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“Orientalism in American Cinema” A Review of Film Trends Influenced by Cross-Cultural Encounters Between America and the Far East There was a time when cross-cultural understanding was largely a matter of expertise. Study and comprehension of non-Western cultures, including the “Orient” was consigned to an array of area specialists ranging from philologians to historians and cultural anthropologists. Armed with the arsenal of Western philosophical and scientific categories, area studies pursued a somewhat predatory aim, that of incorporating or assimilating non-Western life-forms into pre-established frames of reference (unless they were relegated to a mysterious otherness beyond the pale of knowledge).[Dallmayar, p. 115] There is a common phrase proudly stated in the United States: Only in America. Only in American, we can mix this with that. Only in America, we can be ruled by the rational but rule our own ideals. Only in America, we can allow all to worship freely while have our government separate from religion. Yes, there are many things that can truly happen “only in America.” And so, it would come to pass that both options presented in that paragraph by Fred Dallmayar would co-exist... in Amer