Week 6- Aladdin

I did not attend this class but I have been told that we watched Aladdin in class. This classic Disney movie has brought me to think in a different way about what messages it transmits. The first times I saw this film I was very young and only amuzed by the characters without really realizing what was going on. As I got older I realized that it actually held many stereotypes about the characters and setting that was transmitted even through the music. Emerging as a classic Middle Eastern Folk tale, it originally had genies, hidden treasures, and magic. Disney took the oportunity to add to the magically mysterious setting that Aladdin is said to live in.
From the beginning of the movie we see a man riding on a camel through a desert terrain. People who do not know of the different regions of the Middle East quickly think of it as having solely desert arid conditions. There are deserts of course, but that is not solely the terrain. But of course through the media, the desert is linked to the Middle East. The opening song that was in the first soundtrack release of the film was changed due to critizism. The lyric "'Where they cut off your ear if they don't like your face/It's barbaric, but, hey, it's home," received protests from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC). This caused the 1993 video release to change the lyric to "Where it's flat and immense and the heat is intense/It's barbaric, but, hey, it's home." This shows how cruel the Middle Eastern society is portrayed by others without thinking that the people its referring to clearly find it offensive and false. Another instance where such barbaric lyrics are present is during the second song One Jump Ahead. Right before the song the guard says "I'll have your hands for a trophy" and during the song the guard sing "rip him open and take it back". These seem quite barbaric for the intended audience, which are young children. During the song stereotypes of the people are also present. As Aladdin is running from the guards he encounters a man laying on a nail bed, a man walking on lit charcoal, a man swallowing a sword, a snake charmer, and three young girls wearing quite revealing belly dancing like outfits. All of these clearly are stereotypes of the Middle east as having exotic people who like defiying painful actions.
Princess Jasmine is portrayed as a person who does not know of the life outside the palace. I may not know much about Princesses back then but I think they would have known something about the society they live in.... right?? She actually has to be saved by Aladdin after she gives a hungry young child an apple without paying and is threatened to loose a hand for such action. In the beginning of the movie her father is trying to marry her off as she is coming to age. Despite her seemingly tough attitude, she is ruled by men all through the film. Which is another stereotype that is quite common when dealing with the Middle East: Inferiority of Women.