Foreignizing the Enemy

Like most of you, I really liked specific comics. Sure there were those who enjoyed X Men, or Spiderman, but my favorite comics characters were rarely the most popular. Bartman, Alfred Pennyworthy, and War Machine were by and far what I enjoyed the most. There were also the obscure to Americans comics like Donald Duck Adventures, Rin Tin Tin, and others.

I tell this to you because when I was really looking forward to the Iron Man movie. A character who was the basis for War Machine would fight awesome robots. I heard it was very topical, and that also caught my interest. It was about the middle east, and I had been spending hours every day reading the blogs, and news articles I could find about the area. It takes a lot to explain, but I wanted to know if the people living there were ok, and what could be done to keep them safe. There was a lot of opinions, but the realities were pretty easy to figure out. So, an action movie about one of my favorite comic book characters, fighting a war in a place I was actively studying was perfect for me.

What I saw did not live up to any of the expectations. The comic book half was great, and I enjoyed that. The moment Rhoades looked at the silver suit had me squealing. Anything about how the middle east worked made me boil with anger.

The way they showed how the world worked, and people thought was incredibly lazy, and even ugly. There were people speaking languages well enough, but then what they said didn’t make sense within their own culture, or even accent. Imagine an Idahoan Farmer saying, “Fa get about it,” like they do in stereotyped New York.

As someone who studied things as best I could, the entire scenario fell flat on its face in front of me. The worst was having to read comment after comment from people that this was exactly what the middle east was like. Nothing in the movie was accurate to anything happening, yet NEWS pundits were talking as if it was a documentary.

The basic premise goes like this. Another group is thought of as weird, or strange. Instead of trying to understand the culture, the explanation given is that it is weird. In other words, the weirdness is the only thing accepted. Stereotypes of this weirdness are built up to the point that it becomes difficult to explain the truth to someone.

This break from reality is called foreignization. Actually the exact term is Orientalism, and it is clearly defining of how people end up becoming foreign to another group. We had an entire class in college studying these ideas, and how they worked. The patterns are common enough, and it helps someone define an entire people without having to actually care about them. These caricatures are what are hated, and used in propaganda. It’s what gives us an excuse to kill them.

Foreignization is one of the most powerful weapons used within political discourse. You see it all the time. I am so tempted to show links, or pictures of it, but I won’t. The problem is it is so strong, and widespread that its hard to even talk about things at times.

For those wondering, most Navajos I knew had internet, and loved Jackie Chan films. Most Arabs have cell phones, and enjoy reading blogs. There are many young hip middle easterners who would sooner talk about the latest music album than anything political. In fact, depending on where you are that may be the majority of conversation.

There are very few people living in caves, or constantly equipping weapons. Heck, if you read about roadside bombs in Iraq, how would they be dangerous unless there was a lot of traffic? It gets hilarious as everything from Iron Man is disproven by simple blogs, and websites. Even the terrorist groups don’t work the same. Al Qaida had a publicity department with IT staff. Quite a few videos of people declaring war turned out to have special effects done around them. Their beard was lengthened, the background changed, and their voices modulated.

Go ahead, think about it for a moment, and compare that to how you imagined the average Iraqi, or Saud. The image doesn’t work, because it wasn’t based on a reality.

Academically, the weirdness was pointed out by a Middle Eastern descended literature professor named Edward Said. His book, Orientalism,  was about how his own culture was depicted by modern art, movies, pictures, and writings.  Since he taught literature, he used mostly books as his examples. The descriptions he gave, and compared showed that most people thought of the middle east in a way that barely had anything to do with the middle east in reality.

In other words, Iron Man was perhaps the best example of Orientalism in our modern society. Those people who told me that this was how the war was happening, were basing everything on old ideas of what it was like to live in the middle east.

Strangely enough, this pattern shows up for any group. As a Mormon, I can point out the history of movies, pictures, and stories depicting my own culture in very similar ways. A recent movie -notice how I am not giving a link or naming it - talked about my religion as if everyone lived in caves, and the leadership of the church was some kind of warlord. Roger Ebert reviewed it, and called the movie one of the most terrible things he ever saw.

I have had cousins ask me about electricity in Hawaii. Somehow they didn’t realize that if I could chat with them online, it meant there was plenty of modern stuff where I lived. There are places that don’t have specific things, but it is not as missing as much as people believe.

In our class Nationalism and Globalization, there were several weeks spent looking at how foreignization was used. We followed the patterns being talked about, and saw various pictures that depicted orientalism, and foreignization.

The basic idea is that the men are dumbed down brutes, and the women are sexualized. Somehow they live in caves, or in cave like places. The men lord over their power, and enjoy doing horrible violent things. The women are not given rights, are weak, submissive, and incredibly beautiful.

What is surprising about this description, is how much it is used. Take a look at my home of Hawaii. Imagine how the women are depicted, and now the men. If you just imagined a topless woman in a grass skirt, and an angry looking man beating another man you are close. Now imagine where they live, if you thought of a grass hut, or a place that is old and run down you have been reading the tourist brochures.

Wait, did you also imagine these people humbly doing whatever you wanted? Somehow you live like a king, while they happily accept their fates in the older home. In case you are wondering, that is nearly destroying the entire island. The stereotype of the island, and how it is comes from pamphlets that started going out in the 50’s. There really is a sense of Aloha, and giving spirit, but it is expected that you return it completely.

There are many people who have had to leave the islands to find work. If businesses started to change the image of the area to a more prosperous middle class, the tourists would hate it. Or thats what everyone believes. Because of this, talking about how to keep the old ways, along with finding new ways can become tense.

What you seek is a word, ‘Authentic’. To you, the images, and ideas of how to live in Hawaii must be kept true for things to actually be part of the culture. There must be a strange foreignization of the people to meet this standard. If I were to tell you that the Hawaiians did not wear grass skirts traditionally, and that many of the dances you imagined had a male partner, or that the dinner you are expecting is a rarity, you wouldn’t believe me. In fact, these stereotypes drive a lot of the modern culture.

At a Tahitian dance festival, only a handful of guys showed up, for the hundreds of girls. Traditionally, it is a dance done in groups, but because the only image portrayed is that of the woman, the guys don’t show up. If you are wondering, this is the really fast moving hips dance. That sounds like fun to you, until you realize that the majority of dancers were under 16.

The big dinners are done for special events, and everyone is expected to eat. I worked at an arcade, and had to always have a plate of food or I would be scolded. If you really want to know, we started to hate parties run by folks who didn’t keep that tradition. It’s something I hope to keep as part of my own personal culture.

If you ever complain that Taco Bell isn’t traditional Hispanic food, please kick yourself. There are way more people who don’t use tortillas at all, than who do. In fact, if you went to Argentina expecting anything like Mexican food, you would likely get yelled at. As a hint, ask for Ice Cream while there. There are cities that have the same amount of ice cream parlors as Seattle has coffee shops. You should also prepare to eat a lot of cow.

The reason why you don’t know very much is two parts. The first is that most foreign things have to be told in a very brief moment. The second is that you sort of want that stereotyped view. The quick image in your mind is so much easier to understand, and lets you imagine the foreign as foreign.

To bring this back to the Middle East, I couldn’t help noticing that both Republicans, and Democrats described Middle Easterners in the same way. They were using the same stereotypes to reach their own conclusions. The arabs are horribly racist violent people, and we should respect their culture because of it. Take a moment to read that sentence again. Now imagine pans to various stereotyped arches, and buildings. Maybe someone calling everyone to prayer in the audio.

This idea is used within Nationalism all the time. The good guys are defined with high marks like good, loving, cheerful, and intelligent. The religion is pure, and there are no problems within it. The other is bad, hateful, angry and uneducated. The religion is full of stupid beliefs the push the people to do violent things.

The funny part about the last paragraph is that I could use it to describe every major war the US fought in. Heck, it would be every form of propaganda for any country. The caricature of evil is used to help define who the enemy is.

The stereotypes don’t leave either. Whatever you have labeled as a villainous way, stays that way, even if the idea that it is for a specific people is forgotten. Imagine an evil villain laughing, and walking toward his cowering foe. How did he laugh? What does he look like? Would it surprise you to know his looks, and his own goons were based on old propaganda from World War I about Germans? I know this because it becomes pretty obvious that this is how everyone thinks of it whenever I laugh.

The use of foreignization is used within all sorts of nationalism even today. The GamerGate debates are based on the idea that everyone within a group fits a specific image. The NotYourShield hashtag is the first time I have read about someone specifically fighting against an attempt at foreignization.

The stereotype of gamers was the angry kid, who played in his mom’s basement -IE a cave- and didn’t have a girlfriend. He was white, and yelled racial slurs all the time. His education was highschool or less.

The return view is that although the women’s rights movement against gamer gate knew about women’s lib, it was a lesser understanding. They are hardly academically acceptable, and lack the nuance to truly understand what they are talking about. It was obviously a few females, who worked with white males that made all the shots.

Those comments came from the same page. So you can see how it goes. To be honest, both groups tend to stay away from each other, and stay in their own corners. The threats and vitriol do not mean confrontations. My observation is that they say a lot, but don’t deal with each other a lot.

This sort of rhetoric can move fast, and be at anyone. Although most people know about the Shoa -Jewish Holocaust in World War II- most people don’t know how awkward it was. Before Hitler came to power, Jews were considered just as German as anyone else. Ralph Baer, one of the people who invented videogames, wrote about growing up in Germany like this.

Later on he had to run away to the US because of AntiJewish sentiment. I can’t find the article about him trying out for a job, and being run out of the room. It was shocking to Baer because the same guy had been friendly a year before.

This foreignization makes the other person non human in a way. It gives reasons to kill the enemy. It is needed for militaries to help soldiers shoot at another human being. It lets politicians make anyone a target. It also makes it very difficult to talk about history, or cultures.

Is it used in Videogames? Yes, in fact there are two ways that have the same end result. The basic idea is that to kill an enemy in a game, you have to not view them as human. Videogames usually do this by not making the enemy human, or adding some variant onto the human that makes it ok to kill them. They also use propaganda like Iron Man did to make it ok to kill an enemy.

As you can guess, the first option of not killing humans at all is the most used. Everything from aliens, evil walking mushrooms, robots, and cartoon characters has been used. Gears of War is incredibly violent, but the enemies don’t look human so it becomes ok to kill them. Goombas, Koopas and others are in Super Mario Bros and you don’t even think about destroying them. Star Wars actually used robots, clones, and aliens as a way to get around the killing aspect. Many games try to use a cartoonish outlook at destruction.

Half Life has humans that try to kill you. In the first game, it made it ok, because they were somehow evil. In the second a mask was placed on the humans, and everything else was aliens.

Zombie games take real enough looking humans, but specifically make them unhuman. You may recognize them, but they do not walk or act human so it becomes ok.

The excuse given is that it is only a game. Within Grand Theft Auto III, killing random people wholesale is ok, because it is ‘only a game’. The game takes great pains to make everything as realistic and photogenic as possible. At some point the main character stops being a human being, and becomes a sociopath. It becomes ok, because the game said it was.

Which brings us to Iron Man again. It was ok to kill the enemies, because they were evil as shown. The caricatures of arabs was totally acceptable, because it was believable to the modern Western Audience. Videogames have done this, and many are very popular at it.

Modern Warfare depicts arabs in the same way as Iron Man. The feeling is that they are thugs, and idiots. In fact, the game works hard to make the character as amazing as possible. Parents find nothing wrong with this, because the enemies fit the predetermined killable character being portrayed in movies, TV shows, and even the NEWS.

Foreignization is a large term and gets studied a lot in academia. It started with a book by a literature professor who was tired of people taking his culture and making it weird. Nationalism uses it to make anyone who doesn’t follow the same ideals into an enemy. It has deadly results. Games use it to let the player kill the enemy. The problem is, after a while the people you are shooting at are based on actual living people, who have very little to do with the stereotype in your mind.

I actually liked Iron Man 2, and 3 much better. Part of the reason why is that War Machine has a much stronger presence in it. The other is that the stereotyping, and misuse of culture in the movies is not as bad.

However, there are moments where even I looked the other way. Robots are firing at random people, and blowing up everywhere. Although the movie didn’t show it, there was likely multiple fatalities. For some odd reason, my mind never really took that in.

As we see how foreignization works, we then ask why we believe one side? What is the purpose of making all of these one side agains the other? In the next article, I hope to answer why.