There’s a popular and persistent game franchise called Prince of Persia that started in the late eighties and continues to this day. We can look to particular modern examples of Orientalism to discover whether or not we have moved forward in dispelling the myths of Orientalism. Persistent American interest and direct involvement in the “Orient” should provide more than enough example. Instead, the small world illusion created for “a Western citizen living in the electronic age,” is that the Orient is accessible and knowable in a way that has never been possible before, “and is now less a myth perhaps than a place crisscrossed by Western, especially American, interests” (91). If the West seeks to constantly reform its dominant relationship over the Orient even as we learn more about it (76), it seems like digital technologies haven’t helped to dispel the problems with this way of thinking. Unsurprisingly, the saturation of the modern world with electronic devices has done little to alleviate the close-mindedness of Orientalist thinking. If we adopt the notion “that what is thought, said, or even done about the Orient follows (perhaps occurs within) certain distinct and intellectually knowable lines” (80) then we can begin to see this problem cropping up in literature, political and ideological orthodoxy, and, wait for it, videogames. Said’s notion of Orientalism-and the concept that has evolved beyond Said’s control-remains depressingly obvious today in many forms. I don’t think this presentation is on purpose, but it remains problematic. For instance, almost every time there is a news story about regions in the middle east, the stories generally start with the shouting of protesters/dissidents/rebels or the quasi-mystical sounds of traditional instruments and vocal tracks. The most striking example from my recent experience is from the BBC World Service on Sirius/XM, which does a fair job of reporting “world” but tends to imply an Oriental point of view on non-Western ideologies or nations.
Interestingly, Orientalism has proven to be a flexible and encompassing ideological structure pervading cultures for millennia, so it “persists into the present, particularly in the West’s relationship with ‘Islam’, as is evidenced in its study, its reporting in the media, its representation in general” (154). This sense of “truth” about the Orient is pervasive, constructed, as our textbook notes, “by generations of intellectuals, artists, commentators, writers, politicians, and, more importantly” who “naturalize” the hegemonic binary Said identifies as Occident/Orient and therefore remain in a dominant position over the object of their often close study and criticism (PCS 153). One of the troubling realities of modern Orientalism is the persistent masquerading of this way of seeing as truth.