The study of Oceanic systems has long been centered around Europe, with most of the scholarship devoted to the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean. Yet, despite Indian Ocean has been the busiest body of water until the modern world, scholars did not put much attention on it as a cultural or historical unit (Amrith, 2014). However, this is changing over the past few decades. With more attention being paid on Indian Ocean as a system for culture exchange and human interaction, the impression on dhows and the culture surrounding this traditional sailing vessel has changed. Over 150 years ago, dhow was the symbol of slave trade and underdevelopment, now, it has been canonized as a symbol of culture heritage in the western Indian Ocean (Gilbert, 2011). There have been countless depictions of dhow and dhow culture within western Indian Ocean region but also in Europe and America. Yet, sometimes those depictions were overly romanticized and gave off an unnecessary sense of exoticness to the dhow culture. In 1978, Edward Said coined the term Orientalism criticizing the popular western view that distorts the image of the East and exaggerates the cultural difference between the East and the West (Said, 1979). It was not uncommon for some early depiction of the Dhow culture fall into the trap of Orientalism. Especially for the film industry which had been blooming in the west for the last half of the 20th century. In order to out compete their rivals, the film makers have to introduce some sense of freshness in their films. What could be better to do so than introduce exotic cultures that had not been studied very much at that time. Thus, lack of scholarships and desire to create selling point to the audience contribute to the reflection of Orientalism in the film. It was in this context that the Disney film Hamad and the Pirates was made (1971). This essay is going to examine Hamad and the Pirates and its depiction of the dhow culture through the lens of Orientalism.
To begin this essay, it is important to put down a definition of orientalism and demonstrate how would that influence the dhow culture. Said says in this introduction of his book Orientalism that “the Orient was almost a European invention, and had been since antiquity a place of romance, exotic beings, haunting memories and landscapes, remarkable experiences” (Said, 1979). Therefore, one can refer from Said’s word that Orientalism is when the west applies this “made-up” idea of the Orient when they are looking at the East. Dhow culture is something original to the Western Indian Ocean region, something completely foreign to the Europeans and North Americans. Although Europe and later North America both have part of their culture and history associated with ships and maritime, their focus was on the maritime expansion. The notion that using boat as primary medium for cultural exchange that did not necessarily involve the use of force was relatively foreign to them. Therefore, it is really easy to evoke Orientalism when thinking about and depicting the dhow culture. Hence, the dhow culture now is depicted as overly romanticized exotic culture that evokes sense of history and brings back old memories. If people are only looking at dhow culture like this, they are not seeing the whole picture of what constitutes dhow culture. Shaped by human migration and interaction, Indian Ocean has long been the center of the history of globalization compares to Atlantic Ocean. Dhow is the vessel that enables this kind of connection. With the help of the monsoon, people from different regions on the coast of Indian Ocean exchange goods and culture through dhow (Amrith, 2014). Dhow culture exists as a subculture to the cultures within the Indian Ocean. It is far more complex than an over-romanticized exotic culture.
Hamad and the Pirates emphasizes Dhow culture as something old, unchanged from the past contrasting with everything in modern world. The movie follows Hamad on his eventful summer job of being a pearl diver. Pearling around the Gulf region has been an activity strongly connected with the Dhow culture. Pearl divers would sail to the open water using dhow, and because one pearling trip usually takes more than a few days, they would live and form a community on the dhow. When introducing the main character Hamad, the narrator says that he followed a lifestyle “almost as old as civilization” (5:10 – 5:12) (1971). The narrator is referring to him being a helper on the pearling ship. By presenting an unchanging lifestyle since the time of civilization, the film is implying that the history of cultures connected with dhow culture are something linear and unchanging. This was a popular view shared by western scholars for a long time, that compares to the history of the west, which has been constantly moving forward, the history of the East seems to be stuck in the old place. This movie further demonstrates this conception when talking about the tools the divers use (11:56 – 12:07) (1971). The narrator says: “[the divers use] no mask or goggles, no fins, only a nose click made of bone. All this has hardly changed since Delmoon first earned fame as a great supplier of pearls over 5000 years ago” (1971). The narration really emphasizes how old these techniques were. Because this film was aimed for audiences in the U.S. whom probably do not have much knowledge about the Gulf region prior to this film, this type of emphasizing was likely used to create a sense of differentness and exoticness as selling point. Compare to the U.S. a modern industrialized country with pretty much everything in common household mass produced in factories, the pearling techniques presented in this film leaves a sense of underdevelopment to the audience. Dhow culture should not be portrayed as backward or something remained unchanged for centuries. Since its start, the dhow is a symbol of human interaction and integration, through trade, migration, and other forms of connection. It has never remained unchanged or been backward (Marks, 2015).
By putting pirates into the conflict, this film is portraying parts of dhow culture as a “haunted memory” that lasts into the modernity. For most of the Europeans and North Americans, pirates are memories of the past maritime glory or jokes and comedies that could be used for Halloween parties. For them, as now aircraft carriers are the dominators of the sea, the story of maritime has pretty much stopped after the invention of airplanes. After centuries of romanization of the sea, the sky is now the new crave. The film’s narration repeatedly mentions Hamad’s trip as an adventure (1:24:25 – 1:24:52) (1971). Most of the audience of Disney channel are U.S. children. They live in a stable industrialized society that has some form of social welfare and protection program for children. This kind of program makes working on a ship and encountering pirates impossible for them at such a young age. Therefore, they would agree that Hamad’s trip is an adventure, something really cool that they would like to take part of. This creates a misrepresentation of pearling and, subsequently, of dhow culture.
This film also introduces a stark contrast between the advanced sailing technology of the west and the old school sailing method used by the shipmen on the dhow. In the end of the film, the British warship comes to rescue Hamad, and brings the pirates to justice. This reflects the ideology of “the White Man’s Burden,” that in the end, westerners have to heroically come to the rescue and save the incapable local from foreseeable disaster. This in itself is an ideology fueled by imperialism and orientalism. Moreover, this shows how backward the dhows are and implies that without those advance technology from the west, there is no way for the local shipmen to be safe on their dhow. The pirates are able to spot Jamal’s dhow and force Jamal to give them the treasure box because they have telescope and guns. They possess the western technology that Hamad and Jamal do not own. The pirates are eventually captured by the British because the British have canon on their ship and compare to the dhow which relies on sails and motor, completely automated British warship can go faster and more precise. Said defines Orientalism as “a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient” (Said, 1979). This style of domination can be shown through the fact that the region was still British Protectorate until the formation of the U.A.E in the end of 1971, and British authority is made clear by the British warship coming in and save the day.
Dhow is a symbol of Gulf heritage and an icon of maritime culture, yet one could argue that the attitude of Gulf governments also fuels the orientalist depiction of dhow culture.(Gilbert, 2011) This film is produced by the U.S. and is aiming for the U.S. audience especially children. This is an audience base that do not know what nostalgia feel like and are basically using this film educating themselves on the cultures in the Gulf region. This film paints for them an exotic and backward image of a culture. But Bahrain also funded the production of this film, which meant that this film shows the image that Bahrain agrees to show. Putting Pirates instead pearling in the title shows that Bahrain is more kin on showing the exotic and even violent part of the dhow culture. They weigh in at the orientalism from the west and use it as a selling point of their cultural heritage. One could speculate that, by depicting herself as an exotic land with exotic culture, Bahrain would able to attract tourism from the west. The idea of a complete foreign and even “wild” culture and a desire for “adventure” would get the children curious and excited. They would want to come and see for themselves. Pirates would create the kind of the sensation that pearling would not. Children are familiar to pirates through comedy and adventure stories of maritime exploration. In contrast, they are not familiar to pearling in any shape or form. By branding their culture this way, Bahrain creates better selling point for their cultural heritage and potentially is able to attract more tourist (Wei et al., 2018).
Although there may be joint interest in making the film an embodiment of orientalism from the U.S. and the Bahrain this film is not helping to incorporate the dhow culture in the context of trade and human interaction that has been going on for centuries. In the boarder context of globalization and global history, which dhow has been very present, the film fails to demonstrate the importance of dhow and its contribution. This film silences those people who actually worked with dhow and used dhow for their living and instead creates an distorted narration by speaking for them and deciding for them what their lives have been like.