Aladdin Analysis

Not many companies can influence the childhood development of many Americans like the Walt Disney Company. Disney, named after their founder, began as just an animation studio called The Walt Disney Studios, which the company describes as “the foundation on which The Walt Disney Company was built”. Today, Disney produces various items targeted at children like toys, clothing, and animation (“Company”). In the paper, Images of Animated Others: The Orientalization of Disney’s Cartoon Heroines From The Little Mermaid To The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Celeste Lacroix of the College of Charleston assesses the portrayal of female heroines from Disney animated films that depicts human main characters, examining the sexualization of non-European or the “exotic” others, and brings to light Disney’s strategy to instill an attitude of consumerism in children. Despite my memorable sentiment with Disney animations as a child, I agree with Lacroix’s assertion that Disney impose consumerism onto children, especially with DVD commercials, tie-in products and “apps” on smartphones and tablets.

I admired the character Princess Jasmine in the film “Secondhand Lions” by Tim McCanlies because she was a minor character but she stood out in the film. This movie was about a fourteen year old boy whose mother sent him off to his Great Uncle's farm on a mission to find their millions that rumor said they had stashed away. His summer stay features stories of his Uncle's past and of their adventures a long time ago with princesses, wars and evil sheiks. Film techniques helped manifest Jasmine’s importance in the movie through narration, music and costume. This essay in my opinion, concludes Jasmine was a minor character that was seen rarely, but her presence was overall substantial.

How Arabian Nights redactors borrowed love-story motifs from pre-Islamic Iraq and applied them to historical personages such as the caliphal vizier Jafar the Barmecide and Abbasa, sister of Harun al-Rahid. Jafar and Abbasa are then made to behave

In this tedtalk, Melissa Boigon, who studies Islam and its relationship to the Arab-Israeli conflict, talks about how Islamophobia has become more of a fear of Arabs over the last 10 years. She thinks that has to do with the connotation to terrorists groups such as Al-Qaeda, and the way middle east conflict is portrayed in The United States today. She also discusses how American Entertainment portrays Arabs, saying that it's propaganda in the form of entertainment.

One of the most controversial topics concerning Muslim women’s rights is the idea of the veil. It is believed by some Muslims that the veil is an Islamic obligation that all Muslim women must adhere to. But nowadays, the veil can have different meanings that are not necessarily religious. In her article “Reinventing the Veil,” Leila Ahmed addresses some of the different meanings that the veil can have. Marjane Satrapi explores one of those meanings in her animated autobiography Persepolis (2008). In Persepolis, Marjane tells the story of her rebellion against the Iranian Islamist regime that takes over Iran, oppresses women, and forces them to wear the veil. What was interesting to me was seeing Marjane wear the veil without being oppressed, although she does not believe in it, and is being forced to wear it. In Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi escapes being a subject to the Iranian Islamist ideology by establishing her individual identity through transforming the veil from a means of oppression into a means of feminist rebellion.

The animated classical Disney movie Aladdin has became one of the most successful movies since it was released in 1992. This movie may seem to be fairy-tale based and entertaining for children since they are the main target audience of Disney, but with a deeper look into its details this is not the reality of it. The ideas that children are exposed to from watching this movie help create and structure their mindsets as well as reinforcing unrealistic images of the Arabian world. In addition, Aladdin is a great illustrative tool in reflecting the concept of Orientalism, a term coined by Edward Said, which emphasizes on representing the Orient with certain clichés and characteristics that are misleading about the true nature of reality (Said, 1978). With that been said, this review paper will be focusing on the main characters and the way they are

Disney’s Aladdin is a fit example of misrepresentation of diverse cultures from a Westernized perspective. Disney is famous for lending representations of world from a Western viewpoint. According to Edward Said, orientalism is a way of expressing Arab peoples and Islamic cultures as compared to Western or European society (Palestine Diary). Said’s explains orientalism is the framework that we use to

“When all imagemakers rightfully begin to treat Arabs and all other minorities with respect and dignity, we may begin to unlearn our prejudices” (Shaheen 87).

Being that a live action version of The Lion King is soon to come, it would be inappropriate to not take a look back at Disney classic. The movie discussed topics that many children had never learned; which helped change the perspective of Disney forever. Along with a new perspective, the film brings a flavor that is definitely new to Disney movies. Before someone watches the upcoming live action film, they must first fall in love, if they already haven’t, with the original movie. The Lion King is incomparable to all

When it comes to the illustrations of his popular characters in Aladdin, Disney proves to be quite racist. Most of the small-part, background characters and especially “the bad guys”, such as Jafar and the palace guards, all have incredibly distinct Arabic appearances. Every one of them stereotypically consists of “beards, large noses, sinister eyes, and heavy accents, and they’re wielding swords constantly” (Giroux, 104). In contrast, Aladdin the hero, looks and talks like an All-American man. His skin is pale and he wants to be addressed as Al, which is an American name rather than Arabic. He does not have a beard, big nose, turban, or accent. The key point in this illustration is that Disney is establishing that Aladdin looks right for the part of a hero, while Jafar looks right for a villain.” Jack Zipes, author of the essay “Breaking the Disney Spell”, clarifies that “though the characters are fleshed out to become more realistic, they are also one-dimensional. There is no character development because the characters are stereotypes, arranged according to a credo of domestication of the imagination”

“Interested in your father’s glorious family tree? You aren’t included, it only includes men’s names.” In the film ‘Wadjda’, directed by Haifaa Al-Mansour, a girl named Wadjda from the male-dominated culture of Saudi Arabia sees a green bike that she strives her hardest to own. Although could the bike be a metaphor for something deeper? Some may say the bike is nothing more than a plain old bike, but in this essay, I will discuss how and why the green bike symbolises more than a mere green bike. The focus will be on the significance of the bike, why it has been chosen to act as the metaphor, and how/why the director has chosen it to show that Wadjda is subversive.

In brief, this study discusses about the representation of orientalism idea which is portrayed in the film Avatar. The film tells about the conflict between human and native people in Planet Pandora, where human exploits the land and oppresses the native. This study explores in what way the idea of orientalism is represented and how both narrative and non-narrative aspects of the film helped in delivering that representation.

Even the most seemingly harmless of __ can change the way we treat peopl. In Aladdin, Aladdin is a street rat until he finds a magic genie lamp, which can grant him three of his wishes. However, the villain Jafar, who put him up to finding the lamp, has a different idea for its uses. In the end, Aladdin has to save Princess Jasmine and the city of Agrabah with the influential help of the genie from Jafar and his evil forces. In Disney’s Aladdin, the culture in Agrabah is presented through an orientalist lense, suggesting the population in Agrabah needs, wants, and would be better off with the influence of western culture; this representation is in order for Disney to justify the United States cultural colonization.

The misrepresentation of minorities is frequent in Hollywood films and Arabs are one of the many minority groups Hollywood misrepresent. Arabs are portrayed negatively in films for long time even before 9/11. The Arabs characters are portrayed with always having accent, wearing traditional attire, untrustworthy, aggressive and almost always associated with terrorism. The continuously falsification could lead to stereotypes, misjudgment, and damage to Arabic culture.

I chose the 1992 Disney interpretation of “Aladdin”. This story revolves around a young man named Aladdin and his quest to find his place in life. He lives in the fictional kingdom of Agrabah. It is ruled by a Sultan who has a daughter named Jasmine, who is unwilling to marry any royal suitor that comes to court her. The Sultan is advised by his royal Vizier, Jafar. Now Jafar has ambitions of becoming the ruler. The way he sees he can achieve it is by obtaining a sacred lamp containing an all-powerful genie.