In chapter 8 the concept of “orientalism” was discussed based on Edward Said’s view of this concept. He describes this term as a discourse of power and having authority over orient/East by Western culture. The orient also helps Western culture to identify itself as the dominant, powerful and modern based on the binary system; However, represents orients as submissive, weak and primitives. Based on the reading there are two types of stories regarding to colonialism, the first one shows how the white colonizer accepts the alien culture and “goes native”, where as the other one imposes his dominant western culture on aliens. This issue of orientalism exists in popular culture especially in media where there are so many images of exotic women and men in movies and advertisements to represent the “other”. So many pop singers eroticize their characters in their music videos such as Nicki Minaj, lady Gaga and M.I.A. In Nicki Minaj video she is portrayed, as a samurai who decides to change her look to a Geisha that makes reference to “go native” because being the “other” is exotic. Another example is the 1970’s Coca Cola commercial, which is called “I’d like to teach the world to sing”, showing people standing in lines while dressed in different clothing based on their culture and background and singing in English. Although people are dressed in different traditional clothing from all around the world, singing in English as the universal language makes reference to the fact that English is the language of the dominant over “ others”.

In chapter 7 of cultural theory and popular culture, we read a quote from Simone de Beauvoir that “ one is not born a woman, but, rather, becomes one”(164). She believes that there is a distinction between biological sex and gender, and culture is the factor that distinguishes genders as Masculine and feminine. One of the critics about her work based on Judith Butler is that De Beauvoir assumed there should be only two versions of sexuality in nature as male and female and she neglected the other possibilities. Also, Butler argues that even the natural biology of sex is constructed around culture as well as gender. As she explains, the term gender doesn’t have an identity by itself although it gains its identity through performativity of language in culture. One of the very first examples of this is when a baby is born and certain behavioral expectations raised based on their genders. If it’s a girl, it is assumed to be appropriate to wear pink clothing and plays with dolls and if it’s a boy he has to wear blue and plays with cars. This is what is been dictated to us by the culture and seems natural and whoever doesn’t fit into this binary of male/female would be considered as outsiders and abnormal. Not only the female/male binary opposition encourages the heterosexual relationship in society but also, it disregards other forms of relationships such as homosexuals. One of the simplest examples is how male/females and their gender roles are portrayed in popular culture for kids. Since early ages they learn from Disney movies, that there is a certain way to behave based on their genders and no matter what they always end up with a heterosexual marriages.

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