Post-Colonialism Task

1)      Alvarado

Alvarado’s theory of post-colonialism, suggests that there are 4 racial representations of minority groups. The representations are:

1)      Pitied - looked down upon

2)      Exotic - groups from a good and rich culture

3)      Dangerous – groups that appear as a threat and can cause harm

4)      Humorous – an image that is created for the amusement of the white

Frantz Fanon

Fanon came up with the quote “black skin, white mask”, this means black people would put on white masks in order to become like the White man and mock them. Also Fanon had realized that the majority of black youths. He came up with four ways of stereotyping them:

Ø  Infantilize- portray them as children, small and cute, for example using them in Aid commercials.

Ø   Primitivize- the exotic tribal warriors or ‘bare breasted maidens’ with a natural sense of rhythm.

Ø   Decivilize- The ‘gangster’ pimp.

Ø  Essentialize- Clumping the group together, undifferentiating them.

Edward Said’s Orientalism

Said argued that the west- in particular colonising Europe- constructed a meaning of the East (Middle East ) that suggested it was different, dangerous and uncivilised.

West v/s East = Civilised v/s uncivilised =superior v/s inferior

2)       Does it offer a positive or negative view of British Muslims? To what extent does it reinforce or challenge Edward Said's theory of Orientalism - that the west is superior to the exotic or uncivilised east?

Yasmin offers both a positive and negative view of Muslims. Positive as the beginning shows the boy singing in his language and shows them as peaceful, minding their own business, but when the white locals begin to move away they are presented as a nuisance, which show negativity and that they aren’t very helpful but annoying. Also, the facts that the elderly man is cleaning “Paki, Go Home” off the shutter shows them as docile and calm, as well as refusing to retaliate at the fact that they are unwelcome there. To a major degree, the theory of Orientalism, that the west is superior to the exotic/uncivilised east as the woman is changing from her religious clothes in a field, which is an insult in itself as women in the Islamic community are supposed to keep their bodies covered, furthermore the women is changing in to western clothes, meaning jeans and a t-shirt.