Amro Hosny Differences In American Culture

Have you ever wondered how High Schools are in other countries? Despite sharing some minor similarities, the differences between Nicaraguan and American High School education are clear. Such as, note-taking methods, grading system, classroom environment.

1. How can an understanding of the complexities of culture help us make sense of the day-to-day world which we live? Give an example from your life to illustrate your answer.

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

Literary Analysis of Aladdin Disney’s Aladdin is a film that attempts to stereotype and westernize Arab culture. Using racially inaccurate stereotypes, an inaccurate depiction of The Middle East, as well as countless cultural generalizations, Aladdin creates a setting of “exotic orientalism” and Islamaphobia. “[Aladdin depicts…] the Arab world as backwards and irrational, the film’s distorted ethnic representations fuel the western world’s fear of alternity and perpetuates dangerous stereotypes.” (Heydt).

Culture is a very vital part of the world as we know it today. There are very many different cultures all around the world. In the USA, we have a mix of all the different cultures and and family values. From the original Native Americans that inhabited America to the Middle Eastern people in Afghanistan. These people groups have brought their language, food, values, and customs with them.

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).

By continually representing the Muslim or the Arab as the heartless villain, even cartoon movies contain a biased perspective against the Muslim image in America. All that glitters is not gold, and this is true for films fresh off the reels of Hollywood, as some contain an unfair perspective of Muslims.

According to Jack G. Shaheen in his essay titled, “The Media’s Image of Arabs,” Hollywood producers must have instant kits that contain sunglasses, Arab clothing, tents, and mosques in order to provide a snapshot of Hollywood’s stereotypical Arab (99). Undoubtedly, the same holds true when depicting the typical southern example. Whether one

"Washington and Hollywood spring from the same DNA." That statement, coming from a man who was a past president of Motion Picture Association of America, is an automatic sign that movie accuracy is not always the top priority of filmmakers. Something shown once in film can hardly sway someone view on a topic. However, the continuous repetition of a cut out stereotype has the power to make minds think a certain way. Since the beginning of Cinema, that has been the case of viewing the people of Arabian and Middle Eastern decent. Aside from the cliché turban and robe, what is shown is a consistent connection between any form of evil and those two particular groups of people. The reasoning for that falls behind America's political agenda.

I was six year old when I was uprooted from my village in Punjab, India. I was anxious to see the promised land, as my parents had referred to it. My father left for America before I was born so he could obtain a labor job to save up money for when my mother, brother, and I would arrive. I never expected my beliefs and perspectives to change upon arrival. Growing up in a very uniform culture I had a black and white view of the world. In our culture women were responsible for being caretakers. Their job was simply to raise the children, cook, and be domesticated. The men had the role of the breadwinner and they were the ones encouraged to get an education.

Additionally, Said claims that some American people have ideas of orientalism, which is the practice of stereotyping the people in Asia, specially in the Middle East, in a method that exaggerates differences between Muslims and Americans. Acts of orientalism have been spread throughout the media to the extent that they affected the portrayal of popular children movies. In the Disney movie, Aladdin, the character Jafar , who is of Middle Eastern descent, was stereotyped as an evil character. This demonstrates that the media is inflicting its beliefs on young children by demonstrating the villain of the story as a Middle Eastern man. Therefore, Said makes various valid points throughout his documentary as he demonstrates how the media depicts people and isolates them from

countries, in which the United States was also a part of this war, and they sent troops to Kuwait to restore order. Just like Aladdin, he tried to restore order in Agrabah. The three movies were named: Aladdin, The Return of Jafar, and The King of Thieves. All three movies contained similar stereotypes so when explaining them, I will be explaining the situation from one of the movies in order to highlight it in a clearer way. To start, I will be discussing the characters and their stereotypes. Aladdin is the main character and as I mentioned before, he was in Agrabah to restore order with his pet monkey Abu. Aladdin is a street rat, he is a poor orphan who is just in his teens, he doesn't belong anywhere and doesn't own any possessions. He steals food in order to live and so does Abu, these are common Arab stereotypes so already they are giving a bad impression. However its so ironic that Aladdin has a brighter skin color than the other characters that are distinguished as Arabs, he has an American accent and he is so much more handsome than the other Arabs in the movies. He shows kindness when he steals a loaf of bread to eat but later on sees starving children and hands them the bread, this shows that even though Aladdin has bad characteristics of an Arab boy, he has American values and dreams, so Aladdin is bias character because

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.