Is "people who are allergic to a dog named Stinky" technically speaking a minority.
Yep, Will Smith, and Whoopie Goldberg, but would Jada Pinkett (famous primarily, as I understand it, for...um....performing with Will Smith) be considered a sufficient "draw" to sell a summer blockbuster? I doubt it. I think by the end of that list we are already getting pretty borderline on actors who function as Box-Office Draw, rather than Partner of Box-Office Draw (take a bow Danny Glover).
Oh, and "Oriental" is often felt to be an "orientalising" term - Edward Said is quite good on this...
(Edited by Tannhauser 10/04/2002 10:10)
Yep, Will Smith, and Whoopie Goldberg, but would Jada Pinkett (famous primarily, as I understand it, for...um....performing with Will Smith) be considered a sufficient "draw" to sell a summer blockbuster? I doubt it. I think by the end of that list we are already getting pretty borderline on actors who function as Box-Office Draw, rather than Partner of Box-Office Draw (take a bow Danny Glover).
Oh, and "Oriental" is often felt to be an "orientalising" term - Edward Said is quite good on this...
The Orient signifies a system of representations framed by political forces that brought the Orient into Western learning, Western consciousness, and Western empire. The Orient exists for the West, and is constructed by and in relation to the West. It is a mirror image of what is inferior and alien ("Other" ) to the West.
Orientalism is "a manner of regularized (or Orientalized) writing, vision, and study, dominated by imperatives, perspectives, and ideological biases ostensibly suited to the Orient." It is the image of the 'Orient' expressed as an entire system of thought and scholarship.
The Oriental is the person represented by such thinking. The man is depicted as feminine, weak, yet strangely dangerous because poses a threat to white, Western women. The woman is both eager to be dominated and strikingly exotic. The Oriental is a single image, a sweeping generalization, a stereotype that crosses countless cultural and national boundaries.
(Edited by Tannhauser 10/04/2002 10:10)