present a detailed, critical analysis of a cultural text
Described by its creators as a “kung-fu movie trailer”, Coldplay’s Princess of China is punctuated with scenes reminiscent of kung-fu movie classics such as Crouching Tiger and House of Flying Daggers and Rihanna dressed in a sexualized variation of an “Asian-inspired” traditional garment. I have chosen to analyse this cultural text as instances of orientalism and cultural appropriation as well as misrepresentation of aspects of several eastern cultures are exhibited, particularly through the exotic depiction of Rihanna as a female from the Orient. The essence of Orientalism is that Western knowledge of and representation of the East comes not from direct experience of the Orient but from Orientalist discourse created out of prejudice and discrimination in the context of Western political dominance over the Orient. It is “a style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between the Orient’ and (most of the time) ‘t...
