The Girl with No Shadow

[Omnirizon]

i didn't make value judgments, just stated that it is. The problem with Orientalism is that everyone and everything is to some degree Orientalist (and Edward Said got this position of authority where he got to claim what was good Orientalism and bad Orientalism).

It probably wouldn't take much argument for most people to reasonably agree that something like Bogarus could be classified as Orientalism; nobody really thinks of it that way though because Russia was never really colonized.

A primary application of Orientalism today is cultural education. Young children in Western schools don't make paper mache Coats of Arms as a part of learning European history, but they might make Native American headresses by gluing together a bunch of feathers and cardboard as a part of cultural education on Native Americans. What if Cub Scouts were based on Mexican heritage and the scouts regularly wore ten gallon hats and danced to mariachi music as part of honoring Mexican culture? It would seem a little silly.