is a way of seeing an emphasis or exaggerated distortion of the differences of Arab people and cultures as compared to Europe and the U.S. We also learned in English that Orientalism often involves seeing Arab cultures as exotic, backward, uncivilized, or even at times, dangerous. I was fascinated to finally see a clear example of Orientalism, and the most fascinating part about it was that it was so blatant, not at all hid well or disguised. I took a second to imagine how someone who is from India would feel to read this example in nothing less than a video game on their phone, and the utter disrespect and ignorance of Orientalism became very clear to me. Europeans and Americans have such a clear concept of what it means to be the "Other", but this view is so incorrect and only fits what they want to see. With this example in the game, I realized that this view is extremely harmful and hurtful to those who are being viewed as the "Other". It has never been clearer to me how Orientalism is manifested in the twenty first century, and none-the-less, in an iPhone game! 

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