What is the bottom-line “harm,” if you will, that New Orientalist narratives can cause?
FK: Interestingly, some of the greatest harms caused by books such as RLT are directed at its readers and not just the Iranians/Middle Easterners they misrepresent. To begin with, their villains-vs.-victims scenario perpetuates a desire for simplistic portrayals and easy solutions. It suggests “we” are sophisticated and progressive while “they” are crude and fundamentalist. Under these circumstances, any sense of curiosity or desire for exploring the complexities of the lively and vibrant cultures in that part of the world would feel redundant. One result of this is that our already limited ability to think and speak about these cultures diminishes by the day. Even our visual vocabulary has been severely depleted. Although Iran is a hot topic these days, try to think of a TV show on Iran, even a positive one, which does not begin with images of the blind folded hostages or angry revolutionaries. More than anything else, the approach is disrespectful of the viewers. They are considered
