英国Termpaper代写论文精选:“浅谈北非国家摩洛哥的文化习俗”,这篇论文主要对北非国家摩洛哥的文化习俗进行了介绍及讨论,尤其指出了西方文明对摩洛哥的负面评论与误解。文章指出,许多英美电影及文学作品以政治、经济和宗教动机为借口,使得西方世界对摩洛哥人民以及其他文化方面的垄断合法化,作为一名在美国的阿拉伯学生,作者将西方人描述摩洛哥为凶恶阿拉伯人的情况进行了叙述,并阐述了自己的想法。
Morocco, its geographical terra firma, citizens and culture, has titillated foreigners long times ago, even before the colonial era. Many travellers, writers and anthropologists like Edith Wharton, Paul Bowles, Clifford Geertz, and others have made of Moroccan traditions and civilization the main themes of their books. Amid the western industrial uprising under the patronage of the imperial inclination, cavalcades of western writers and film makers have portrayed Morocco according to the colonialist requirements and desires of the era. The Anglo-American literary and media productions as legatee to the ideology of Western colonies in general, turned their gazing gawk on another Arab space in North Africa, mainly Morocco. The original outset of the Anglo-American interest in Morocco can be traced through successive genres of travel narratives, essays, novels, etc. that seized Morocco as their subject of writing and setting of shooting films down to its strategic and intercontinental locus. Going back to some historical reviews of the literature written about the representation of Morocco in the Anglo-American cinema and literature, we find that political, economic, and religious motivations are various pretexts that legitimize the western representation of Moroccan people together with their different cultural aspects. In Belated Travelers, Ali Bahdad has shown how westerners from the early travelers to modern tourism have defined the Arab including Moroccan people as “savages”, “child like”, “sexually thrilling”, etc. As an Arab student in the United States, A. Behdad recounts some situations that construe him as a menacing Arab: I couldn’t but feel scapegoated by the power of representation and stereotypes that had transformed me into a metonymy of what the Middle East signifies in the imaginary of the United States; incomprehensible by terrorism and fanaticism. (Belated Travelers, xii) From the early British literature led by Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe(novel& film) to the American writers led by Paul Bowles’ The Sheltering Sky(novel& film), Morocco has been presented in the Anglo-American imaginary as a land of “jinns”, “dervishes”, “harems”, all darkly promiscuous, sly and inscrutable. The film in its turn as an extension of narratives has sustained the same discourse of novelists, which stresses “the continual reanimation of negative stereotypes of the Arab and Islam in the West today” (Belated Travelers, xiii). Major films shot in Morocco present the Moroccan space -desert and kasbah- as a dangerous setting. Through such representations, film makers seem to seek an identity through military, economic and sexual adventures, in which the Moroccan other is continuously cast as inferior and the dark element of the night. Babel, The Sheltering Sky, Legionnaire, Five Fingers, etc. remain foremost films where film makers insist on the alienating forces of the Moroccan cultural threats, in which the wholesome graciousness of the white character should stand firm. It is rarely that we see some fair characteristics displayed by actors, showing the real image of Moroccans. The favourable setting favoured by film makers is most of the times dirty and shabby districts. The film makers always try to find places even far and may cost them more money just to find a place that can cast Morocco as inferior and uncivilized lacking the basic requirements of life. Traditional and orientalist writings about Morocco are indistinguishable texts and images affixed and engrafted onto the modish mode of films. From the early talking pictures, Morocco (1930), the classic Casablanca (1942), road comedies Road to Morocco till Five Fingers (2006), Morocco becomes a confining other space and a penal complex for the recalcitrant Anglo-American heroes. The Muslim and Arab gears of prevalently fixed stereotypes are applied likewise to portray Moroccans and supply the requisite background rapscallions, dickhead and wilful, etc. Such representations persevere to inhabit the imaginations and thoughts of the western audience largely and hardly to be changed. Edward Said has clearly identified the function of Arabs in western cinema: In the films and television the Arab is associated either with lechery or blood thirsty dishonestly. He appears as an oversexed degenerate capable (…) of cleverly devious intrigues, but essentially sadistic, treacherous, low. Slave trader, camel driver, money changer, colourful scoundrel: these are some traditional Arab roles in the cinema. (Orientalism, 286-87) Unfortunately, Morocco is geographically situated within two antagonist streams of the west as an Arab and African whose religion is Islam; “uncivilized” parts of the world. All types of stereotypes given to Arabs, Muslims and indigenous black Africans are also used identically to describe Moroccans. Throughout history of the Anglo-American cinema, Moroccan characters (Arab, Muslim and African) have served as the quintessential other in foreign cinema. Moroccans have been consistently represented as inferior to the west orally, intellectually, culturally and politically since the early misunderstandings and disagreements during the Barbary Wars. The history of Anglo-American hostility and disavowal towards Moroccans dates back to the Barbary Wars during the 18th century when Morocco refused the European and American ships to cross the Moroccan coast unless they pay tribute to the state. Though France and England paid tribute, the USA refused to pay even a dollar considering the practice piracy and developed a hostile policy towards the Barbary states (including Morocco) (Chidasey, 1971, p.1 phd). As a result of the USA’s refusal to pay tribute, many American ships were captured and many Americans were held as prisoners. Such conflict between Anglo-Americans and Moroccans helped to generate abundant images of Moroccan barbarity towards British and American preyers. Since then the Anglo-American myth about Moroccans as barbarians and savages grows and still manifests its self in the films they produce on Morocco nowadays. So the story of Babel seems to recount again the story of Barbary wars when Moroccans were considered as pirates and bandits who attack any foreigner bypassing their territory. In this film, the act of shooting the American tourist does show the everlasting American disgust, worry and fear from Moroccans whenever they are going round Moroccan lands. Though the act of shooting took place in the course of bagatelle game by immature and naïve kids, the filmmaker seems to put the blame on the responsible, society and the whole culture that determine the actions and deeds of its inhabitants. This of course goes with the stream of stereotypes promoted about Moroccans across Anglo-American cinematic features. The location of “the bad guys”, who shot the American tourist, on the top of mountains is similar to those places of vagabonds and pirates we read about in stories. Representing and tapering Moroccan geography and people into this simplistic image without showing any fine feature of Moroccan mores does illustrate the films message to develop and over-generalize Moroccan barbarism ever since the Barbary Wars. The film Babel was filmed in four different countries: China, USA, Mexico and Morocco; yet, the only dangerous setting and characters happen to be Moroccans. In all other countries, anyone watching the film can see some features of development save for Moroccans who seem uncivilized and goat keepers in the mountains. This stereotype is clearly emphasized when the American lady was hurt and could not find any hospital or means of transport to save her life. Fear is always prevalent in the film as if the film maker informing the audience who wish to visit Morocco to change their plans since there is nothing special to see unless they want to lose their lives. Historically speaking, Barbary Wars and many other American interests pushed Anglo-American decision makers to create public support for their deeds, especially through films. D.W. GRIFFITH’s epic the Birth of a nation (1915) and Passage to India is one among many feature films made with the assistance of the state including Casablanca, Morocco, Road to Morocco for political needs In the post 9/11 world and London bombardment, where some Moroccans were found guilty and involved in “terrorist” acts, Moroccans again are perceived as antagonistic to western values and a threat to the western stability. In Babel, the film maker clearly shots this belief to show that all Moroccans are against the Anglo-American presence in Morocco including tourists who are bulleted by a small Moroccan child in the mountains. In the film’s scenes, CNN reports and considers this event a terrorist attack. In this conjunction, Woll and Miller argue that the Arab image has “stalked the silver screen as a metaphor for anti-western values. The movie Arabs, and the television Arabs, have appeared as lustful, criminal, and exotic villains or foils to western heroes and heroines” (Ethnic and Racial Images in American Film and Television, 79). Across the films under study, Anglo-American cinematic productions seem highly obsessed by stereotypical images of Moroccans. Arabs and Africans in general and Moroccans in particular are cinematically constructed to possess a wide array of loathsome characteristics: they may be backwards, wild, cruel, blood thirsty, crude, sex-crazed, stupid, dishonest conniving or menacing. Year after year and decade after decade, hundreds of films have flooded the market with a large number of unfavourable Arab and African depictions. In his book, Reel bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People, Jack Shaheen has studied more than one thousand films with major Arab themes and settings, about 40 of which are about Morocco. In his latest book, just after 9/11, Guilty: Hollywood’s Verdict on Arabs after 9/11, Shaheen has studied again more than one hundred films about Arabs picturing them as responsible for what is happening now around the world. Within these bundles of stereotypes, one can wonder about the reason behind all these biased descriptions. As a response to such questions, many scholars like Churchill agree that “it seems necessary to alter realities to assume the maintenance of empire” (Fantasies of the Master Race, 38). Churchill goes on saying that “mere conquest is never the course of empire in the achievement of mission can only be attained through the productive utilization of captured ground” (34). Within the same line of thought, Pieterse writes that “the legacy of several hundred years of western expansion and hegemony, manifested in racism and exotism, continues to be recycled in western cultures” (White on Black: Images of Africa and Blacks in Western Popular Culture, 9). Coming to mediatic representations, we find that Brzezinki in Out of Control: Global Turmoil on the Eve of the 21st Century, Naylor in Cultural Diversity in the United States, and Shohat and Stam in Unthinking Eurocentrism all agree that Hollywood cinema promotes Eurocentric representations in order to further an economic and political propaganda. In the present time, which is characterized by terrorism, we see that the movie discourse of the First and the Second World Wars repeats itself and continues to endorse and legitimize the imperial vision of the “white man’s burden”. Buschbaum asserts that “as early as the First World War, many western governments recognized the propaganda potential of film (Left Political Filmmaking in the West: The Interwar Years, 26), in the Second World War, in Ross’s words, “the movie industry and its key personal exempted from military service” (Cinema and Class Conflict, 82). Other scholars like Martin, Hoberman and Shaheen claim that the best movies of the 1930’s promoted colonialism, neo-colonialism and imperialism. These films include Marta Hari, Shangai Express, Tarzan the Ape Man, Flying Down to Rio, etc. During the 1950’s, this imperialistic agenda was furthered in films such as those starring Ronald Reagan- Hong Kong, Tropic Zone, Prisoner of War- all uphold the idea of the United States domination of the third world countries and were often made with the government assistance. Although these biased representations within the commercial films have moderated somehow over years, we can say that the visual image of the other Arab and Moroccan in particular is still very poor. Jack Shaheen in his interesting documentary “Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People” (YouToub Video), explores that the 20th century witnessed a large number of films degrading and distorting the image of Arabs including Moroccans. Anglo-American film industry is now theorizing and supporting wars through different scenes that the audience seems to take for granted. Due to this grave impact that such films have on the targeted viewers, Hoberman finds it very necessary to assign these Eurocentric films a new genre called “war-nography” (Vulgar Modernism, 227). Many films unabashedly affirm traditional Anglo-American values and institutions and negate everything anti-western. Among these movies, we can mention Kingdom of Heaven, Black Hawk Down, True Lies, The Mummy, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Stone Merchant, to name but a few. In my thesis, I will study and attempt to prove that the films made about Morocco: Babel, Casablanca, Hideous Kinky, Five Fingers, The Road to Morocco, A Night in Casablanca, Legionnaire, The Man Who Knew too Much, The Sheltering Sky, Our Man in Marrakesh, Man of Violence, Unveiled, and some others fit within the aforementioned category as well. In Hideous Kinky, despite some short instances where fairness manifests itself, Moroccans are targeted for stereotypical representations within British films. As Varsey succinctly states: “the British influence in general, and its impact in the area of colonial relations in particular, had far reaching implications for Hollywood’s depiction of ethnic difference” (Foreign Parts: Hollywood’s Global Distribution and the Representation of Ethnicity, 699). She concludes that Hollywood’s representations of ethnic and national difference and the movies modulation of these stereotypes were informed not by the personal psychologies of individual production, but by the economic imperatives of global distribution. 51Due作为专业的留学教育辅导机构,专业辅导语言学论文代写、硕士paper代写、英国matlab作业代写,自2004年至今,坚持以学生为中心,全天候服务,为海外留学生完成了数万篇assignment代写、essay代写、report代写、dissertation代写等论文,以优质的英国代写服务赢得留学生的信赖,如有英国代写code需求或者英国it课程补习需求,欢迎咨询QQ800020041哦。 51Due网站原创范文除特殊说明外一切图文著作权归51Due所有,未经51Due官方授权谢绝任何用途转载或刊发于媒体。如发生侵犯著作权现象,51Due保留一切法律追诉权。-C
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