This blog will begin to explore the previously proposed potential fields. We start with postcolonialism, aiming to understand what colonialism is, the definitions within postcolonial studies, the objectives of postcolonialism, and methods to identify colonial characteristics.
Postcolonialism:
- Postcolonialism seeks a better understanding of colonial life from the perspective of the colonized, based on the assumption that colonial rulers are unreliable narrators.
What is Postcolonial Studies?
On a deeper level, postcolonialism examines the social and political power dynamics that sustain colonialism and neocolonialism, including the societal, political, and cultural narratives surrounding colonizers and the colonized.
Postcolonialism (or postcolonial studies) often represents an ideological reflection against colonialist thoughts and can be seen as a response and deviation from colonialism.
- Extension: This article aims to focus on the impact of postcolonialism on the cultural narratives of the colonized from the ideological aspect of colonialist thoughts.
What is Colonialism?
- Colonialism is described as the “extension of civilization,” ideologically proving the racial and cultural superiority of the Western world over the non-Western world.
- “The sacred establishment of natural harmony among the world’s humans is possible because each person in the imperial colonies has an assigned cultural identity, social status, and economic role.” (@Essentialization @Stereotyping @Objectification)
- Extension: This section, along with stereotyping and demonization in Orientalism, can be used as evidence in the character setting and dubbing of Aladdin’s lamp in 1992.
Postcolonial Identity: Postcolonial theory suggests that individuals in decolonized regions develop a postcolonial identity based on cultural interactions between different identities (cultural, ethnic, gender, and class), each endowed with varying degrees of rights by colonial society.
By gaining a rough understanding of what colonialism is, comprehending postcolonialism as a reaction and resistance to colonialism, and grasping general methods for identifying postcolonial features, one can understand how to identify the content featuring postcolonial characteristics. However, for a deeper analysis of the features in Aladdin’s lamp film, I believe it is necessary to delve specifically into Orientalism to glean more information about postcolonialism.