Diving into the Orientation of Orientalism through “Sex and the City 2”
Every single being is subject for orientation. In one way or another, we orientate ourselves to something that draws to us either physically, spiritually, or mentally. One can be orientated towards a certain object of desire, another can be orientated towards the future, and another simply to a mere idea. But despite the perplexing study of orientation, this essay will focus on Sara Ahmed’s concepts and understanding of queer phenomenology, linking it with the discussion of the orientation of Orientalism, in referral to Edward Said’s influential theory. In her book Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Other, there is not a single phrase or sentence that is not eloquent. Reading through the introduction, one can immediately comprehend that the nature of human orientation and how humans orientate themselves under different circumstances fall under the shadow of a very ambiguous umbrella. More specifically, the essay will question the nature of Orientalism, and whether or not it is innate to us, while applying it to 2010’s Hollywood major hit film Sex and the City 2, which have gathered reviews for having “dumb” and “thoughtless” scripts, but not for its steady reinforcement of whiteness and constant othering of the Middle East.
To start, Ahmed emphasises the importance of the study of orientations, as it is “not only how we inhabit space, but how we apprehend this world of shared inhabitance, as well as ‘who’ or ‘what’ we direct our energy and attention toward.”[1] Ahmed studies orientations through phenomenology, in which she reasons by saying that “phenomenology makes ‘orientation’ central in the very argument that consciousness is always directed ‘toward’ an object.”[2] In her work, Ahmed argues that “bodies are gendered, sexualized, and raced by how they extend to space,”[3] as opposed to the idea that bodies extend to space depending on how they are gendered, sexualized, raced. This, therefore, highlights that the orientation of the body comes after its extension to space.
With this, Ahmed brings up another conversation of re-orientation. She writes that the body never necessarily fixes itself into a certain orientation, because orientation is dynamic, and so is the body. Therefore, there is always the process of disorientation and reorientation. This would mean re-habiting the body into new ‘impressions’ and orientations and that the notion of ‘home’ is dynamic, and what feels like home to us today may not feel like home tomorrow.[4] Additionally, Ahmed also writes that “it is not always obvious which places are the ones where we can feel at home.”[5] In regards to this quote, it is important to ask: if we are non-Western, do we feel home as the other? Since identifying oneself as an other indicates that they are not an in-group, but instead an out-group — almost sounding as if the other is lacking something that the in-group possesses. In her book, Ahmed highlights the stark distinction between the East, or also known as the ‘Orient’ and the West: “The East is associated with women, sexuality and the exotic, with what is ‘behind’ and ‘below’ the West, as well as what is on ‘the other side.’”[6]
Before diving into the exchange between orientation and Orientalism, it is important to step back to understand the concept of Orientalism itself and what the ‘Orient’ consists of. The word ‘Orient’ has fairly non-exclusive but narrow meanings, but no matter how vague, ‘Orient’ evokes the general logic of ‘directionality’, in this case, toward the east. Ahmed also points out the non-incidentality that the etymology of the word ‘orientation’ derives from ‘the Orient’, and that the East as “the horizon” over which the sun rises, directly linking the inseparability between the two. Before stepping into Said’s classical text, Ahmed claims that “to orientate oneself by facing a direction is to participate in a longer history in which certain ‘directions’ are ‘given to’ certain places: they become the East, the West, and so on”,[7] highlighting that one’s orientation towards a certain direction is more than just a physical process, rather, it captures the body into that said place and as a result, the body then belongs to that certain orientation.
Moving on, the term Orientalism was first coiled by Edward Said, who writes that “the ‘Orient’ was almost a European invention and had been since antiquity a place of romance, exotic beings, haunting memories and landscapes, remarkable experiences.” Orientalism is, therefore, a European social construction that exercises the power of the West, or also known as the ‘Occident’, to the submissive ‘Orient’. However, in Said’s book, he argues that the ‘Orient’ is “not an inert of nature,” and that it is simply not ‘there’, the same way that the ‘Occident’ itself is not ‘there’ too, [8] highlighting that the relationship between the two forces are more complex than just calling it an imagined reality. He writes that to consider Orientalism as a mere imagination would be disingenuous, as the formation of the ‘Orient’ gathers histories of power, dominance, and complex hegemony. And “to become oriental is both to be given an orientation and to be shaped by the orientation of that gift”, and an orientation of a body which resembles a fetishized, exotic fantasy. In a way, the ‘Orient’ represents everything that ‘Occident’ is not or more specifically, what is not Europe, and it is in this ‘not-ness’ that embodies what seems to be far away for the ‘Occident’. What is considered ‘far away’ is the exotic, the savage, the sensual — things that the ‘Occident’ desire because they lack. The very fact that the ‘Orient’ is associated with the word ‘lacking’ is already a negative connotation. After all, Ahmed reminds us that “desire directs bodies toward its object; in desire, we face the desired and seek to get closer”.[9] In this way, Ahmed suggests that it is the ‘Occident’s’ desire that ultimately defines Said’s concept.
In the third chapter of Queer Phenomenology, entitled The Orient and Other Others, Ahmed discusses the orientation of Orientalism in greater depth, claiming that racism is “an ongoing and unfinished history, which orientates bodies in specific directions, affecting how they ‘take up’ space”,[10] and dives deeper in to the study or orientation beyond the surface level of the tactile. She references Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks, writing that underneath the phenomenological scheme of reality, there underlies the “historic-racial” scheme, which orders and prescribes to how bodies extend to space.[11] In the chapter, Fanon gives the example of his simple orientation to a cigarette, which is a regular instance of a body being oriented to an object. However, he writes that for a black man, it is much more complicated than just simply desiring to smoke a cigarette, because everything a black man wants and does is always under the surveillance of the “hostile white gaze”. Therefore, black bodies cannot orient themselves the same way white bodies do, with racism being the reason why. When racism comes into the picture, it constrains and diminishes the capacities for free action, which white bodies have complete access to.[12]
Moreover, Ahmed writes through Fanon, emphasizing that race structures orientation’s mode of operation. According to Fanon, “If the world is made white, then the body of home is one that can inhabit whiteness (…) after all, bodies are shaped by histories of colonialism, which makes the world ‘white’ as a world that is inherited or already given.” Bringing back Ahmed’s claim that “bodies are gendered, sexualized, and raced by how they extend to space,” this calls to the attention that the ‘space’ that Ahmed is talking about here is in fact, already orientated towards ‘whiteness’. In a world that already favours and universalizes the colour white, it can be concluded that the world is never at a neutral state, and if the world that one is brought into is already of which is never at a neutral state, can one ever be at their zero point? Ahmed then writes through Fanon the role in which colonialism plays with orientation. Race becomes, then, “a social as well as a bodily given”,[13] and we cannot imagine a world where race does not interfere with our consciousness. Subsequently, without racism, there would not be orientation.
In this chapter, Ahmed also distinguishes the distinction between being orientated towards something, and being orientated around something. In towardness, Ahmed writes that we are always orientated to something or someone we desire, but also, what we are not, which results to what we can have and do. Orientating towards something has become more than just a form of negation, instead, it is more about extending oneself to their desires.[14] Moreover, to be orientated around something means making that thing be the centre of one’s being and action. Essentially, it means that the thing becomes binding and we then constitutes ourselves to be one with the thing.
In terms of Orientalism, the ‘Orient’ here would be the object of desire, and therefore, being drawn to the ‘Orient’ would mean that “we are orientated ‘around’ the ‘Occident,’” in other words, it is almost safe to say that the ‘Occident’ circulates around our being, regulating our actions and behaviours. This would signify that the ‘Occident’ is organized around the very gaze toward the ‘Orient’, the East, as an exotic other that is far to reach.[15] The world, then, would be orientated around the gaze towards the ‘Orient’ as the exotic other, the same way that it is orientated towards ‘whiteness’, as mentioned previously. However, Ahmed also argues that the formation of a group is caused by the presence of a shared orientation towards a thing, which indicates that in order for a group to exist, a ‘thing’ must already exist prior the emergence of the group.[16] Here, Ahmed confirms Fanon’s claim of racism and colonialism as the underlying grounds for orientation.
Furthermore, Ahmed analyses that “spaces become racialized by how they are directed or orientated, as a direction that follows a specific line of desire,”[17] which shows that apart from being seen as the ‘distant’ other, the ‘Orient’ is also domesticated as an extension of the ‘Occident’ that is of reach. Additionally, she also adds that when the “rest of the world” is associated with the “racial otherness,” racial others associate themselves with the “rest of the world”,[18] aligning to Said’s own argument that when a vast difference is placed between the ‘Occident’ and the ‘Orient’, there comes the unavoidable process of self othering. It is here that racial others begin to embody and represent distance, making the contrary — whiteness — of “proximate” of the starting or zero point for orientation, also confirming to Fanon’s argument that the world is already orientated around whiteness to begin with. It is the white’s “here” that makes the others’ “there” and vice versa.
If the case of phenomenology is continuously intertwined with discrimination and if the world we live in is already orientated towards one thing over the other, is it safe to say that everyone is born in the state of being a racist, or vice versa, in a state of being prejudiced? Apart from this, Ahmed also brings forth the role of conformity to orientation, by suggesting that “we are oriented when we are in line. We are ‘in line’ when we face the direction that is already faced by others (…) We follow the line that is followed by others.”[19] With this, she opens up a discussion on pure orientation, and questions whether or not one is able to orient themselves without the influence of others and the norms in which he/she is living in.
A movie of popular culture that presents Ahmed and Said’s beliefs thoroughly is 2010’s Sex and the City 2, a sequel to its prior hit film, alongside its reputable six-season long TV show of the late nineties, Sex and the City. Let us first take note of some of the aspects of the movie that blatantly displays Orientalism. Before the trip to the Arabic city, Carrie, the main character of the movie, exclaims in excitement that she has “always been fascinated by the Middle East. Desert moons, Scheherazade, magic carpets…” which precisely expresses Ahmed and Said perfectly. Carrie’s fascination of the Middle East is not really fascination at all; her way of describing it seems to be that she perceives the Middle East to be somewhat a fantasy-land, a place that is peculiar and magical, anything that is not Manhattan, where she resides and a place that is often perceived to be harsh and real. It is also to note that Miranda, another protagonist, is heavily obsessed with the idea of the Middle East. During their flight to Abu Dhabi, she is constantly saying “haanji” to everything, a word which she understands to be Arabic for “yes”. In reality, the Arabic translation for “yes” is “na’am”, whereas “haanji” is Punjabi. This clearly shows the lack of research the directors and writers did before turning it into a major motion picture, completely disregarding correctness in something as simple as an essential word. Miranda’s obsession to the Middle East can be reasoned by her desire for something exotic and eccentric, and in relation to Ahmed’s, it is obvious that the four New Yorkers are the ‘Occidents’ in which they are orientated around and orientated towards the ‘Orient’.
The constant reinforcing of Orientalism is manifested again when Abu Dhabi is presented as a place that is described as the “new” Middle East, completely suggesting that there was once an “old” Middle East, adjectives that are rarely ever used to describe Western places. If it was the “new” Middle East, then why is Charlotte always having a hard time finding signal for her mobile phone throughout the whole movie? Shouldn’t a modern and futuristic city provide speedy technological advances? This contradiction indicates that perhaps Abu Dhabi was never meant to be portrayed to be “new” after all. Furthermore, it is no surprise that the land of Abu Dhabi is also portrayed to be a place where immense distinctions between the rich and poor are in force. As the four girlfriends stay in a palace-like resort filled with opulence, they visit the traditional Arabian street-market, otherwise known as the souk, and are surprised with the intensely cheap material goods, imagine $20 for a pair of shoes. The souk was used to somehow resemble what an “old” Middle East would look like purely from the gaze of a Western tourist, and the glitz and glamour of the luxurious lifestyle to be of the “new” Middle East.
Moreover, while the four main characters Carrie, Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte continue to dress in high fashion New Yorker style and the Middle Eastern women continue to dress in burqas and conservative clothing, which the girls gawk at as if they are tourist attractions. The movie directly distinguishes the stark differences between the two cultures, as if one is more contemporary than the other, and that the gals are more progressive in their feminist activism. Besides this, the movie also features a scene where all four girls are riding camels in the desert, with a generic snake charmer-esque tune as background music,[20] again, associating the Middle East with specific scenery and music.
The movie ultimately expresses what Fanon means when he writes that the world “inhabits whiteness”. This is shown through how it seems like the world revolves around the four heterosexual, affluent, female characters, and that everything else acts as a prop to support their roles as leading white figures. It certainly does not help when the directors, writers, producers, and casts are made up of inclusively Westerners, which underlies the reason why Sex in the City 2 is two hours and twenty-seven minutes full of stereotypes. The movie accentuates and misrepresents the Middle East to be a place that is backwards, uncivilised, often unsafe, and downright unusual. It is as if the entirety of the movie is dictated by its Orientalist views and its orientation around the ‘Occident’. Consequently, although the movie seems overly dramatic, one can admit that Sex and the City 2 highlights the reality of Orientalism’s prevalence in today’s society.
Through Sara Ahmed’s phenomenal work, she explains thoroughly the complexity and fluidity of the phenomenology of orientation. Referencing influential thinkers, she applies her knowledge in various ways which are still relevant in today’s society. Most importantly, Ahmed’s study on orientation manages to give better understanding towards Edward Said’s theory of Orientalism. She does this by giving concrete and fundamental grounds to the role Orientalism inevitably plays in everyday life. Sex and the City 2 is an exemplar to how Orientalism is most of the time overlooked, and it shows just how much orientation plays a rudimentary role in this. In today’s popular culture, however subtle, we can see patterns of white supremacy and its attempts in dividing the world into two unequal halves; the rational, progressive Western and the conservative, conformist other.
While Said believes that Orientalism is a complex construction of the representation of the ‘Orient’, phenomenology reveals that it is much more than that. Still producing so many questions, the matter of concern here is to ask whether this endless cycle of orientating oneself to become the ‘Orient’ or the ‘Occident’ has a point of which it will change and return. Or if bodies will forever be orientated towards an intangible construction that regulates the way they see others, and how the others see themselves. With this, one can also question whether orientation is only applicable to consciousness. Will each one of us still orientate ourselves towards things when we are unconscious, and at the same time, are we orientated around something when we are unaware of our consciousness? Ahmed writes without forcing her ideas onto the readers, always keeping the question of this ambiguity open for interpretation. Conclusively, one thing is certain, there would be no “us” without a them, and there would be no “them” without an “us”.
NOTES:
[1] Sara Ahmed, Queer Phenomenology Orientations, Objects, Others (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006), 3.
[2] Ibid., 2.
[3] Ibid., 5.
[4] Ibid., 9.
[5] Ibid., 10.
[6] Ibid., 14.
[7] Ibid., 112–113.
[8] Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1979), 1–5.
[9] Ahmed, Queer Phenomenology Orientations, Objects, Others, 114.
[10] Ibid., 111.
[11] Ibid., 110.
[12] Ibid., 111.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid., 115.
[15] Ibid., 116.
[16] Ibid., 119.
[17] Ibid., 120.
[18] Ibid., 121
[19] Ibid., 15.
[20] Bettina Makalintal, “Let’s Revisit ‘Sex and the City 2’ for the Sake of Pure Masochism” VICE, May 20, 2020. https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7wbdq/lets-revisit-sex-and-the-city-2-for-the-sake-of-pure-masochism.
