Background reading: Tucker; Consalvo (at least read Tucker. It's fairly short and interesting.)
In short, Tucker claims that in addition to Western games depicting Eastern cultures as "exotic" (called orientalism), Japanese games take advantage of this "fetish" and internalize the exoticism to appeal to Western audiences. The result of this is that Western players view Eastern cultures from an "orientalist perspective," contributing to "culturally imperialistic thoughts which separate the collective Western ‘Us’ from the exoticized alien Eastern ‘Other’." Consalvo just says that things are much more complicated than this.
So, do you think this is portrayed within the Zelda series? Connections are commonly drawn between Hyrulean cultures and Eastern cultures (e.g. Gerudo and Middle Eastern cultures). Do these contribute to imperialistic thoughts toward those real cultures?
In short, Tucker claims that in addition to Western games depicting Eastern cultures as "exotic" (called orientalism), Japanese games take advantage of this "fetish" and internalize the exoticism to appeal to Western audiences. The result of this is that Western players view Eastern cultures from an "orientalist perspective," contributing to "culturally imperialistic thoughts which separate the collective Western ‘Us’ from the exoticized alien Eastern ‘Other’." Consalvo just says that things are much more complicated than this.
So, do you think this is portrayed within the Zelda series? Connections are commonly drawn between Hyrulean cultures and Eastern cultures (e.g. Gerudo and Middle Eastern cultures). Do these contribute to imperialistic thoughts toward those real cultures?