I was 2 years old when the
movie Aladdin came out on VHS. I never judged the movie based on the
introductory theme song or the “Arabian” characters with really bad accents, or
the fact that Aladdin and Jasmine were both predominately English characters. Now
that I watch this movie more than 19 years later, I can understand why the
Arabian population was greatly dissatisfied by the film. Although the producers
of Disney say the film Aladdin was loosely based on the film Arabian Nights, it
is still a very loose interpretation of the Arabian culture. The American-
Arab- Anti Discrimination chapter fought to change the words of Aladdin’s
introductory theme song due to unfair/ offensive wording.
The original theme song
went like this:
\o7 Oh, I come from a land
From a faraway place
Where the caravan camels roam.
Where they cut off your ear
If they don't like your face
It's barbaric, but hey, it's
home.
\f7
The new words are now like this:
\o7 Oh, I come from a land
From a faraway place
Where the caravan camels
roam.
Where it's flat and immense
And the heat is intense,
It's barbaric, but hey, it's
home.
\f7
The American- Arab- Anti- Discrimination chapter fought to take out the
word barbaric because they felt it was an inaccurate representation of their
culture. The chapter goes on to say that the supporting characters are
depicted as mean, nasty people, while Aladdin and Jasmine are the characters
that are praised and respected. The problem with this is that Aladdin and
Jasmine are unaccented, standard Americanized English, and do not portray
Arabian characters and therefore are very misleading. This is not the first
time that Disney has had a problem with inaccurately portraying a culture. The
three little pigs movie was predominately Jewish characters and Disney was
accused or falsely portraying them. This affects me, as well as the children of
my generation because Disney falsely portrayed an entire culture. We should be
teaching the younger generation that culture diversity is good and encouraged
rather than misrepresenting them in media as well as kids movies. Movies are a
great tool to teach children how the world should work. Although we need to
give these kids an accurate portrayal and make sure we are giving fair
representation to a group of people. As a parent I would want my kids to learn
the truth behind a culture and I believe that movies have a good chance at
displaying that.
Original article: Click Here.