Stargate and Said: Colonial Power
Robert Lively
ASU
Like show. Family watches religiously. Disturbing trends in it.
Examining movie and tv show:
SG1 franchise, several tropes disturbing
Portrayal of Middle Eastern
Tilt’s characterization
Colonization of Space by Stargate Command
Stargate corpus as text
Brought Orient into the West. Constructed by West.
Orientalism, regularized writing, vision, and study… ostensibly suited to the orient.
SG1 does this.
Middle Eastern gods are evil. Nordic are good guys.
Cultural relativism of West’s view of Middle East.
People will only be good if submit to Western values.
Egyptian gods are the big bads.
Earthmen can be seen as illegals coming to take resources.
None of us are free from struggle over geography
Liberating people from government and belief system they have always known.