Iron Man & Orientalism

Iron man is a new film produced by Avi Arad as well as Kevin Feigi and had been released widely on May 02, 2008. The iron man is the story of Tony Stark (rolled by Robert Downey Jr.), a handsome and smart guy but a playboy. He is the son of millionaire who runs a big weapon industry in America. One day, he goes to business trip to sell weapons at Afghanistan. Unfortunately, he has been attacked by Afghanistan’s people portrayed as terrorists who are also Muslims. Those Afghanistan’s people want him to build missiles. Because of a tension situation, Tony Stark agrees upon their demand. In the process of creating missiles, he plans to escape. Therefore, he creates a powerful suit of armor made by iron. That is indeed how the iron man gets its name. He succeeds to escape safely with the help of American military. In America, he works very hard to create another more powerful iron suit of armor. He plans to go back to the Afghanistan to abolish the terrorist camp that caught him previously. At the end of the story, Tony was success in his mission and being an American national hero then.


After a brief summary about the film above, I have found that this film has a sense of orientalism. Orientalism simply means the study of Near and Far Eastern societies and cultures, languages and peoples by Western scholars. The concept of orientalism derives from the Latin word, oriens (rising). The study of Islam is central to the field since the majority of people living in the geographical area termed ‘the orient’ are Muslims.


The orientalism is very dangerous to the Muslim’s world. From the eyes of the orientalists such as Bernard Lewis, Edward E.Said and many more, Muslims are associated with negative views like emotional being, terrorist, backward so on and so forth. These negative connotations of Muslims manifested clearly in books, journals and even films. The iron man is one of it.
In regard to this film, Muslim Afghanistans are viewed as being a group of terrorists, love violence and killing while the west particularly America seen as superhero, who love the motherland very much. This prejudice thought happen as the western do not understand the Muslim’s way of life and cultures. The western see themselves as superior over the other races and nations. They feel they have a big responsibility to bring these people to the development then. This responsibility then advocated as “the White Man’s Burden”.


In addition to it, the Western advocated “Islam phobia”-the popular phenomena takes place after the event of 9/11 peculiarly in Europe. This term spread widely through media and eventually creates religious conflict between Muslims and Non-Muslims. Non-Muslims are feared by the danger of Islam and Muslims. Islam is portrayed as being the bloody border, the religion of violence and terrorist. This problem simply exists because the Western are lack in understanding Muslims’ culture and therefore, producing intercultural communication problems.


In conclusion, in order to avoid communication problems among different nations and cultures, all parties must involve in cultural dialogue, discussion and diplomatic negotiation to seek central understanding and harmony condition among all parties. By respecting other’s cultures and values upbringing, the world will free from feeling hatred and enmity that could direct to chaotic scenario which then lead to world order instability. Finally, intercultural communication is very significant in everyone’s life.