I was at the movies a few weeks ago, and sitting through the trailers was a rather painful experience.

Two of the ads were for British films about countries that were colonized by the British East India Company: “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen,” set in Yemen, and “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” set in India.

Both trailers attempted to show cultural awareness and succeeded only at revealing cultural imperialism.

I don’t know which thought is more upsetting – that these filmmakers just think of the countries they are portraying this way, or that they have an imperialist agenda that they are actively trying to promote.

The initial conflict in “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen” is that the war in Afghanistan is unpopular, which is bad news for the British press secretary. She complains to a room full of journalists, “I didn’t think we could make the war in Afghanistan any less popular – but hey, even I can be wrong. We need a good news story from the Middle East and a big one. Get on with it.”

The answer is a sheikh from Yemen who wishes to introduce salmon and salmon fishing to his country. A pretty young journalist, played by Emily Blunt, reports as expert Scottish fisherman Fred Jones tries to get salmon to thrive in Yemen.

The primary conflict in this film isn’t that the war in Afghanistan is causing thousands of deaths, but that it is bad publicity for England.

The solution to this problem doesn’t have anything to do with Afghanistan, but comes in the form of a man from Yemen. Clearly in the flimmakers’ opinion, any Middle Eastern country can stand in for any other; of note, the film wasn’t shot in Yemen but in Morocco.

The imperialist attitude of this film is further evidenced by the fact that this Sheikh is only useful because he wants to adopt a British sport with British help.

In the trailer, the sheikh comes off as a caricature, repeating the line “You must have faith, Dr. Alfred,” like a parrot.

On the Internet Movie Database page for the film, the sheikh doesn’t even have a name. Yemen itself serves mainly as a scenic background where the Scottish salmon fisher and the British reporter could potentially have sex.

Unlike “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen,” “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” is obviously shot in the country where it takes place. Since it actually shows India, there are many more opportunities for filmmakers to stereotype the country.

The owner of the “Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”, played by Dev Patel, is a buffoon. In the trailer, he explains his “dream to create a home for the elderly so wonderful that they will simply refuse to die.”

He is completely unable to run this fantasy hotel. All the furniture is broken when the guests arrive, and nothing works. The elderly British guests handle their experience in India with varying levels of immaturity.

Maggie Smith’s character refuses to eat anything that she can’t pronounce. Still, in the world of the film, she treats the hotel’s employees better than Indians do.

In one scene, an Indian maid presents Smith with a plate of flatbread while an English-speaking man explains, “She wants to thank you for your kindness … You’re the only one who acknowledges her.”

Smith is perplexed, because she hasn’t actually been kind, and her first response to the offering of bread is “I’m not eating that.”

There are definitely class issues in India, and they are much more complex than I can claim to understand. This scene, which portrays class issues – with the rigid British as the good guys – is blatantly ignorant.

Later in the trailer, an Englishwoman asks an Englishman, “How can you bear this country? What do you see that I don’t?” He answers, “All the lights, colors, smiles. It teaches me something.”

I’m not saying that India doesn’t have some nice colors, or that there aren’t Indians with some pretty great smiles. But the question was, “What do you see that I don’t?”

You can see colors and smiles from a postcard. You can see the lights from space (Google “Diwali from a satellite”).

Both of these trailers seem to say that countries previously occupied by the British East India Company still exist mainly to serve British needs, and that there’s no reason to bother to understand them deeply.

Neither the British characters nor the filmmakers show any deep knowledge of these countries in the trailers, nor do they engage in self-reflection about British society.

Even if the films themselves are less terrible than the trailers make them out to be, the trailer is the first and often the only impression that we get of a film. The trailer is meant to sell the film, and the scenes which editors choose to include reveal how they see their audience.

I find it hard to believe that these were the best screenplays about countries farther east than Greece that could have been produced.

What is more likely is that these screenplays were the least offensive to English speaking audiences who prefer not to question the behavior of their societies.

Hannah Green is a Weinberg senior. She can be reached at [email protected]

All opinions expressed in this column are solely the opinions of the columnist and do not reflect the views of The Daily Northwestern. If you would like to respond to the column, you may comment below, email the columnist or submit a 300-word letter to the editor to [email protected].