Disney´s Aladdin: Negative Sterotypes of Arabs

What images come to mind as one reflects upon his or her childhood? Playgrounds, blackboards, and soccer balls may be among the fondest of memories. Yet, for many, mermaids swim their thoughts, princesses get swept off their feet, and lions roar to their royal place in the animal kingdom. Disney films have captivated the American culture for years and have become a pivotal part of popular culture as well as a form of education. However, these films have devoured the youth of America and, in the process; have perpetuated an institutionally racist society based on harsh stereotypes. Minorities are often underrepresented, and even completely left out, of many Disney films such as Dumbo (1941), The Lion King (1994), Aladdin (1992), and

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).

Using the language of the moving image, which includes cinematography, editing, sound, music and mise-en-scene, this essay will investigate the ideology of Racism in film. OxfordDictionaries.com describes racism as “Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior.” When we, the audience think of racism in film, we traditionally think of movies for adults and often overlook the sinister aspect of racism in children’s films. I have chosen to contrast a recent R-rated film with a G-rated Disney movie from the 1990s. Disney films, even up until the 1990s have persistently reinforced the image of blacks or latino and asian races as being below whites. The

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

The world of Disney it is not necessarily magic for everyone. In Western popular culture there is an endless buffet serving stereotypical ideologies for racially marked women. The media often relies on representation of articulation of ethnic women as animalistic, inferior and outside the natural. Films tend to utilize signifiers that express race, class and gender to develop characters. For this assignment, I have chosen to critically analyze Disney’s (1992) Aladdin; this movie exemplifies the racialization of female bodies through visual illustrations that reinforce ideas of stereotypical roles of Middle Eastern that have been over-looked through the eyes of children. Aladdin; is considered a modern example of Edward Said’s concept of orientalism from a Western perspective. In this paper I will examine how Disney’s Aladdin perpetuates ideas of ‘othering’ through orientalism, over-sexualized characters and reinforces islamophobia.

“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.

After the attacks on September 11, 2001, media approaches have altered. On Television shows and movies, in newspapers and on the radio, there has been an increase in hate crimes targeting Arabs and Muslims. Most coverage today follows a script that represents Arabs and Muslims only in the context of terrorism. Evelyn Alsultany wrote a book called Arabs and Muslims in the Media in 2012. The stories explained the new standards in racial and cultural representations after 9/11.

The world is filled with different races, cultures, religions and beliefs; everyone has a different opinion and perspectives on life. Unfortunately not everyone respects other peoples personal opinions, this had led to discrimination, stereotyping, hatred and even war. After many incidents that affected the world; Arabs started being discriminated by many people. People were stereotyping the Arabs and they had the wrong image about them.

"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.

Racism: discrimination which exemplifies stereotypical differences between the ethnic groups to which people belong. While Disney animated films are the ideal family movies, it is undisclosed to many that such racism is being portrayed. Disney’s movie Aladdin (1992), “was a high-profile release, the winner of two Academy Awards, and one of the most successful Disney films ever produced” (Giroux, 104); however, what is often disregarded is the obvious depiction of careless racism towards Arabs seen in the illustrations of the characters, the statuses into which they are placed and the lyrics of the opening song near beginning of the film. Furthermore, with the movie disguising itself as innocent and wholesome, children are exposed to these

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.

I want to research whether portrayals of Orientalism in the media are used to retroactively justify decisions such as imperialism or the Vietnam War. I chose this topic because I found Edward Said’s theory of Orientalism very thought-provoking and wondered if it can apply to contemporary society. In addition to that, I have not seen a lot of contemporary analysis on Orientalism of Southeast Asia. My initial inspiration was when I watched the film No Escape, which seemed blatantly racist and problematic. I narrowed and refined my topic by further researching the concepts of Orientalism and otherness, and considered how they could be applied to this film. Sources that have been key in defining my research topic include scholar articles on Orientalism

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.