Neo-Orientalist Perspective on Iran, India, and East: Case Study of Oscar Winners Argo, Slumdog Millionaire, and Avatar

The main question this paper seeks to answer is what the legal and political This paper studies the film Argo which narrates the historical event of the escape of six U.S. diplomats from Iran during the 1979 hostage crisis and the Iranophobia and Islamophobia presented in the film. It also examines the film Slumdog Millionaire and the role of Muslim slum dwellers and their petty and thoughtless lives as well as the film Avatar which narrates the conflict between human beings and native people on the Planet Pandora, where humans exploit the land and suppress the natives as mirrors of the Neo-Orientalist approach towards Iranians, Indian Muslims and Easterners through the Western media. Although avoiding the uses of white bodies for forcing their central storyline and lacking the labels of ‘colonialist’ or ‘racist’, they show traces of a Western superior culture. All three movies have a potential for so-called humanism, Argo by depicting Western stereotypes about Iran and Iranians, Slumdog Millionaire by framing slums as useless spaces that are worlds of their own, and Avatar representing colonization by means of Orientalism through a scientific approach and war. However, underpinning all three films are Orientalist stereotypes about Iranians, Muslim slum-dwellers, and Easterners which are wrapped in the sentiment of Neo-Orientalism by the New Media.