The Others :: essays research papers

The OtherGananath Obeyesekere argues that one cannot escape the politics, ethics, and quandaries of representation even as we try to describe the Other. This argument has lead to a great debate between him and another anthropologist, Marshal Sahlins. Obeyesekere believes that even though we try to give an objective portrayal of another, we cannot help judging them by our knowledge standards. Sahlins on the other hand, says that it is possible to describe other people in an objective way, as long as you have evidence. These anthropologists arguments were focused approximately the apotheosis of Captain Cook. The major debate between the twain resides in the idea of representation, and an outsiders ability to understand another culture. This debate on the concept of representation can be applied to the picture, My Son the Fanatic, in which two cultures are represented- Western and Muslim.In the movie My Son the Fanatic, we see two cultures universe represented. The first is that o f a Western Capitalist, racist- acted out by the character, Schitz, who was a German businessman. The other culture was that of violent, Muslim fundamentalists- acted out by Farid, the son of Parvez. This movie was written by Hanif Kureishi who was the son of a Pakistani father and an English mother. Because Hanif was a Pakistani, it is expected that he would be able to objectively portray the Muslims in the movie. I think that he did a good job at doing so. He showed that some of the Muslims were violent fundamentalists such as Farid, and he also showed examples of Muslims that were not so extreme such as Parvez. Farid led violent riots to destroy the prostitutes, burned down their house and attacked Bettina, a prostitute that was also Parvez friend. If this was the only display case of Muslim portrayed throughout the movie, it would have been a stereotypical film however, Hanif also showed that there were Muslims such as Parvez that were not violent fundamentalists- Parvez even b efriended a prostitute. Unlike his un-bias representation of Muslims, Hanif lacked objectivity in the representation of the Western culture within the film. This culture had only one character that was portrayed as being evil it seemed very stereotypical on this behalf. The character of Schitz was portrayed as a Western Capitalistic, racist. Schitz was personified as being very selfish, only thinking about(predicate) his on pleasures and money. The idea of Westerners being all about money is a major stereotype.