Laurence of Arabia is considered one of the most classic movies of all time. It features Peter O'Toole (as Laurence) as the protagonist, and of course there are the people of Arabia. I saw the movie when I was pretty small with my parents, maybe fourth or fifth grade. A couple of things I remember from the movie is that it was like five hours long and it took several sittings to finish, I also remember how foreign and crazy it seemed.
Looking back on it now it really had a strong influence on me and my perception of the Middle East as this crazy foreign place with all of these weird people with weird cultures and weird food etc. This is a perfect example of a movie from the 60's that portrays eastern culture through the eyes of the western stereotypes that Edward Said talks about in his book Orientalism. It is sad to see that since that time not a lot has changed in the film world. Movies like Aladdin still portray these western culture stereotypes today..
Great observation. I also find it really interesting how young we ("Western's") are when we are first exposed to this ideal. You saw this movie when you were five. It almost seems like it is a way to (systematically) predisposition children to see the "orient" as so different there is basically no capacity for Empathy or Similarity. That's just my opinion.
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