Q1P1: Western Sound Byte Culture
“Sound byte culture” refers to the small portion we absorb about larger concepts, which are much more complicated. We are exposed to ideas that are over-simplified, making it harder for us to develop a further understanding of something. Mullen described westernized culture as a sound-byte culture due to our tendencies to absorb things that are quick and easy. We move so fast as a society that it is common to overlook things and want to generalize them.
In “Little Budhha”, Jesses dad’s perception of Buddhism is merely a sound-byte. One example is how he assumes going to Bhutan is going to help him with his grief. He depicts Bhutan as a peaceful and Utopian place where the majority of citizens believe in reincarnation. This assumption he has is based on his own simple definition of Buddhism, and he overlooks the many potential concerns with this decision. I also noticed that he immediately looked distraught after seeing the monks for the first time in his living room. I depicted this as not a genuine concern, but perhaps concern that they were going to speak or attempt to convert him to their religion. This may be a bit of a stretch, but I’m relating this back to the many times religious recruiters have tried to come into my home to do said things. What do you think?
We are accepting of sound-byte culture because it is easy. We may want this simple conception of something to be true because we are afraid of complications. Another theory can relate to our overconfidence in the outlets we get our information. Having a deeper understanding requires us to WANT insight, but we don’t because we are so confident in what we know.
Q1P2:Sound Byte Culture
What Mullen means by the “sound byte culture in which we live” is that in western society, people tend to not be able to focus on things for very long. People focus on things only in small chunks and then lose interest. A lot of this can be attributed to social media and people’s phone addictions – people get bored very quickly and are constantly doing something else. Due to this, we retain far less in our minds and we easily misremember things because we’re only remembering a fraction of the picture. If you only remember a fraction of a picture, you can unintentionally bend your interpretation of that fraction very easily.
One example of this from Little Buddha is how Jessie’s dad in the movie is constantly only focusing on the reincarnation portion of Buddhism. From what I gathered from watching the movie at least, he only ever seems to talk/think about reincarnation, and thereby ignores all the other components of Buddhism there is. Never once does he seem curious about the other aspects – everything led back to reincarnation. My interpretation of this is reincarnation was the one “sound byte” he had retained from hearing about Buddhism – and that’s what his perception of the religion became.
I believe we are so accepting of these fictions because this is the world a lot of us have grown up in. We are used to living in a sound byte culture, and majority of the time we do not realize or care enough to fix this. If something is portrayed incorrectly for example, we are likely to brush that off because doing more research on the topic would require more than just a few “sound bytes”. Do people agree with my idea of why we seem so accepting of these fictions?
Q2P1:New Age Orientalism
Overall, I agree with Mullen’s analysis of orientalism. Orientalism can be damaging, and often creates an illusion of cultures that is inaccurate and can dehumanize them. It often depicts the non-European society as ‘primitive’, which goes back to colonial ideology. It not only romanticizes certain societies but also ruins some relatability between people.
There are cases of this in “Little Buddha”, where Tibet society is depicted as all sunshine and rainbows. There is this internal tension between Jesse’s dad’s grief and the Buddhist’s lack of. Seatle is seen as stressful, cold and empty. The Conrad’s are wealthy and successful, but their house is cold and empty. They have various issues whereas Bhutan is joyful and warm. This contrast is also don through music, where upbeat tunes only seem to play in the scenes in Bhutan. It is seen as a utopia, where Jesse’s father agrees to go to in order to find some solace and peace. This overlooks any potential problems in this region and depicts it as a perfect place where all your problems vanish.
Q2P2:Orientalism: Yes or No?
I don’t believe I know enough about Orientalism and also don’t know of enough examples of its existence or lack thereof to have a strong opinion about Mullen’s analysis. My perception of Little Buddha was that there were not a lot of examples of Orientalism, but I very likely could have missed them.
One thing I did notice is that all the scenes in America seemed to have a blue/cool colour tint. On the other hand, the scenes in Asia and flying to Asia all have red/warm colour tints. This could be the film trying to subtly send the message that the western world is cold and where there is sadness and devastation. Meanwhile, Buddhism is where there is no sadness, and everything is warm and happy. This could be an example of Orientalism. However, there did not seem to be many obvious examples of Orientalism that occurred in the film from my perspective. The only other example might be how the Buddhists were shown to not experience sadness when people died, because they knew they would just be reincarnated. This was shown as a “solution” to all the pain Jessie’s dad was experiencing after just losing his best friend. The western world was shown to be where there was bankruptcy, stress, and devastation. The eastern world was where they had peace and answers. This could have been a showing of Orientalism.
Do others agree with my points/examples? Did I just miss signs of Orientalism in the film?
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