Searching for the East in the Shadow of the West

Abstract

Orientalism is defined as part of the discourse of power which includes the purpose of exploitation and domination that represents attribution of “Easterner” qualities that are opposite and inferior to the qualities that Euro-American cultures ascribe to themselves, and labeling them as irrational, uncivilized, inferior, not open to change, and so on. Orientalism, which is an expression of an extensive and long-term cultural and ideological process, states a discourse that marginalizes what it leaves out of Euro-American culture. This style of discourse is effective in different mediums and reproduced consistently. In this chapter, asserted Eurocentric arguments in the modern orientalist discourse are discussed with a critical approach through Dutch director Mijke de Jong's film Layla M. (2016).