Collaborative Orientalism: From Hollywood’s “Yellow Perils” to Zhang Yimou’s “Red Trilogy”

Cultural hegemony is not a set of theories or academic disciplines confined within the scholarly circle or philosophical sphere; nor is it being created to make Europeans feel good or superior.It is, in fact, a very practical means to gain control over the Other politically, economically and culturally.In a way, it is a crucial complementary aid to the military and political powers of Europeans.But how can European powers maintain their cultural hegemony after all of the former colonies have gained their independence?By exploring Edward Said's theory of Orientalism as well as Robert Young's Postcolonialism, this thesis proposes that cultural hegemony with its cultural values has never ceased to be an integral part of European dominance, and it continues to exercise its power even after decolonization.Both Said and other post-colonial theorists emphasize that Orientalism or cultural hegemony is a discourse between the West and the Rest.It is therefore a two-way traffic: a collaboration, either consciously or unconsciously, of the recipients of cultural hegemony.The study of Orientalism should not only focus on how the West uses different measures to gain control over the Rest, but also should examine how the recipients react to cultural hegemony.The author of this thesis provides a comparative study of the practice of cultural hegemony through an analysis of films produced by directors from both the West and East, namely D. W. Griffith in the U.S. and Zhang Yimou from China aiming in order to explore why cultural hegemony not only lingers in the post-colonial era, but can also be discerned among those who were colonized.