Monday, August 18, 2014

Final Essay


The West has always been looking toward the East, from which the sun rises. The Orient has continuously fascinated them. From the time Marco Polo brought back exotic tales and wares from afar, the West has been enraptured by the mysteriousness of the Orient. In Edward Said's Orientalism, he discusses how people are so enamored by the Orient, that studies on its culture and material goods are being done.  However, in this current time period, the West no longer differentiates solely on the “East”; many other cultures and people have fallen under the label of “The Orient”.
That is not to say the Western “hunger” for the exotic Orient has disappeared. One prime example of the West’s continued fixation of the East are the movies, Kung Fu Panda 1 and 2. In Hye Jean Chung’s article, Kung Fu Panda: Animated Animal Bodies as Layered Sites of (Trans)National Identities, she describes the merging of cultures and knowledge through the sharing of digital media creations: “Mediated spaces and bodies in such films are created by a collaborative form of transnational filmmaking that utilizes the economic or cultural resources and creative talent of multiple nations, which are increasingly circulated globally via digital packages and formats” (Chung). The characters of Kung Fu Panda are digitally created animals. However, while the characters are supposed to be animals, they most certainly don’t act like ones. They walk, talk, and act just like humans do, with certain animal traits to make them unique. Due to their added traits of humanity, Chung identifies that people associate the characters with known figures and countries: “layered traces of national bodies become reanimated and recorporealized along the production pipeline through the bodies and voices of actors, martial arts coordinators, animators, and widely recognized kung fu artists such as Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan” (Chung). In Kung Fu Panda, alongside the panda Dragon Warrior, there is a quintet of animal marital artists called The Furious Five: Tigress, Monkey, Mantis, Viper, and Crane. They were modeled after the actual styles of Chinese martial arts. These characters are the epitome of Asian ability. However, not every character has that level of grace.
Most of the cast are animals traditionally associated with the Orient or exotic lands. The main character Po, is a panda; one of the most recognized symbols of the Chinese in the world. However, rather than model him as some super strong ninja, he’s modeled as someone more human; he has faults, weaknesses, and fears like any other person. In an attempt to bring the mysterious Orient closer to the West, they gave him relatable flaws.
In the article "Comparative Study Between Chinese and Western Culture in Kung Fu Panda 2", Kun Huang discusses the differences in culture between the West and the East, particularly China. He brings the aspect of politics to the movie’s cultural influences: “This movie both displays the successful discuss on the collective power of China socialist society and the personnel power in struggling for success of western individualism society” (Huang). This outlook on the movie presents the view that the audience is being guided to learning more about Asian culture and society through the experience of children movies and shows; the views and ideals are much different.
The movie brings us a kind of cultural connotation that Americans regard Savior as their heroes, while the heroes bear people’s longing and hope for world peace. Chinese heroes are the persons who can be around them and exclude the difficulty and anxiety for them when they encounter disasters. Understanding of Chinese and the Westerners to hero has much to do with cultural difference, while the difference is completely embodied in their spiritual pursuit. The hero in Western culture often refers to someone, as for how to become a hero is not pursued excessively by them, while the hero in Chinese culture becomes a genius one, which needs a team to give assistance, like the leading character, panda Po, his five partners accompanied him when he accomplishes each arduous task. (Huang)
With Kung Fu Panda, the cultural differences are bridged through the understanding that no matter the hero, Western or Eastern, they always seek to protect the weak and save the world. Their development is what sets them apart.
In part of the shows of Kung Fu Panda, the development of each of the Furious Five is described. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsr6dq3HVk8) The panda Po is seen story telling about the humble history of the Furious Five. Each character discovered their own strength and balance; patience, courage, discipline, compassion, and confidence (Stevenson). All these are traits that are encouraged in youths of all cultures.
However, Orientalism isn’t confined to just the Asian countries anymore. Nor is it completely negative either. Many shows and movies besides Kung Fu Panda have characters that are mysterious and exotic. It doesn’t have to be someone Asian. The Middle East falls under the realm of the Orient as well. In fact, anyone who falls out of the ordinary in appearance could be labeled as part of the Orient.
As for why it’s not always negative anymore, it’s because it’s being marketed.  The public is given doses of the Orient in movies and shows. Due to their fascination with they enigmatic beliefs and cultures, the market sells their tokens and “cultural items” to make money in the Western capitalist society.
Now, with a touch of a button or a click of a mouse, people can watch movies or internet videos about the Orient with ease. There is no more struggle to make their way across a long arduous path for some valued commodity. The people have changed to become the commodity. They are what is most valued now.
At the same time, they are also the most useless. For all that people admire the Orient, they still view the individuals consisting of the culture to be inferior and below them.  There are cultural connotations that cannot fade away so easily. In Said’s Orientalism, he felt that “the ideas impregnated with European superiority, racism, and imperialism that re elaborated and distributed through a variety of texts and practices” (Said). The emperor of China is one such example: The old emperors of China had multiple wives and concubines that are viewed negatively by Western Christian factions. While this does not happen anymore today, people still remember things about the Orient like that.
Due to the low status of the people of the Orient, there are ones who are even lower on the totem pole. The “second sex” as Simon de Beauvoir states in “The Second Sex” are “defined and differentiated with reference to man and not he with reference to her; she is the incidental, the inessential as opposed to the essential. He is the Subject, he is the Absolute – she is the Other” (Beauvoir). What this means is that for a woman of the Orient, she is not only faced with the challenge of making herself known against the men of the Orient, but is also forced to acknowledge that they are somehow “lesser” that even the second sex white women. “Thus humanity is male and man defines woman not in herself but as relative to him; she is not regarded as an autonomous being” (Beauvoir). The female of the Orient must struggle against the double noose around her neck before she can escape the labels that govern her actions.
In the current environment, Orientalism exists in the media we watch and interact with. The shows the children watch are filled with hidden meanings and connotations. Things are expected of individuals just based on their ethnicity. Just two days ago, I fainted twice due to a combination exhaustion and stress brought on by the stress of trying to get everything ready for the end of class. When I told the urgent care doctor and nurse that I was in school and close to finals, they immediately started chuckling about “over achieving Asians.” It’s astonishing how much people assume due to base ideas about other ethnicities. Orientalism is just one of those major factors that still lives on today.


Works Cited
Barker, Chris. Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice. London: Sage Publications, 2013. Print.

Beauvoir, Simone De. "The Second Sex." Marxists Internet Archive. Jonathan Cape, Feb. 1998. Web. 19 Aug. 2014. <http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/ethics/de-beauvoir/2nd-sex/index.htm>.

Chung, Hye Jean. "Kung Fu Panda: Animated Animal Bodies as Layered Sites of (Trans)National Identities." The Velvet Light Trap, 69.1 (2012): 27-37.

Huang, Kun. "Comparative Study Between Chinese and Western Culture in Kung Fu Panda 2." Studies in Literature and Language, 6.3 (2013): 70-73.

Said, Edward W. "Orientalism." The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. 2nd ed. New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 2010. 1866-904. Print.

Stevenson, John W., and Mark Osborne. "Kung Fu Panda: Secrets of the Furious Five." YouTube. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Aug. 2014. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsr6dq3HVk8>.


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