Throughout the Movie Aladdin, there are countless misrepresentations of the Middle East. From the main characters Aladdin and Jasmine being whitewashed as they speak with an American accent to Jafar, the villain, being portrayed as having a darker, bigger nose, thick and dark hair and beard, and speaks with an Arabic accent. “While most of the characters in Aladdin speak with a Middle Eastern accent, she (with Aladdin and the Genie) does not” (Staninger 67). The scene that stood out the most to me that depicted a poor representation of the Middle East was when Aladdin and his monkey, Abu, were on a mission to steal food, in this instance bread from the bread vendor. As they stole the bread, they were both being chased by multiple palace guards and Razoul, all while attracting chaos to the streets of Agrabah in the midst of it. After escaping from the scene by using his magic carpet, Aladdin and his monkey land in front of a little boy and girl on a search for food. Since he already gave Abu half of the loaf, he was left with the other half which he generously gave to the young orphans. When it comes to “The Orient,” Americans tend to lack the pure understanding and representations of various, divergent parts of the East.
Western society has continued to fail at comprehending cultures throughout the world, especially in the Middle East. Western societies delight in the enjoyment of falsely writing and claiming other cultures. It has become extremely normalized for many authors to ignorantly write and claim false information about different parts of the world they are not fully educated and/or cultured in. “I came to realize that despite their many virtues, Americans are not very good at understanding other cultures” (Ernst 2). Instead of resorting to primary sources for information about numerous cultures and countries in the East, Americans tend to switch up the stories and facts in order to fascinate their target audience and readers, although what they are writing about might possibly be false. Their lack of desire to modify the stereotypical claims of the Middle East is illustrated well in movies such as Aladdin.
The creator of this scene is trying to illustrate a faulty, poverty stricken image of the Middle East in order to grab the viewer’s attention. The overall scene and portrayal of the way of living in such countries is completely untrue and inaccurate. Starting off with the main goal of the scene which is Aladdin trying to successfully steal a loaf of bread from the vendor without being caught by the guards and Razoul. “Aladdin wants freedom from poverty” (Staninger 69). The depiction of a young man having to rely on himself and his monkey to obtain food for survival implies a poor, homeless lifestyle. He is faithful that one day he will become rich, live in a palace, and won’t have to steal in order to live. The creator is only displaying an extremely misfortune group of people who in this case are Aladdin and the young orphans and an exceptionally wealthy group of people who live in a palace, in this case Jasmine’s father, the Sultan. The creator does not display a form of middle class, which is in fact a lot of the population in the Middle East.
Aladdin also takes place in Agrabah which is a made up place. The intro leading into this scene and the scene take place in the desert and a huge palace which is very misleading and feeds into the false narrative that countries in the Middle East are mostly made up of deserts, in which most people live in, and the king lives in an astonishing palace.”Despite or because of the movie’s success, some critics questioned Disney’s description of Middle Eastern life in general and the description of women in particular, voicing their concern that Disney did nothing to help destroy the West’s stereotypical view of the East as a country of violence and oppression of women’s rights” (Staninger 65). This ongoing stereotype that people who live in these countries live in the desert is only being supported by this creator’s scene and choice of plot of the movie. Although the Middle East does include many deserts, there are still cities, attractions, counties and neighborhoods. Not only is this unfair to people from the Middle East, but it is also degrading to the culture and what the cultures represent.
As Aladdin is on a mission to escape the palace guards with Abu, he is also singing to the audience. He repeats the line of “gotta eat to live, gotta steal to eat,” as he’s running away in order to grab the audience’s attention. The lyrics of the song also suggest that Aladdin is poor and/or homeless, which is an inaccurate portrayal of Middle Easterns’ poverty levels. Not only does this devalue the people of the Middle East, it also creates a false narrative of their lifestyles. This scene and many other parts of the movie dehumanize the way of life in the Middle East. The overall movie feeds into this cliche conception that the Middle East is not as advanced as Western societies and most of the population lives in poverty as they look up to their king. The creators of this movie need to understand that it is purely ignorant to showcase a false narrative of an entire race and support an insincere stereotype.
