Is Disney's Aladdin Racist?

[@YaBoiHakim]

Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/ComradeHakim Twitter: @YaBoiHakim Edit: I managed to get footage in. Apparently the trick is not to use any audio along with. Hello again! A little off-brand today. This is a video I've wanted to do for years now, and I've finally found the time. Basically, Aladdin should be used in intro courses on Orientalism as it's such a stark and popular example of the concept. Everything from the music, to the visuals, dress, expressions used, and even names drip of Orientalist perceptions (or rather, misconceptions) dressed in pleasant child-friendly garb. Even more interestingly, it has received little (if any) negative attention or critique from this angle, which shows that for most of the Western world, Orientalism remains an unquestioned norm. I hope you enjoy it! Footage used: kzbin.info/www/bejne/f2eXYmiQd86lmM0 kzbin.info/www/bejne/ZqTCdWOihs5rb7s kzbin.info/www/bejne/hHXVgqFsqsh2e6c kzbin.info/www/bejne/rJuaamqrdp19jcU

[@unclejeffthechad9459]

Get a Iife, commie Ioser

[@papichulo4171]

@@unclejeffthechad9459 ok inbred

[@imblacksoimslow5731]

Nice video!!! You should call this video the misconception of stereotypes!!!

[@lasschesteven]

@@unclejeffthechad9459 Go bother Well There's Your Problem. They might pin your comment if no one has any creatively shitty ones.

[@citycrusher9308]

Yeah, the sexism was real. Only a western film maker would make Jasmine that ungrateful and entitled.

[@YaBoiKeith]

Me and my friends used to argue about where the hell Agrabah was supposed to be. I argued Iraq, one friend argued India, and yet another argued Turkey. Turns out we were all right.

[@gamertagboakan7417]

@Courtney St. Louis Same, or atleast further in the direction than Syria

[@neothepenguin1257]

I thought India

[@neothepenguin1257]

But my ideas were based off of racist stereotypes

[@krystaclear1580]

I thought it was Saudi Arabia, because the song says Arabian nights.

[@danielkhan1]

I was so confused because the architecture yelled India yet the clothes and songs yelled some Arab country

[@PedroMRDS]

Just a correction: Jasmine was not opposed to the idea of marriage, she was opposed to the idea of arranged marriage. She wanted to marry for love and she fell in love for Aladdin. Say whatever you want about that though.

[@starlesscitiess]

oh yeah white people should not talk about arranged marriage ever they’re so goddamn weird about it

[@Wabbajacrane]

Marriage*

[@misterninja7580]

@@Lunette-v9i chill, they're just correcting a misspell

[@eljaminlatour6633]

True, because princesses back then love to be married and not forced to get married. Because they don't want to marry a stranger, because that would be weird.

[@PedroMRDS]

@@Wabbajacrane i'm sorry, english is not my first language. I make mistakes sometimes

[@pepesfinalform4634]

This is what decades of Orientalism does to a mf

[@Avi2Nyan]

Ages, even

[@janglesthemoonmonkey4385]

I think the best way to combat the idea of negative ramifications due to Orientalism is education. As a teen recently just past childhood in America I have seen these movies and some like them. However that isn’t to say that I or most others kids like me have painted such “orientalist” charicatures of the people depicted by said movies. However if people do develop such ideas of other people that negatively affect themselves, education that shows the real truth could beak that system with a desirable amount of success. An example of this at the very least is high school World History.

[@inovakovsky]

@@janglesthemoonmonkey4385 I learned about the cultural inaccuracies of Aladdin and even as kid I thought the sexual nature of Jasmine is contradictory to the Islamic personal standards. I got annoyed with Muslim turban (since Turbans are Sikh, which explains why bigots persecute Sikhs thinking they are Muslim).

[@spellman007]

make a fun movie?

[@inovakovsky]

@@spellman007The inaccuracies are about as annoying as the European example in the opening of the video.

[@seekingabsolution1907]

I'll never stop laughing at your hypothetical European film at the start. I really hope someone makes this film one day as a parody of Orientalism.

[@c0_ber]

@@mondlichts2064 do you have an example of one?

[@lucassantossj]

​@@mondlichts2064most I see just use German and English references, sometimes Italian.

[@minngael]

American white supremacists basically do this with their concept of "white culture" which somehow blobs Romans in with Vikings, the Crusades & 1950's American suburbia...then again the Nazis did the same thing. Would be hilarious if it wasn't so disturbingly influential!

[@planersage1117]

They did. It's called frozen.

[@seekingabsolution1907]

@@planersage1117 I'm not sure there was a specific real world setting for the original snow queen that Frozen is loosely "based on" though.

[@ancient_bam]

Disney: *brings in a real lion to the studio to make sure animators know how to draw them accurately* Also Disney:

[@obnoxiousbarking5562]

Wait what

[@ancient_bam]

@@obnoxiousbarking5562 When they made the Lion King, they actually brought real lions into the studio so that the animators could see how they moved and looked, because they were that devoted to accuracy But only for lions, apparently

[@LittleUnicornChaser]

@@ancient_bam well, they also used live models when drawing people, so...?

[@LittleUnicornChaser]

​@@a.g9586 I wouldn't compare bringing lions to the studio with research which needs much more time and money. And it is just a fairytale, it doesn't need to be so realistic.

[@lgbtqiarights]

@@LittleUnicornChaser bringing live lions into a studio is far more dangerous than buying a couple of textbooks. and the lion king is a fantasy as well, so why defend their decision on that?

[@Pridetoons]

Pocahontas was a disgusting story before it was a Disney movie. Also the King and I is crap too.

[@unclejeffthechad9459]

*It's OKAY to be white*

[@unclejeffthechad9459]

Hollywood/Disney are run by pedophiIe eIite And the GIobaIist communists...

[@TheGamingDandy]

@@unclejeffthechad9459 shut up

[@billybobferguson3946]

@@unclejeffthechad9459 whose lost grandpa is this

[@lukeg452]

@@unclejeffthechad9459 fun fact communism and billionaires are pretty exclusive

[@matzmilan7780]

Still surprise me how well Disney handled "Coco". However, they tried to register "Día de muertos" as a brand, which is disgusting.

[@supergastonh]

That's because there were actual mexicans in the developement

[@Critical_Hit]

@@supergastonh I guess if actual Iraqis or other appropriate people were involved then the movie might have not been as racist

[@squeen666]

It still has a lot of stereotypes but it’s way better than other stuff by Disney

[@Bojoschannel]

Didn't know about the Día de muertos brand thing, now I hate Disney a lot more

[@inovakovsky]

@@Bojoschannel They attempted to trademark it (which does not expire, unless the company dies, unlike copyright) is scummy, but I think the film ok given the effort of researchers.

[@braequp1834]

I feel like everyone's skipping over the part where he talked about how Aladdin affected people's perception of these real places and sort of antagonized them in a way

[@LeLuiOuUnAutre]

Same. I read a lot of arguments "it's meant to take place in a fictional place" (which is debatable) misused as "it has no impact on what real people think of the real world". As if fantasy was a-historical, a-racial, a-influential.

[@littlereddragon]

Yep. It perpetuates Orientalism which is where all "Eastern" cultures are seen as interchangeable. The cognitive dissonance in this comment section is unreal. I love Aladdin but I can recognise a flawed film.

[@CameronTomilin]

didn’t affect my perception

[@yourmumlolol]

@@CameronTomilin good for you, i guess? doesn’t change the fact it affected other people’s perception

[@hwgoblin]

Yeah, some idiot DMed my mom once and said, and I quote "Hi, are you from magical Arabia?". Movies really affect people's views of the culture(s) they represent.

[@BawonSamndi]

As a South American, i think the most annoying thing is when movies think we all are different versions of mexicans.

[@Florian-yn3ur]

Thats ridiculous, we r all different versions of the spanishs

[@chapps.6891]

oh my god, this!

[@BawonSamndi]

@@Florian-yn3ur lol at least that more accurate, genealogically speaking.

[@HiAgainTheNameIsStillAyle]

@@Florian-yn3ur What about Brazil? He is just the weird kid on class

[@liberpolo5540]

Frick, IKR?

[@santiagogallego8695]

I'm sorry hakim but I would totally watch the movie you describe in the intro.

[@camelopardalis84]

I mainly want to visit the place. But yeah. Watching the film would be dope, too.

[@nurailidepaepe2783]

same

[@Berilia]

@@camelopardalis84 Honestly, the place it's set sounds both unique and completely unoriginal at then same time and I'd love to go there

[@camelopardalis84]

@@Berilia Let's go there together if it ever starts existing.

[@chrismcgarry2840]

Someone should actually make that sort of thing, it would be a funny way to mock orientalism

[@Keepcalmandcupcakes]

One thing I'd like to give my little perspective on. Aladdin's monkey being named Abu was always meaningful to me because in Urdu (or maybe Punjabi?), my father's native tongue(s) from Pakistan, this word actually *is* a very familiar and intimate way of saying father. I always interpreted it as Aladdin's orphan life being so sad he literally gave the title "father" to the first friend he had, a monkey.

[@Quirderph]

I thought Abu was named after a character from The Thief of Baghdad. (The film also features an evil vizier named Jaffar.)

[@eyezah5225]

Abu is indeed an Urdu word for father! The reason why the meanings are similar in both Arabic and Urdu is because Arabic had a huge influence on Urdu :)

[@VVesteria]

Oh yeah, it’s used in Bangladesh too but more like abbu not as common as abba tho both are correct I’d like to add that yes, Abu is a name

[@im_dypsy1437]

Awww

[@edorasmarauder5761]

That's the nickname I gave my late grandfather.

[@dawnrose1971]

As an Iraqi, I never knew Alladin the movie was supposed to be based of my country. My family and I always thought it was based of India.

[@CraigKeidel]

I also saw it as India-coded.

[@DimaRus-mw5zp]

But it's Iraqi story

[@dawnrose1971]

Alladin isn't actually an Iraqi story, it's not even set in Iraq, it's actually set in China, the only arab character in the story was the genie because he was from Egypt. The story of Alladin comes from the book Arabian Nights, which was a book written by a French man that compiled stories from Asian countries, north Asia (chain), south Asia (India), and west Asia (the middle east, yes the middle east is part of Asia). So we don't really know where the original story of Alladin came from, all we know is it was actually set in China. But in Iraq, we do have similar stories about a character that goes on adventures, but we don't call it Aladdin @@DimaRus-mw5zp

[@hallihallo]

القصة الأصلية من الف ليله وليله كانت ببغداد

[@virgondust5562]

I couldn't even tie it down to any country cause I saw no consistency to associate it with so I thought they created their own thing loosely on the middle east and India 😂

[@midge_gender_solek3314]

Funny how in Russian version the translators just renamed "Agrabah" back to Baghdad because they didn't have to care about anti-Iraq sentiment.

[@gabrielchillemi972]

My man ruining my childhood. But hey, as a brazilian i would say the same thing about that cursed "Rio" movie.

[@PoggoMcDawggo]

Oh god no what's wrong with rio?

[@gabrielchillemi972]

@@PoggoMcDawggo they think Brazilians are hyped people dancing to samba, also they sound like crackheads.

[@kafkafka7393]

Fellow brazilian here, can confirm

[@gabrielchillemi972]

@@kafkafka7393 fala mano kkkkkkk

[@Austin-xu9ty]

dOn'T FoRgEt tO FLoSS :'D

[@basicmountaingriff]

The incredibly ironic thing about this is that if you find and read the original Aladdin story, at least in the version I found, it was originally set in an inaccurate version of China which was at every moment consistently Arab. so I am both surprised and incredibly unsurprised that ─ probably without any awareness at all ─ disney made the exact same mistake through a different lens centuries later.

[@driftingdruid]

so centuries from now, a future culture may make the same mistake and have the same story set in a parodied western cowboy USA ? 😏

[@doritodorito492]

Now I have an urge to make a very stereotypical American version of Aladdin to continue the cycle.

[@raincandy1653]

@@doritodorito492 then after that, make it a stereotypical Swedish version to make sure the cycle don't die

[@PejmanMan]

Funnily enough it's probably a Persian story. It's a dude from Aden (al-aden), set in China, with Arab names. And then a dimensional portal to Egypt but that's separate

[@amoureux6502]

@@doritodorito492 PLEASE I want to see surfer dudes, cowboys, mobsters, an obvious parody of Elvis, valley girls, and Mormon missionaries all just thrown haphazardly into a city with a Hollywood sign, the empire state building, and the Arch set in the middle of a cornfield in Nebraska

[@comradesphinx626]

When you showed that graph of Americans voting for the bombing of Agrabaha at 14:44 I laughed so goddamn hard Lmao 💀💀💀

[@CraigKeidel]

It's up there with the study on removing dihydrogenoxide from drinking water. People be dumb.

[@eges72]

They voted "no" by a majority to the question of whether the Hindu-Arabic numerals should be thought in schools, which we all currently use💀

[@megamagikarp8512]

​@@eges72lmao

[@MrBell-iq3sm]

A good piece of evidence to show moral degradation and insanity, indicating a rotten country.

[@Aloemancer]

"The wedding takes place in a Dutch tulip farm, because y'know Spain has a lot of those" Well I mean they did at one point 😂

[@RoyalKnightVIII]

*laughs in flandes* Watch the Alatriste movie people

[@annascott-hinkle2367]

I'd like to see someone do this kind of film about America sometimes to help educate us on what we're doing.

[@residentevil36936936]

Lol when you know history too well

[@timpauwels3734]

*Habsburg intensifies*

[@daca8395]

Oh fck...

[@drpepperfan54]

as someone into history i was absolutely baffled trying to figure out when the hell aladdin takes place

[@porsche911sbs]

The original folktale doesn't have a set time either, and it is set in China also.

[@frozenraspberries1552]

The original tale was not a part of the original one thousand and one nights. It was inserted in a later edition by a white french dude recounting what a Syrian dude allegedly told him. It takes place in China, but they use titles of Turkish sovereign, with Jewish and Muslim names and fictional creatures.

[@shmillbe3390]

It's set in fantasy land, that's influenced by some real shit and not so real shit

[@theJeidDragon]

There's a Disney theory that it actually takes place in a post apocalyptic future. It explains how Genie's been locked away in the lamp for 10,000 years but makes pop culture references, and apparently the magic carpet is just advanced technology.

[@KyrenaH]

The original story takes place in China. So, have fun trying to figure that out.

[@nateds7326]

As terribly researched Aladdin is, I've never once watched it and been like "Ah yes, this is definetly how Arabia/Iraq/Turkey works and looks". I get that this is bad because it's more subconscious than this, and this probably isn't how other people think, but personally when I watch any Disney movie before like 2009 I imagine all the foreign cultural details are BS by default.

[@porsche911sbs]

yeah since it's a fantasy story, Agraba doesn't have to accurately depict Baghdad

[@boulevard14]

Exactly!

[@Jdudec367]

@@porsche911sbs you both share a pfp lol.

[@babyblue3717]

It's still offensive to the people who live there. I'm assuming you're American so imagine a hugely famous movie that kids all over the world love depicts Americans as fat, racist, stupid dirty people with no teeth and the heroes as dark-skinned.

[@CampingforCool41]

Tbh even as a kid I saw Agrabah more as a fantasy city than a depiction of any real city.

[@knap7742]

As a Russian, I thought that we are being showed weirdly in a movies. Well, I can say that red heat is literally documentary comparing to Aladdin

[@sylviadailey9126]

Oh that reminds me of the Fox animated movie called Anastaisa. When it comes to movies about Russians, this one is wierd. It is really freaking wierd. It depicts the Russian Revolution. Anastasia Romanova herself was a real life royal person of the time. Yet this movie doesn't touch any of the political or economic issues relevant to the historical event. It doesn't even have the communist Bolshevics. That is like depicting the American Revolution without having the rebellious colonists. It is as if there was some mystical reason why England lost the colonies. Likewise, this is like depicting the French Revolution without showing rebellious peasants and the formation of a new democracy of France. That story wouldn't touch guillotines with a ten foot pole. People give the Disney Pocahontas movie a lot of crap for historical inaccuracy. However at least that movie made an attempt to address the relevant issues of colonialism and racism. It just didn't show as much violence and atrocities, and it also added in a wierd romance. I think the Anastasia movie is significantly less accurate. I think the reason why it is the way it is, was because it was made a few years after the end of the Cold War. So a more accurate depiction would be too scary for American parents. I enjoyed Anastaisia as a kid. I am American,, BTW. When I got older, I learned about the real history. I think it is really fascinating. It is intriguing for someone to reject both monarchy and capitalism, and see how that works. You Russian guys are so interesting. I have a pretty good basic knowledge of the Soviet Union phase of Russian history. I am eager to learn more.

[@knap7742]

@@sylviadailey9126 Good thing about russian history for you. It will end in few years, so amount of history to study wont ever be bigger. Yes, it was really, really brave to jump from semi-feudal into socialism. It was on the edge of possibility.

[@seifdrawe7599]

I fell you my friend I always knew that us and russian very beautiful ppl but western media love to make fake stereotype on us 😂😂

[@CraigKeidel]

​@@sylviadailey9126Anastasia's soundtrack went fuckin hard, though. I still get "In The Dark Of The Night" stuck in my head decades later.

[@Qew1601]

The support for the bombing of agrabah is the funiest thing i heard today , and the most depressive too .

[@jordanwhite8718]

What I wonder is how did they not immediately understand that they were being played. I haven’t seen Aladdin in years but I still remember the name of the city being Agraba.

[@commandercaptain4664]

"Nuke Agrabah from orbit. It's the only way to be sure." A L A D D I N S _coming this summer, and this time, it's jihad..._

[@commandercaptain4664]

@The Mutineers Support/oppose superlaser death of Alderaan?

[@randomuserwitharandomname6183]

@@jordanwhite8718 They probably think the place is real, like how Pocahontas is definitely a native american, from which tribe who knows, but definitely native.

[@FindingsOfAnArmouredMind]

What's even funnier is that Agrabah isn't even a real location, it is a fictional place. Funnier than that?? Amercia is a two-part continent with more than 50+ countries. People make a big deal of people in the USA making demands of that kind but I am positive that's quite a minority over fucking continents that wouldn't support that. Just look at what' happening between Putin and Ukraine (sorry if I wrote that wrong). Entire countries are giving their back on Russia. Don't ypu think you people will get the same support something were to happen to you? People will likely stand up. As for the Aladdin movie, I think it is fucking silly/ridiculous as balls to bring that "fact" (that "Americans" want to bomb Arabs) up when the movie plays absolutely no role in the misperception and, more importantly, hatred of those American. You people are blaming the wrong media..

[@AnchoviePossum]

i am so glad to get a non-western perspective

[@DepoverS]

Same. I'm from the west myself and, even though I'm a big disney fan, I'm still curious to learn more about the world as a whole without it being whitewashed or put in a more positive/negative light then it originally is.

[@internetual7350]

@@DepoverS Well by watching Disney your gonna get exactly what you DON'T want

[@DepoverS]

@@internetual7350 Well, I'm always going to have a soft spot for the disney movies I watched as a kid. Even after this video I'll still watch it with my sister. But it would be wrong to let myself be blinded by using them as the only way to learn about other countrys/ storys. And it would be wrong not to aknowledge the false representation that is showcased in this movie (no matter how nostalgic it is). This video opened my eyes to the false stereotypes that I didn't think too much of at first, and helps me to take even more steps to learn and to better myself.

[@internetual7350]

@@DepoverS Now that I think about it... Good point

[@Berilia]

@@DepoverS I agree. I'm half British, half Gambian (a country in West Africa) and I love learning about Eastern cultures and how they differ from my own. I still have a lot more to learn since I'm still legally a child, but it seems like I know volumes more than the ignorant people who made these things.

[@lasschesteven]

Because I know more about animals than about world cultures, the thing that tipped me off to this movie being wildly inaccurate was the parrot. It has the coloration of a scarlet macaw, a South American species, despite the movie taking place in Iraq before that Genovese fuckup landed in the Americas.

[@luisa146]

Are there any parrot species native to the middle east? Just asking since you're knowledgeable about animals and for the algorithm :)

[@lasschesteven]

@@luisa146 Kinda depens whether you consider Pakistan and Afghanistan part of West Asia or part of South Asia. Outside of that, many West Asian countries had regular contact with South Asia and East Africa, both of which do have several parrot species, since the Bronze Age. None of those parrots had coloration even remotely like that of the one in Disney's Aladdin though.

[@Gaff.]

Wow. That's kind of amazing.

[@SeasideDetective2]

I'm not an Arab, and even as a preteen I understood that ALADDIN was very culturally inaccurate; this really bothered me, because I genuinely wanted to see authentic South Asian culture without having to watch a boring documentary. I recognized, for example, the contradiction between characters saying "Praise Allah!" and the talking tiger head guarding the Cave of Wonders, since the tiger appears to be a pagan god. (Of course, I didn't learn until many years later that "al-Lah" simply means "god" and can be used by Arabs of all religions.) But when I tried pointing these things out to people, I was told, "It's just a story." I felt embarrassed and shut up about the subject after that. But now, nearly thirty years later, I actually agree with those people. You can't expect entertainment to be 100 percent accurate - at least, not if you want it to be GOOD entertainment. You can always take college courses or read the encyclopedia if you want to learn about the world as it really is. In fact, in junior high and high school I remember us learning all about foreign cultures in history class. We were even taught that Islam was NOT a terroristic religion, and this was in the mid-'90s.

[@Gaff.]

@@SeasideDetective2 Why can't we point out flaws in things and still enjoy them? You think I don't still enjoy Aladdin after watching this video? Of course I do. The art is top-notch, the performances are brilliant, the music is excellent, it's just not only inaccurate but insensitive because Disney, with all their infinite money, could have tried and didn't. You can enjoy something and recognise its flaws.

[@zejalt8608]

The exact same thing happens to Latin America. It's not rare to see depictions of Brazil, but with Havana as it's capital. There's argentinian tango as background music, everyone is wearing mexican sombreros, people speak spanish and eat tacos and tortillas. Oh, and all cities are within the Amazon forest and monkeys and pumas walk the streets.

[@elagabalusrex390]

Funny I don't remember any of that (except the sombrero) in The Emperors New Groove, which was set in Peru I believe.

[@JuanPabloDj88]

Bro but realistically we all latin Americans are pretty much the same shit man. Buildings, culture, music, food. Im Colombian but is all the same shit just different smell

[@Kitsu_Worm]

​@@JuanPabloDj88Can't blame you with that. there's difference between 3400 km from Madrid to Moscow and 3400 km from Venezuela to Chile.

[@jeremias8889]

Até porque representar o Brasil é fácil né?

[@juliana_melo]

​@@JuanPabloDj88what??? Dude that's just so wrong lol. I mean, of course we have some similarities, but we also have a lot of cultural differences. I'm brazilian and we can notice different cultures even inside of Brazil, now imagine comparing to other countries in LATAM.

[@radicalrazel9156]

Great video as always, but I have one small nitpick. 10:18 I can assure you, antisemitism is still alive and thriving in Europe. Synagogues and Jewish cemeteries are regularly defaced with Nazi symbols. Shouts of "Death to the Jew" is heard shouted across especially eastern Europe, though it isn't uncommon further west either. I'm a Jew living in Norway, a place usually known for being relatively progressive by European standards, and I got swastikas painted on my street after I got doxxed a couple years ago. I've been chased through my home town because I dared wear my star of David in public. Please stop minimizing real racism faced by Jews in Europe.

[@iAstra]

I'm sorry to hear that. That's terrible.

[@extremelynormalperson]

Good thing you're an anarchist! Shouldn't be much of a problem when you can just do the same back to them

[@AmberyTear]

Sadly, I confirm. :/

[@miaxx937]

Have been scared to tell people I’m Jewish as I’ve faced antisemitism even in the workplace. Used to work in an Italian restaurant and everyday the word “jew” was used as an insult. Actually scary how backwards we’ve gone as a nation.

[@shadowbadgercat]

@@miaxx937 yeah people look at me weird when I wear stuff in public or mention I’m Jewish

[@snowangelnc]

2:30 - The most sexualized depiction of a Disney princess before or since.... That's only because Esmeralda is not a Disney princess.

[@sophiatalksmusic3588]

While we're on the subject, I'd love to see an analysis of how the Roma are portrayed in that movie.

[@gianni50725]

Now that I think about it, all the brown princesses were the most sexualized by far.

[@jaygriffperiod85]

She was at one point.

[@jonajo9757]

@@gianni50725 Oh God, don't get me started on the concept art. Some shown them in appropriate clothing, while others just bumped up that sexual factor.

[@jonajo9757]

@Ooki Cooki At least Disney didn't go for the two routes based on production art I've seen, and what happened in the original story. One, Esmeralda being having a skimpier dress, and making Esmerelda a white girl as like, a plot twist? I forgot, but it was basically her being Romani, except she was like, adopted or kidnapped and raised as one while being white, so eh.

[@infinitekurosoul]

One thing I'd like to point out is that Jasmine was never against marriage, she was just against an arranged marriage to someone she doesn't love. The reason the carpet ride changed her mind is because she figured out who Aladdin was and she already grew to like him from the beginning of the movie.

[@ElliotKeaton]

And Belle doesn't have Stockholm syndrome, but that won't stop people from ignoring her and saying that she does.

[@drpavel_]

that doesn't fit this soy manlet's agenda

[@lilithjade4363]

people just don’t understand consent apparently

[@tirididjdjwieidiw1138]

@@drpavel_ fr

[@mystii8134]

Apparently "I want to marry for love" means I hate marriage

[@personexists4520]

Hearing most people in the us saying we should bomb a fictional city in the “Middle East” really is funny to me

[@comNartheus]

Guess what. I am Russian, and by your standards should be a pretty normal European. But not for the western artists, movie makers and animators. Let's look at the animated movie Anastasia from 1994. The events of the revolution (yep, it presumably starts with the February revolution) are completely messed up. 1913, 1917 and 1916 is the same one year apparently. Then Petrograd (city built by Italian architects, their russian students and then a whole bunch of representatives of the northen modern, "merchant modern", neorussian and many other styles) looks like a stereotypical British working class neighborhood. And then they depict a stark difference between the "real people" who are western moneybags and former Russian aristocrats and "the scum" who are Russian proletarians. And of course our main antagonist is Rasputin who is a sorcerer from English or American fantasy novel, rather then anything remotely connected to real Slavic mysticism. Not even a cartoonish image of a village sorcerer or a "holy elder" from some Russian romance era novel.

[@comNartheus]

@Невада большевик or Dmitry Donskoy. But I would be way more happy if it was something less about military stuff and more about peaceful exploration. Like polar expeditions or Siberian exploration of 1930s... IDK.

[@dreadfulshrew3985]

"Anastasia" also portrays Nicholas II as a perfect human being who did nothing wrong and did not at all deserve to pay for his actions. Ugh, what a lovely way to swipe his failures (which were countless) under the rug. Apparently, he was just a loving father and ruler, who absolutely did not yeet out of the city, when the Imperial Guard was shooting innocent protesters during the Bloody Sunday. Not to mention that during "In the Dark of the Night", Rasputin calls Anastasia 'Little Anya', which is an incorrect short version of her name. In Russia, Anastasia's pet name would've been Nastya, never Anya. Imagine actually taking time to research other people's culture

[@Goran1138]

At least nobody arguing, that this is a fairytale, and Donald Virgil Bluth is really talanted animator, and he delivered styreotypes about Russia in the creative way with humour. Hollywood films about WWII era and Soviet Union is far worse, because they are seruosly pushed propaganda about "evil NKVD maniacs" and "disarmed human waves meat shield", and their portrayal of the Soviet Union is deeply grounded in the people minds.

[@abunchofbananas8813]

Fellow Russian here, I definitely have a hard time watching Anastasia post-childhood for all its inaccuracies (that's putting it nicely). at the time it was the only Russia-themed animated movie we had as kids, so even if it wasn't accurate to our culture we would still identify with Anastasia to have at least some sort of animated princess to attach ourselves to. Now going back to it, having our culture be represented through only an ignorant American lens, and being told to have to settle for less rather than nothing at all for representation's sake is insulting, disgusting, and degrading.

[@ontheline3077]

Well, that's nothing new. We, Russians, always were the "others" for westerners. The only way to defy such depictions is to support creation of our own pictures. The best example of latest years imo is "Masha and the Bear" series. It based on traditional Russian tale characters, and each episode has a very positive message for kids. Besides, bc of Masha's original russian female clothing, with her head and lower parts of body covered, series is broadcasted in all Muslim countries.

[@papichulo4171]

Similar things of stereotyping happens with the way Latin America is depicted in media too.

[@angadgrewal9324]

can you explain how?

[@Bojoschannel]

@@angadgrewal9324 sepia filter, dirtiness everywhere, donkeys in the streets, small haciendas as the big towns, flamengo music (which is Spanish), just to start with

[@angadgrewal9324]

@@Bojoschannel oh okay thanks for explaining

[@inovakovsky]

@@Bojoschannel Salsa music set in a non-Caribbean country, Mexican accents, even in South f***ing America.

[@Bojoschannel]

@@angadgrewal9324 I could go on if'd like to, lawlessness is also a trademark for Latin American countries in Hollywood cinema

[@feeno1188]

It's pretty common for Disney and they also do that to European tales. For example, where do you think pinocchio is set ? It's supposed to be in Italy, more precisely in Tuscany yet it looks German. That's because the city is literally based on a German one. The hats are Tyrolean hats from northern Italy/southern Austria and their clothes look Swiss or southern German. The VA for Gepetto is Austrian and the only actual depiction of an Italian person is Stromboli who's entire character is a caricature spewing out random nonsense vaguely sounding like Italian.

[@inyrui]

As an Italian, the appropriation and misrepresentation of my culture is disgusting. Nah just kidding idc haha it's just a movie

[@trismegistus2881]

Yeah, we Europeans just don't care about being misrepresented. I mean, not all Dutch people live near a windmill, wear clogs or buy drugs. Foreigners confuse Bavarian and German culture all the time, too. These stereotypes are often not ill-intended at all, so we don't care too much.

[@chavaspada]

Yeah the author of the video wanted to play victim. It's called syncretism and it's to appeal to a broader audience, same with The Road To El Dorado it's made to appesl to all latinos and it borrows stuff from a ton of different civilisation's myths and cultures.

[@agirloncrack4413]

@@trismegistus2881 you don’t care because either way European culture dominate other once’s so why would an European care about his culture being misunderstood when y’all shoved it on our faces during years ?

[@hittingyouoverthehead]

There's also Beauty and the Beast which is supposed to be set in France but everyone talks in a British accent for some reason- except Lumiere who is somehow speaking in a French accent.

[@Lawoftalos12]

The architecture is Indian, The clothes are turkish, The folklore is Arab, The location is Iraqi, And the movie overall is a mess of different civilizations

[@Ambrosia-]

Clothes aren't Turkish! Don't write if you know nothing

[@Lawoftalos12]

@@Ambrosia- the fez hats are also pointed out in the video as ottoman turkish. Not arabic, so dont poke your nose into stuff you dont know about.

[@FlyyGirl1000]

I love it lol I’m a big fan of both the middle eastern & Indian culture. Especially the gypsy culture

[@pecro.170n8]

@@Lawoftalos12 The fez hats are actually originated from morocco and make their way into ottomans in 19th century. Since turkey are a turkish country making that statement is kinda dumb so... don't write if you know nothing

[@Lawoftalos12]

@@pecro.170n8 why is it always turks who try to say their clothes are something else and not this or that? It makes my brain hurt. And also its still a stereotype for turks whether you like it or not. That argument is debatable.

[@puppetofthebourgeoisiechan1405]

As a person from a Muslim family, I always get cracked up from thinking about the line "Brush up your Sunday salam" First it's Friday not Sunday and second it's salat, not salam. Salam is the greeting and Muslims don't greet people for an hour every Sunday. Best of all for the live action version they changed it to "Brush up your Friday salam" to be more accurate (They kept bragging about how accurate they were without asking any of the many people or even googling it). So according to Disney, my family doesn't pray on Fridays as a group. They gather in a mosque on FRIDAYS, which they know because they are very woke, and greet each other for an hour.

[@rowlet3270]

I think they said "Sunday Salam" because they tried making a play on words from the phrase "Sunday best" but yeah Disney is stupid

[@متين-ج4ز]

I actually did enjoy Aladdin, the original one, however, it's true that I've never seen any movie so casually racist.

[@nqk_0662]

@@متين-ج4ز trust me there’s way worse like 1000% more

[@متين-ج4ز]

@@nqk_0662 Come on, don't leave me hanging

[@nqk_0662]

@@متين-ج4ز لا

[@username-unavailable]

Maybe I'm alone in this. But when I was younger I just kind of assumed agribal was not a real place. Like the undersea kingdom where Ariel lived.... I never assumed that there was a real place in the world where someone would chop your hand off for stealing... I know I've seen pictures of settlements and I had as young as 6 years old that could be closer to the depiction in Aladdin but those are always much much more rural communities in poorer countries. I guess I didn't realize this film was problematic because I just thought it was entirely based on fictional concepts? Like why would you put a city in the desert that doesn't make sense and even when I was younger I understood that religious headwear was a thing so I didn't think that anybody in any City would have religious headwear that was this diverse

[@DoctorPissMan]

To be honest same I always thought it was all just a made up place and never truly understood how racist this movie was

[@deliriousfreezer9236]

Same!! I always thought it took place on a fictional world. Moreover, if you watch the movie in Dub, the racist accents aren't even shown

[@username-unavailable]

I think it's super interesting that this video came back into everyone else's feeds at once. For a year this comment had only five or so likes. I do think it's interesting I love the conversation though

[@ElliotKeaton]

@@DoctorPissMan Maybe it isn't racist? Writers mishmash European culture and get it wrong in fantasy settings all the time.

[@Rig0r_M0rtis]

Me too, as a kid I didn't really think about it.

[@mr.nobody8288]

Could you imagine if disney made a animated movie about the Russian civil war? Lenin's best friend is a 550lb talking bear named Ivan. Lenin: Ivan, what shall we do for the proletariat? (Bear breaks into jovial song that rhymes with proletariat.)

[@Muykle]

So Disney will make a movie about the founding of the USSR in a positive light, but be unbelievably racist about it? I can imagine a better use of resources, but would not mind watching it.

[@goldensloth7]

well, there's Anastasia, which is plenty weird!

[@Muykle]

@@goldensloth7 yea. I don't remember the USSR at all in that movie, when it clearly should have been in power after the Romanovs were killed.

[@geodude205]

@@Muykle they had Soviet passports in the movie. And after the revolution Anastasia lived in an orphanage which was called "People's orphanage" or something like that. These were like the only things indicating that it was Soviet Russia /USSR. Btw i did laugh a lot while watching it as a person from Russia haha but still super dumb movie

[@AlexGoldhill]

I'd watch it.

[@lancevoltron3585]

"European antisemitism never left, it just shifted onto another member of the Semitic family." Damn. That one has me thinking a lot.

[@expansionpackdeluxe636]

That’s relevant especially right now!

[@arttulindroos6686]

Some europeans literally want to repeat history but this time with different victims

[@awellculturedmanofanime1246]

Except antisemitism is about jewish people not semitic speakers 🤦‍♂️

[@eges72]

The stereotype of being greedy, extremely competitive, illiberal, ambitious and isolated is still related to jews to this day, so actual european antisemitism even after the horrors still exists

[@eges72]

​@@arttulindroos6686*cough* *cough* AfD *cough* Harper *cough* Trump

[@B_A-tr]

My father is from tunisia and he was really asked once if people have cars there

[@KuroiGodofDeath]

I am from Argentina and while I was in germany I got asked if we had washing machines in my country.

[@moira932]

At this point I think this happens to every non western nation lol, I as Chinese experienced the exact same thing.

[@bacicinvatteneaca]

Well where I'm from in Italy people started having cars (or even carts) only after the road was established in the late 60s

[@Bojoschannel]

@@moira932 same as a Mexican

[@B_A-tr]

@@bacicinvatteneaca well my dad isnt that old

[@taylormorris6890]

They wouldn't call it Madrid. They'd call it Rimdad.

[@camelopardalis84]

Rimdåd.

[@LennyLenward]

That sounds like slang for a car-loving dad

[@taylormorris6890]

@@LennyLenward That's way more wholesome than what I was thinking.

[@Kobolds_in_a_trenchcoat]

@@LennyLenward yes, car-loving... that is exactly where my thoughts went *backs away ashsmedly*

[@urhsusnikvrecic1478]

Gramsci in his grave be like: "I told you, bro. I warned you about cultural hegemony, didn't I?"

[@papichulo4171]

“I warned you about cultural hegemony bro!!!! I told you dog! I told you man! I told you about cultural hegemony!”

[@0Advocat0]

@@papichulo4171 Unexpected SBAHJ.

[@frechjo]

@@0Advocat0 i cant wait to be a useless piece of shit all day and watch all these disney movies FUCK IM FALLING DOWN ALL THIS CULTURAL HEGEMONY............................ IT KEEPS HAPPENING

[@estacion7386]

Gramsci is underrated TuT

[@Zelink108]

13:50 Jasmine wasn’t against marriage, she was against FORCED marriage, she clearly said she wanted to marry for love, not simply because the law said so, she fell for Aladdin because she had a freedom with him, him showing her the world, which is why she wanted to marry him.

[@dariushouston2826]

So whar ur trying to tell me is that the depictions of Aladdin are practically years and years of orientalism and lazy research put into a highly funded movie

[@HamidKarzai]

It's mind boggling to me that people sat down and wrote this trash, like have some self respect

[@commandercaptain4664]

The "Disney Renaissance" in a nutshell.

[@Berilia]

Completely off topic, but there appears to be a Genocider Syo here

[@Kobolds_in_a_trenchcoat]

@@Berilia what's a "Genocider Syo"?

[@aislingokeeffe6195]

@@Kobolds_in_a_trenchcoat The original commenter above has a pfp of Genocider Syo, a character from the Danganronpa games.

[@kalebtewodros]

Imma be honest: I adore this movie as a Sub-Saharan African, and I didn’t, don’t, and will never hold this movie as anything other than completely unrealistic. Anyone arguing that this is in anyway accurate to anything in real life is an idiot.

[@mylittlebrony2130]

I agree and I guess that's why I'm not really mad at the movie because they clearly weren't trying to make it educational in any kind of way so I didn't take it as such so I guess that's why I can enjoy it without getting upset about the bad cultural appropriation

[@shronkler1994]

yeahh it's just one of those whiney insane lefty rants

[@rini9325]

@@shronkler1994 you didn't watch the video.

[@deathisonyourcards]

I agree. I always thought it was unrealistic. I think the issue people have with it is that it isn't more educational. But it's entertainment, so it serves it purpose. I'm not mad at the movie, but I can see why someone would have an issue.

[@fegoracedia6080]

When I watch these movies where the target audience are kids i dont look for realism, instead I just look for the magic of fantasy. When he mentioned "Those kids don't understand the fundamental issues of the film" I just had to let out a sigh, its like he wants kids to not be free with their imagination about wishes and being prince and princesses and instead want to be crushed at an early age how adults put propaganda and stereotype messages in movies

[@Madamekittylein]

Your example with mispronouncing "Michael" was so funny because your mispronounciation is almost exactly what the right german pronounciation is 😂

[@helmortkuper2626]

It shows how ignorant this guy us

[@ugwuanyicollins6136]

Coincidences hmmmm

[@seronymus]

"Mitchell" is actually the native naturally-mutated English form for Michael, before it was reborrowed again some centuries ago from Latin/Greek.

[@TheLurker1647]

It's almost like he's an absolute ignorant buffoon.

[@christopherstein2024]

How racist of the Germans that they pronounce a name differently. I'm literally crying and shaking rn.😭☭

[@Mikesman1000]

For comparison, there is a Soviet painted movie (cartoon, but looking at it you can't name it that) "the golden anyhilope" where the animator traveled to India, to see the palaces and pagodas, to bring them into the movie. Rather than making stereotypes, makes them look more realistic characters. There are English subtitles, very recommended, and it teaches some good morale.

[@strakhovandrri]

10 childhood traumas out of 10 would be buried under the shards too

[@andymandy8862]

Wow two different movies try to do two different things thats crazy!

[@jeremynikijuluwstanevil7551]

You mistype, the title of the movie is Golden Antelope not "Golden Anihylope", by the way here is the link kzbin.info/www/bejne/eoDCYZJ3f7Nol7M

[@Mikesman1000]

@@jeremynikijuluwstanevil7551 yeah tnx 🤙

[@jeremynikijuluwstanevil7551]

@@Mikesman1000 You are welcome, i am sorry if my correction feels judging, i have to intention of that, i just want to help you ☺️

[@christopherverdery1294]

The fact Aladdin is wildly inaccurate is faithful to the original story, where the story takes place in China but the author knew nothing about the country and was just using it as "a faraway place"--a term that literally appears in the opening song.

[@s0ap_eater1405]

Aladdin a Arab word

[@Vladimira92]

Yeah, most fairytales are set in a vague place and indefinite time. I don't think it's deep.

[@afiqzul-star8768]

@@s0ap_eater1405 Aladdin is Chinese. He is from south China which have Muslims (hence the Arabic name) but then the setting is moved to Arabia later on as the story progressed.

[@iopvixens]

​@@afiqzul-star8768 do you mean the west? Western China is predominantly Muslim since the early day of Islam.

[@UlfDerDritte]

@@iopvixens no they do mean the south, there are considerable muslim minorites there too, called the Hui. Hui is a catchall term for Chinese Muslims that don't fall within another ethnic group.

[@delilahsmoople1995]

Always a good day when hakim uploads

[@unclejeffthechad9459]

No it's NOT

[@GingusBingus666]

@@unclejeffthechad9459 you're right. Good days don't exist. But if they did, they'd be when Hakim uploads

[@stayphrosty]

+

[@iammraat3059]

@@unclejeffthechad9459 eat poop

[@CodyTheKingOfYoutube1]

HELLO KZbin ADDICTS!!! YESTERDAY, 12/02/2020, I BROKE THE GUINNESS WORLD RECORD FOR MOST KZbin VIDEOS RECORDED AND UPLOADED IN ONE DAY. DO YOUR PART AND VIEW MY VIDEOS, SUBSCRIBE TO MY CHANNEL AND CONGRATULATE ME. -CodyTheKingOfKZbin

[@alicesenz6374]

I actually thought the movie took place in India as a child. A company like Disney has all the money at their disposal to make a realistic depiction, there's no excuse.

[@leguminosae9685]

I thought it took place in Saudi Arabia because of the opening song.

[@alicesenz6374]

@danieljliversLXXXIX bro I'm asking to be able to tell the setting

[@Tpoleful]

@@leguminosae9685 it's set in the desert so, it kinda makes sense you thought that. I knew Agrabah was fictional but I didn't know it was supposed to be Baghdad or the fact that the palace was modeled after Taj mahal. I think the opening statement by Hakim really captures what this setting really is. It's Arabia in name only.

[@redactedredacted6656]

I think most older disney movies played fast and lose with the inspiration. However, as disjointed as The Little Mermaid for example looks the animators didn't do some shit like have the Kremlin in a completely unrelated coastal looking kingdom.

[@alicesenz6374]

@danieljliversLXXXIX no I havent visited the middle east, which is why I would like to get a realistic representation of it in some sort of media. If they wanted to make it a fictional country, they shouldn't have made it based on Baghdad. Blackface and other racist caricatures were also used in cartoons, doesnt mean people dont criticize them. Anyway you're the one who clicked on a video of a critique of Aladdin just to get mad when you saw criticism of Aladdin lmao. Disney made the setting the Middle East, so it should've represented the Middle East.

[@VonGehenna]

You missed a point regarding Princess Jasmine, in the original tale, the name was Badr-ul-Budoor but there was no way westerners can pronounce this so they opted for Jasmine for ease. Also "Apu" is not intended to be "Abu", it's actually an Indian name just like the tiger "Raja" (maybe they acquired their animals from Indian merchants), so it seems they blended Arabian & Indian cultures either intentionally or unintentionally.

[@CodexSan]

It's funny How the "West" conveniently forgets that, we only have access to old Greek philosophy because the Arabic universities - the oldest ones in the world, I might add, "conveniently" translated that for us. I truly can't understand this "uncivilised" trope they try to pull. If you compare pure data and statistics, until 1000 AC, the east was far more developed, economically (making commerce via the Silk Road with all of the Eastern regions) as well as socially than the whole of the "civilised" Western countries. The nordic league, at that time, was still making human sacrifices to "praise Odin".

[@PlanetZoidstar]

Not all cultures grow at the same rate.

[@tudormihaialexandru3038]

So "the nordic league" were stuck at that time with sacrifices while the others moved on, huh?

[@PlanetZoidstar]

@@tudormihaialexandru3038 Not all others, the Aztecs were doing it even after the Nordic League moved on. The Chinese practiced barbaric footbinding but nobody cares. The Japanese didn't have a concept of money until Dutch merchants arrived - then they abolished money because they messed up so hard replacing their rice-based commerce system until American merchants basically forced them at cannon-point to open their borders. Plus the Middle East still has Honour Killings occur. So I wouldn't act like they were so ahead of the west when that shit still goes on.

[@kushastea3961]

@@PlanetZoidstar barbaric foot binding lmfao. Foot binding started trending amongst Song dynasty aristocrats and big families as a fetish for the very rich only. Because poorer people needed to work. It came back during Qing dynasty because the Manchus liked Han people weak and helpless. And still it was really reserved for well to do families, much like corsets. Stop fantasizing about stuff you don't know.

[@PlanetZoidstar]

@@kushastea3961 Nothing you said contradicts my points. Nice that you try to downplay the suffering of those women and girls who were forced to mutilate their own feet. Rich or not footbinding was a disgusting cultural practice that should never have happened.

[@Ava-pq6om]

Fun fact: you can determine the date and setting of every historical Disney movie, except for Aladdin.

[@DarkwellorBZ]

This movie really is the Mario of Disney films

[@Silvia_Arienti]

What about Hercules?

[@DarkwellorBZ]

@@Silvia_Arienti you know what that one would work too. just to a lesser extent because at least you can tell that was Greece. No one know what Aladdin is but "vaguely south Asian"

[@Silvia_Arienti]

@@DarkwellorBZ I mean the date

[@jonajo9757]

I kind of assumed around the 6th century because of the good ol' Allah references.

[@cosmetanoia5018]

FUCKING FINALLY! as an arab this movie hurt me so much growing up. Literally everyone only knew me as that girl who came from the country in aladdin. Its not even accurate like what??? I felt so disconnected from this movie, which is supposed to cater to me, an arab, i literally felt more so connected to pochahontas more than jasmine because she was the darkest princess OTHER than jasmine. (I knew arabian culture so i knew jasmine was bad, but i didnt know native american culture. Cut me some slack. It was around the time frozen was being teased so there were no other choices other than tiana, and im not black.) THANK YOU for bringing this to light. I literally saw this in my reccomended and my eyes lit up, it legitimately made me so happy some attention was being brought to this issue.

[@cosmetanoia5018]

@Google Is-shit triggered much? You SOUND prviliged. I can almost hear your meaty cheeto stained fingers flapping against the screen. Leave if you hate this so much.

[@cosmetanoia5018]

@@saakmalo8273 yeah. Im completely dissapointed at the lack of diversity. Hopefully that changes, because black people are so inspirational and diverse in their own rights! You deserve much more than just 1 princess.

[@scotswarrior9535]

@Google Is-shit The reason Kid's movies having racist undertones is a problem, is because they plant the seeds that grew into people like you.

[@ravenm5022]

I felt the same way too when I was younger. Many of the kids in my elementary, which was a private Christian school by the way, would belittle me as the Iranian girl that was like Jasmine. (I look and sound nothing like her) The amount of times I had to hear someone sing Arabian Nights each time I spoke was extremely annoying and disrespectful. I never felt good about the movie or any of the Disney princesses, except for Kidagakash from Atlantis.

[@krymz1]

identifiying with princes and princesses eh? the fuck is wrong with parents

[@sleepyghostgirl]

everyone hand-waving away everything he said in this video as being explained by a "fantastical setting" are is still ignoring the definitely racist depictions of basically every antagonist in the movie. and let's not forget the fact that jasmine is one of the most sexualized disney princesses, who "just so happens" to be a woc and is also a TEENAGER.

[@SarimFaruque]

Jasmine is not nearly as sexualized as far as other female characters are, especially Ariel and Esmeralda. Also I've seen many people complain about Jasmine's outfit, but what about Aladdin? He's practically just wearing a vest on his torso.

[@SarimFaruque]

@MlechnyyKub In real life deserts, you’d generally want to cover up with long, loose, and bright colors due to sunburn and sweat. Jasmine’s outfit fits more in a Bollywood setting than anything Arabian. Then again, I personally am not too bothered since this is an animated fictional setting based on a made-up location. Anyone who does think this is anything like real-life Arabia should first blame themselves for lack of education instead of blaming the fiction itself.

[@SidheKnight]

sexualized by muslim standards maybe.. you can find dozens of teenage girls with similar midriff exposing tanktops in any medium sized city in the west during summer (and showing a lot more leg to boot! no pun intended)

[@minngael]

@@SarimFaruque It doesn't have the same baggage as a woman or girl being scantily clad, men aren't shamed as much for how they are dressed. I'd agree that Esmeralda is probably the most sexualized Disney character, I mean Frollo's lust towards her is a major plot point. It's pretty strange movie in their "canon". Ariel is scantily clad but it's typical for a mermaid & she is so naive, she barely understands Ursula's sexual innuendo about how to win over a man! Then again she is a sheltered princess.

[@imthebossmermaid3648]

@@SarimFaruque Ariel is sexualized too, but there's a vast difference in how she is sexualized compared to how Jasmine is. Ariel is portrayed as naive and innocent and clueless about her own sexual appeal, and is portrayed as charming sort of in a "sexy baby" way because of it, but Jasmine is sexualized in a conscious, more forward, and exotic way, where she willingly plays a seductress' role. Both are bad, but Jasmine's is also racist, because it contributes to stereotypes that white women are more innocent, pure, demure, and proper than women of color, who are more exotified, hypersexual, vulgar, and sleazy. Even worse, these tropes were created by white men so as to justify their fetishization and rape of us. It's not the same but a similar depiction for me is the Jezebel stereotype for Black women(as a Black woman myself), which was created because white men used to rape Black women on the plantations.

[@bredbox3816]

I'm going to disagree about the depiction of their faces being purely european vs arab characters, in most Disney movies, the non-main characters have large noses and generally unattractive features, I mean just look at the servants in the little mermaid, the side characters in hercules, the side characters in mulan, and really any Disney villain. All have exaggerated features especially compared to the main characters. You could argue something about ingrained antisemitism since the way they make these characters less attractive is through larger noses and sometimes smaller eyes, but I think it's really about using conventional beauty standards to their benefit.

[@zacf991]

exactly lol that was a weird point of him to bring up

[@_gremlinboy]

Well like the thing here is that the beauty standards and the racism are,,, the same thing? Like people with small eyes and big noses are considered culturally unattractive because of white supremacy crap, the adoration of typically white features such as big eyes and small noses. It's a totally valid point that the main characters have whitewashed features compared to the villains, even though it's a more subtle form of racial bias that's been around for so long.

[@CoryTheRaven]

This is the problem with video essays by people who don't actually study film. He didn't have enough of a background to know how Disney regularly depicts sidekick, villain, and secondary characters. Hell, his entire introduction is predicated on the idea that this ISN'T how Hollywood regularly depicts Europe or ANY non-American culture, when it totally is. As a Canadian, I've yet to see a Hollywood movie set in Canada that gets anything right.

[@RandomWandrer]

Agree. Disney always makes the protagonist "pretty" And the rest goofy with exaggerated features. Aladdin and Jasmin don't look western at all. I dont understand the problem with mashing together architecture and fashion from different times and places to make a new fictional location (Agrabah is totally fictional, so how can someone be offended?). Disney just did this exact same thing with Raya. Did people call that racist? Surely if Disney only made movies about white people in white places we would call that racist too. I loved Aladdin as a kid. Half my family are middle Eastern and they love it too. I dont know anyone personally offended by it. I know plenty of people confused by the apparent offence. Yeah, it's 30 years old, and might have been made with a degree of ignorance, being before the internet existed. But I sincerely believe that the creators involved in the project created it with love and pride. It's a fantastic movie! For the record, I thought Aladdin called his monkey Abu because he was an orphan.

[@ashtree8868]

It still exposes the featurism within disney movies

[@RazorDucki]

This movie rubbed me the wrong way too, even as a kid. The worst part with the hype around the remake was everyone complaining about the half Indian actress not being dark enough to be Iraqi, clearly ignorant to the fact that many Iraqis have fair skin. Even those who seek to defend us have opinions of west asians that were informed by movies like the original Aladdin.

[@unclejeffthechad9459]

*It's OKAY to be white* Get a Iife, communist Iosers.

[@papichulo4171]

@@unclejeffthechad9459 No. kzbin.info/www/bejne/n32spWttZrKqg7s

[@squeen666]

It kinda reminds me of how people call us Latinos brown people when we also have a lot of different skin colors

[@franzsohn7676]

@@unclejeffthechad9459 Get a life, Fascist.

[@LennyLenward]

@@unclejeffthechad9459 feeling the need to spam "get a life" in a youtube comment section says more about you than it does anyone else

[@MrNoobomnenie]

As a russian, I fully understand your feelings. The way russians, and everything related to Russia, is portrayed in the western media even to this day, is not very much better. We even have a special name for it: "клюква" ("cranberry"). Those stereotypes are so repetitive and predictable, we've even started intentionally parodying them - so ridiculously absurd they are. At least you're lucky that americans aren't constantly making fun of your writing system. Faux Cyrillic is an absolute cancer.

[@sottosopravoce]

Americans screw up Arabic so bad, though. I met a guy who had his name tattooed in 'Arabic' that was left to right, unconnected capital letters. Total gibberish. Usually they just do messed up squiggles, though, or use Arabic instead of Farsi or Urdu because they think nobody will notice.

[@avynlie]

Man, I didn’t even know faux Cyrillic was a thing. I don’t get people who spam foreign letters and do no research into what they’re doing. I’m currently learning Russian, Cyrillic is a lot more forgiving than other written languages I’ve seen, so people really have no excuse not to make an actual effort

[@yopassthefuckinsalt922]

Тнфз знфт фз тне реак ог сомеъу гоя амеяфсаиз (this shit is the peak of comedy for americans)

[@avynlie]

@@yopassthefuckinsalt922 damn, I really thought I was having a stroke lmao

[@yopassthefuckinsalt922]

@@avynlie That means i did it right, so i'll take that as a compliment

[@rjd-kh8et]

I assumed Rajah the tiger is named such because the sultan was rich enough to buy a tiger from India. That or it was a gift from a prospective Jasmine suitor.

[@christopherstein2024]

Well acshually that's racist ☝🤓

[@kwayneboy1524]

​@@christopherstein2024lol

[@burke615]

"Europeanizing" the mistakes made was a great way to set up the rest of the critique and make it easy for those of us less strong in non-"western" world geography to understand. Thanks!

[@asgerknudsen9069]

I have never once thought of Aladdin as representing real culture. To me it's always been a completely fictional land that takes inspiration from different real cultures. I never felt it had a responsibility to accurately represent any culture, as I never thought cultural representation was it's goal.

[@gungaloscrungalo8925]

Ah, but to brainwashed, ideological nags like this, representation is all that matters in entertainment, all of the time. God forbid you just have a fictional fairy tale land that takes inspiration from other cultures.

[@Sioolol]

You are too smart for the internet

[@hippiemuslim]

It's like arguing Game of Thrones is not an accurate representation of english medieval times because they didn't have dragons or white walkers and the architecture of King's Landing is based of Dubrovnik Croatia. Like, calm your tits, it's just fantasy.

[@Mephitinae]

Right. Saying that Disney's Aladdin depicts Arabia is like presuming that English schools look like Hogwarts.

[@thevrana]

@GGG 777 What other movies?

[@geodude205]

I understand you because they do the same thing to at least one group of White europeans - Russians. Oh boy. We kinda love to make fun of these stereotypes but they do feel "racist" should I say.

[@captainayaaya28]

I’m not Russian or European but can I guess that “Anastasia” was part of the problem?

[@geodude205]

@@captainayaaya28 Anastasia is rather harmful, its historically inacurate and stereotypical but thats it. Its more about the propaganda movies Hollywood is making since the 1980s. After the USSR disintegrated, the anti-russian movies didnt really stop for some reason. You know like Invasion USA, Rocky, Red Sparrow, Chernobyl etc

[@valentinaman980]

Хаха, это так. Но не все русские это белые славяне, черт возьми. У нас ведь более 100 различных национальностей!

[@yokusfrequently9362]

As a Mexican I’m glad to say, here we pronounced ALL names correctly without even knowing lol

[@splavst]

honestly from what jve seen as an south asian, romanized versions of languages with different scripts tend to also use that romanized pronounciation and so people from roman languages tend to actually pronounce them right haha

[@cupio-stardust]

Lmao I realized this when he said how Aladdin was actually pronounced, guess we were right all along!

[@palmeiralviverde]

In Brazil we always said it right too!

[@bobbyjon1614]

As a kid I just assumed Agrabah was some """outside""" place like Neverland or something. It didn't cross my mind that there were real cultures being depicted, and I never really gave it any mind until I watched your video

[@ninjireal]

continue to not give it any mind, this guys just throwing a temper tantrum for 10 minutes.

[@bobbyjon1614]

@@ninjireal nah if there are people hurt by the depiction I'd rather hear them out. just because I didn't see a problem doesn't mean there isn't one

[@ninjireal]

@@bobbyjon1614 multiple people in this comment section, some full Arab, say Aladdin is their favorite Disney movie. I didn’t really feel like hearing this guy whine so I’m not even sure if he’s from the Middle East.

[@Eseerrowez]

@@bobbyjon1614 Just because people claim there is a problem, doesn't mean there is one either. Everyone in this day and age goes out of their way to be offended by something. Like all the other cultures have their own representations loosely of the western Americas, and medieval Europe and they are not accurate either but only the west is the guilty party here? Ya that's hypocritical and nonsense. It is a fantasy world and getting yourself worked up and triggered over something like this means that they have a problem. They are seeking conflict

[@bobbyjon1614]

@@Eseerrowez I'm not saying if there one or isn't one, I'm just saying that I didn't see it at first and that it's worth to hear these sorts of things out. You can agree or disagree, obvs, but listening to someone's reason for having a problem with something doesn't really hurt anyone. Also, misrepresenting people in the Middle East is w a y different than misrepresenting western cultures, when one group already regularly gets attacked because of misconceptions.

[@tahaistheboss98]

Orientalism is single handedly the best book to understand so much of middle eastern modern politics, one cannot understate it's importance Edit: lion king had more "oriental names" than aladdin

[@tyronechillifoot5573]

Actually those names are just swahili worlds for specific things swahili is East African rather Middle Eastern so not really sure if that counts as orientalist

[@tahaistheboss98]

@@tyronechillifoot5573 i know it's swahili but Rafiq - friend, Mufasa - mustafa are very obviously influenced

[@atomisedman6235]

@@tyronechillifoot5573 Swahili is heavily influenced by Arabic

[@shukriisse6917]

@@atomisedman6235 that's b/c swahili is essentially arabic creole

[@lucyandecember2843]

@@tyronechillifoot5573 idk if this is correct but i heard that lion king used a lot of words from Zulu, not swahili? do they have common words or am i just wrong?

[@senorsombrero1275]

That comment you made about people being genuinely surprised when they found out Iraq has trees is pretty similar to my reaction when I discovered that Arizona in fact has grass.

[@ninjireal]

I’m American, I didn’t even know Arizona had grass.

[@irtb4250]

@@ninjireal Arizona has a whole national forest in the north, but I don’t feel like, my state has been misrepresented when people think it’s just desert

[@AestheticallyBlue]

Yeah up north it's coniferous and snowy, but in the south it's very hot and arid. You can actually do day trips up to places like Flagstaff in winter to enjoy the snow But yeah, we got grass down here

[@fauxhuman0]

lol i just found out and my state borders it 💀

[@shrimpy7862]

Bro Arizona ain't got grass dont spread propoganda

[@BradsGonnaPlay]

I agree with a lot of the video and never really considered how much this movie plays on antisemitic tropes. It’s also good to keep in mind that this happens with every large culture. How often are Americans generalized as people from the west coast with Midwestern accents who celebrate southern traditions/beliefs? Canadians as goofy, kindly alcoholics? Irish and Scottish cultures get twisted together a lot, Southern European nations are generalized together, etc It’s just using familiar assets to convey a fictional facsimile of an area/culture. That being said, however harmful those stereotypes/tropes/assets are can vary and Aladdin definitely messed up a lot of people’s perception to Middle Eastern cultures as children (and apparently even as adults).

[@Marimew12]

Finally someone with brains in this comment section

[@diegog1853]

I think the intention was similar to what medieval fantasy is. Being usually an imposible mesh of random medieval european nations combined, often even cultures separated by hundreds of years and thousands of kilometers. It is a caricature of the medieval world, meant to invoke the feeling of something being medieval, without actually being medieval. So actually your hypothetical film at the begining is not so far fetched, you just have to change madrid for some fantasy place and put it in some vague medieval period with magic. Of course I wouldn't say Aladdin succeded... mostly because it is an ilogical mess, no fantasy writer would put barbarian style women with no clothes in a snow setting, at least not without mentioning how horrible it would be. Also I don't think it succeded in even approximating an hypothetical "average" of oriental cultures, although it doesn't have to. You can have a medieval fantasy in a snow or dessert setting and in principle it should be fine, the problem is that they are here depicting a stereotype. So it is quite complicated. One thing I would sort of hesitate to say is calling the movie racist, it is xenophobic no question about it, but it never depicts any race as inherently inferior. They show that people of color can be as handsome, brave, smart and heroic as any other white disney hero. I guess it boils down to if insulting a culture and mocking it discriminates against the race in particular, or against the people that inhabit that culture, which can be similar but is not the same. However, depicting a stereotypically colored culture badly can also be racist. I can see that. And yeah that might be what is happening here.

[@diegog1853]

@Sazid _ Well europe is quite a diverse place itself... specially if you count ex soviet nations like people do. I mean for instance spain was conquered in 711 by the umayyads, making spain for a while a largely muslim country during a period in medieval times. And yeah some medieval fantasies do reference some muslim influences, some don't. Some medieval fantasies even attempt to go beyond medieval european nations and reference multiple muslim cultures and even ancient japan or aztec civilizations. And like I said... even if it stayed mostly in europe, europe is gigantic with a lot of completely different cultures and medieval period is almost a thousend years of history. Or are you saying that medieval european culture is vastly the same? Isn't that commiting the same mistake as assuming that the middle east and ancient india are the same? Both are after all just a caricature. Or would you say that? that medieval fantasy is an accurate depiction of medieval times? what times? what countries? Everything is extremely diverse. It "feels" european and "feels" medieval, but it really isn't in any meaningful way.Even some supposedly historical films mix and match swords, armor and clothing across hundreds of years and thousends of kilometers appart.

[@artimist0315]

@Sazid _ Well I think that's mostly a fantasy of the islamic world, like european heroic fantasy is generally based on the catholic world, that's why we have the taj mahal, and not some random hindou monument. Of course it doesn't represent every country with a muslim population, or one in particular, just like heroic fantasy doesn't represent the whole catholic world. Is Aladin a complete misrepresentation of a lot of different cultures by uninformed writers ? Absolutely But is it racist ? I would argue no. it never depict these populations as being inferior, in fact the movie had a widely positive effect on their perception by western kids all over the world. It depicts Aladin and Jasmin as heroes for kids to look up to, and the intention was to make the children like them, not make fun of them because of their "race".

[@Flashlightficklampa]

I've always thought of this way of depicting a "world" as a way to make as many people as possible able to relate to it. Thereby not specifying any cultures, people or places. I don't know if this is a problem or not, but it's starting to get silly the way people kinda demand that Disney make a movie about THEIR specific country or culture. I mean, come on, they can't make a movie about every single country or culture in the world 😅 And ESPECIALLY not expect Disney to represent all cultures without profiting from it. It's still a company.

[@extremelynormalperson]

I can agree 👍

[@jonahdonahue2930]

Sort of similar to the wheel of time world. Each city is obviously inspired by a real cultures aesthetician and they sometimes mix.

[@nusproizvodjach]

As a person from "Eastern Europe", I feel your pain comrade...

[@MrHat.]

Welcome to eastern europe movie making comrades! we got commie blocks, adidas, vodka, commie blocks, commie blocks, have i mentioned commie blocks?

[@VisKnightJJ]

@@MrHat. you had forgotten gulags. There always gulags in pictures about Eastern Europe P. S. - depiction of USSR during Cold War had changed my views on North Korea (I used to believe to all lies what the West and South Korea tell us)

[@maximk9964]

@@VisKnightJJ The West does lie about North Korea and USSR, but they are (or were) still pretty troubled countries, where life is way worse then that under Capitalism, that why people move (often with great risk to themselves) from Communist/Socialist countries to Capitalist ones in much much greater numbers then the other way around

[@dickiewongtk]

@@VisKnightJJ Yes, North korea is great. I want to move there. Do you?

[@lagatadesoojin]

@@VisKnightJJ move to North Korea then

[@Bisher_d790]

Finally someone talked about the sexualization, horrific racism and the offensive and massively misleading depiction of Arab / Indian / Persian culture in Aladdin !!!...

[@Florian-yn3ur]

Ok boomer

[@rockhistoria2537]

@@Florian-yn3ur calm down

[@user-hanging-at-the-hanged-man]

@@Florian-yn3ur r/woosh

[@faith4657]

@@rockhistoria2537 no they are literally taking about something that ended 28 years ago and now 30 a show that was not meant to be anything than a harmless movie for kids to teach lessons not everything have to be accurate to reality.

[@SStupendous]

@@faith4657 "no they are literally taking about something that ended 28 years ago and now 30 a show that was not meant to be anything than a harmless movie" What? "show"? Is it 28 or 30? Can't be both. This sentence was so difficult to read... Never heard someone mention a movie as something that "ended 28 years ago", this isn't a war... the movie was released 29 years ago, a film also not a show. That's better.

[@mickeyrube6623]

1:42 "Does any of this sound ridiculous?" NO. Fuck, no! I want to see this movie soooo BAD!!!

[@chiefpotleaf2338]

As a Native-Canadian I can relate to that last part about trees, I've met a few educated foreigners who thought we lived in tipis and hunted for our living.

[@minam.658]

what the heck. People generalize most often, sometimes out of lack of knowledge, or simply just curious. Sometimes they don't realize how offensive their questions could come off. Sorry about those dumb comments.

[@Florian-yn3ur]

The thing with native americans is that people often sees them in a romantic way, bc u know whites feel guilty, so they portrait u as pacifists that are tuned with the Nature

[@dylandugan76]

Even as a small child, I had the impression this movie was a fantastical, highly fictionalized caricature of ancient Persian or Indian culture that I was sure never existed in such an exaggerated state. And then I never really thought about it again for over twenty years. It literally never occurred to me that anything about it was meant to depict Arabic people or culture until I clicked on this video.

[@youraftermyrobotbee]

That doesn't exactly justify it, though. Fantasy settings in media, when they aren't meticulously world-built (and often when they are), rely on "coding" and shorthands borrowed from real-world cultures; those shorthands derive from the biases of the writers and reinforce the biases of the readers. Aladdin isn't any less an Orientalist presentation of MENASA cultures for the Western gaze simply if it isn't literally depicting Iraq, India or Saudi Arabia. (For another example look at Frozen's Arendelle, explicitly fictional, yet deserving in the critiques it received for its in-universe analogues of the Sami.) We can and should critique fantasy settings for misappropriating and distorting the presentation of the cultures they borrow from.

[@syasyaishavingfun]

No it still is not. Aladdin is set in some fantastical version of China, there's lots of deserts there too.

[@krunkmonkey3792]

​@Pinko Slink damn we really have a racism defender over man is In every comment

[@krunkmonkey3792]

@Pinko Slink yes I do

[@zachescarcega]

@@youraftermyrobotbee it does tho it’s fiction it’s not that deep

[@satevo462]

Are you trying to tell me that Arabs don't wear baggy MC Hammer pants and vests?

[@captainayaaya28]

Ngl I think everyone should wear Mc hammer pants.

[@mcchilde2903]

@Lt. JoeAnimatez it was a joke, not an actual question

[@trevorpacelli8056]

There are a couple of problems you've made here. 1. Jasmine didn't CHOOSE to dress that way, there's a line where she explicitly says that she's told "where to go and how to dress." So it appears to be her father that's making her wear sexual clothing, not herself. 2. Aladdin does actually have a very strong developmental arc, he starts off hating who he is and wishing he was royalty, and sees his attempts at pretending to be a prince to be with Jasmine as his chance to finally leave his trap of being a "street rat." Yet when he realizes being with Jasmine means he also would have to take up the responsibility of being Sultan, he starts to put his own desires over the Genie's, and right after promising he'd wish him free. After seeing the damage of his selfishness when Jafar gets a hold of the Genie, he starts to put his desires at a lower priority and wish the Genie free, even if it potentially meant he had to leave Jasmine. It's a powerful arc that's set up right from the beginning and has an intentional payoff. 3. Jasmine is more than just a shallow love interest, in fact, she hates being a princess and wants the freedom that she thinks someone like Aladdin has. She and Aladdin connect because they recognize that they both feel trapped despite the intense contrast between their social class statuses, and he's the first person to actually treat her like a person rather than a prize to be won. She even proves numerous times that she doesn't really need a man to save her, as she's capable of leaping over rooftops and knowing when to say "no" whenever a man tries to take advantage of her. She was actually quite progressive for the time in terms of female co-leads.

[@vetarlittorf1807]

I agree that Aladdin and Jasmine are actually quite compelling characters, especially when we get to seem them as foils to each other. However, I disagree that Jasmine's outfit is sexual. The reason her midriff and shoulders are exposed is simply because it was a popular 90's trend among teenage girls. Also, while Jasmine is aware of her sex appeal, she is never truly hypersexualized. The movie instead uses her outfit to reinforce sexual liberation (similar to how Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman was portrayed in Wonder Woman) and her pursuit of freedom and independence in a culture where she is repressed.

[@user-gu9yq5sj7c]

@@vetarlittorf1807 You said and think "Jasmine is aware or her s3x appeal" and "the movie instead uses her outfit to reinforce sexual liberation". That is s3xualization. She's a teen and this movie is for kids. Kids will want to dress like Jasmine. Do you want kids to be that showy? Jasmine is showy. She basically wearing a bra. She acted s3xual to Jafar, a adult, and kissed him in her red outfit. The 90s was not that showy nor was that common. Even if it was, it's still not ok, nor for kids, nor should the culture it represented be twisted like that. There were other shows and movies in the 90s that didn't have showy clothes nor was s3xualized. Why does wanting freedom have to mean being skimpy? Especially for teens and kids. You have twisted and narrow views. So no one is allowed freedom if they don't want to be skimpy? No, Disney just wanted a skimpy outfit. Gal's wonder woman covered up more cause she had a skirt while before wonder woman just had a underwear leotard.

[@elagabalusrex390]

Dude, don't waste time writing graduate theses to disprove the idiots that make content like this. They're simply joyless buffoons who want to tear down what other people have created because they don't have the talent or inspiration to create anything themselves.

[@imthebossmermaid3648]

@@vetarlittorf1807 You can stop commenting this shit everywhere now. Jasmine's outfit is not sexual liberation. It's a western Orientalist and extremely historically inaccurate stereotype of Middle Eastern wear that only exists for sexualization. Jasmine's outfit is problematic because women of color are constantly fetishized and sexualized compared to white women. It's unfair. We never get to be seen as pure, innocent, and possessing sexual agency, only as fetish objects to fuck as part of some perverted wet dream. Also nothing says sexual liberation like a fifteen-year-old girl being forced to seduce a 40-year-old man who has her in chains and an even more sexual version of her already sexualized outfit, with every intention to rape her(they obviously can't say it because this is a kid's movie, but come on, first comes "love", then comes marriage, then comes something that carries too much baggage), something that Disney has never, EVER done with a white female character, but has done with yet another heroine of color: Esmeralda, who literally gives Claude Frollo a lap dance. Pocahontas was also aged up significantly from a young 11 or so-year-old girl to a 16-year-old girl with a model physique so that they could justify pairing her with a white male colonizer who, along with his comrades, would kill and enslave her people and rape her sisters. You've gotta understand that the standards of what's empowering aren't always the same for white women and women of color. And as a matter of fact, even without the racism aspect, this would still be a bad scene. In addition to the pedophilia as I mentioned above, it's literally just celebrating the idea that the only power women have to get what they want is through their feminine wiles, their only weapon is their sexual appeal to men. Men get to use cleverness and trickery and physical confrontation, women get to sway their hips to-and-fro and seduce men, as if sex objects are all we are. In what world is that sexually empowering, rather than just sexist? You sound exactly like the kind of person to say that superheroines and anime girls aren't sexualized because "she chose to dress that way", failing to realize that the writers chose to sexualize her, whereas they wouldn't a man. Your copy-and-pasted argument has no weight whatsoever, and crumbles under logical critique. Have a blessed one.

[@TheLostWill]

I always felt like Aladdin was entirely fictional, while taking pieces of other cultures to create their entirety unique setting. Why be accurate when the place doesn't even exist?

[@maksim_tak]

Imagine if they tried to depict a place where every character had dark skin, big lips, was lazy and ate watermelon all day. They wouldn't be able to rub it off by saying "it's just an imaginary place!", would they? The problem with Alladin is that it's not completely fictional; it was instead based on some harmful racist stereotypes.

[@dexnacorn7807]

@@maksim_tak tru

[@amoureux6502]

I don't think a fantasy movie needs to be perfectly accurate to any time or place but when it's the only kind of exposure kids have to other cultures, it's kind of irresponsible. In the vid he even mentions people coming to Iraq and being surprised there were any trees and that people didn't ride camels everywhere.

[@TheLostWill]

@@amoureux6502 Yeah, that makes sense. Maybe make the landscape more diverse, as well as the people and the clothing. Have some guards chasing Aladdin, or have the more lawless part of the city be one stricken with poverty. There's a million ways they could've improved it and made it more accurate and less stereotypical. I do think this movie needs to be remade (this time with a passionate team and make it animated) it another movie like it needs to be made.

[@bruhvibes5941]

@@maksim_tak comparing alladin to a well documented struggle that black people face is kind of weird dude

[@comrad_dytar8633]

It's so sad that this quite racist movie isn't that racist based on past disney standards who tf let this company become the world leader in entertainement 😭

[@unclejeffthechad9459]

*It's OKAY to be white* Get a Iife, communist Iosers.

[@paulludwigewaldvonkleist4039]

@@unclejeffthechad9459 first of all thats a racist dog whistle how are we supposed to take you serious if your racist, one of your video is about the earth being flat and being a maga supporter.

[@paulludwigewaldvonkleist4039]

@@unclejeffthechad9459 and also ur bio says ur from florida so thats makes it even worse, begone troll!

[@squeen666]

@@unclejeffthechad9459 “get a life” says the guy who has 34 comments on this channel telling others to get a life lmao pathetic

[@bugsephbunnin4576]

@@unclejeffthechad9459 what's wrong with you dude

[@franciscoflamenco]

There already exists a setting related to European countries that mirrors what happened here with Middle Eastern countries. It's called the "generic medieval fantasy setting", though narrower in scope in that it tends to only features British, French, German and Irish aesthetics with some other Europeans sometimes thrown in for spice. Also, I'm surprised you didn't mention the original setting of Aladdin. I might be misremembering, but I was under the impression that the original tale uses its own form of orientalism, placing the setting in "China", likely in the vicinity of Central Asia/East Turkestan (Xinjiang)/Afghanistan. The setting was supposed to be exotic even for the target audience in Baghdad.

[@damianbouras]

This exactly! Stories don't need to be set in a real world location, that's part of why it's fiction. An writer can draw inspiration from all cultures. Even exaggerations aren't racist since it's not saying anything about the culture it was based on, it's only saying something about the artists tastes. A setting is the way it is to help tell the story better, no other reason.

[@mitab1]

In the Original tale, Aladdin's father killed himself because Aladdin was a failure, and that's the most Asian accurate thing I have ever heard

[@joseanl]

Ironically he probably doesn't see that because he is american. Note that older Disney fairy tales based in Medieval Europe are very vague, or made up countries. They never say Pinoccio is italian, despite the names having a very italian sound to them, same with Cinderella, the LIttle Mermaid and Sleeping Beauty. The only fairy tale I remember existing on a real life country was Beauty And the Beast, based in France. Almost all european fairy tales have a "northern Europe" feel to them, being in cold places with big castles. No sousthern european "feel" there

[@Raphe9000]

Ya, imagine calling The Legend of Zelda racist because it's an inaccurate representation of Medieval Europe made by a Japanese company and the characters have cartoonish proportions.

[@franciscoflamenco]

@@joseanl I'm pretty sure Hakim is Iraqi.

[@gigure9411]

I never once thought as a kid: “so this is what the Middle East is like”, I just always viewed this as a made-up world with some inspiration taken from another culture. This isn’t the only film Disney has done something like this with and tbh, I don’t mind a world or place in a Disney film that is an amalgamation of different places and cultures.

[@seekingabsolution1907]

You aren't everyone. I think at this point everyone's aware of that hilarious survey where a significant percentage of Americans supported bombing Agrabah, clearly some Americans literally don't know the difference.

[@enderlord8771]

@@seekingabsolution1907 I am not aware of that. I don't even really know what Agrabah is.

[@peterlane1391]

I've always liked to think Abu in this context means "father of Aladdin." as sort of a nod to the monkey being as close to a guardian as he has. Also, the pronunciations, settings, clothing, and names are always what people are more likely to recognize versus what is correct. See Hercules, which should be Heracles, where the Greek and Roman names for gods are used interchangeably, Hercules prays like a Christian, the Muses are a gospel trio, the fates are basically the witches from Macbeth, and the rise of a Greek hero is basically depicted as the rise of a pro athlete.

[@JunoSein]

I agree, the people at disney are just trying to make a movie that normal people can digest and not something just for scholars

[@nightshade2826]

@@JunoSein "normal people"? Saying that sounds really stupid. They wouldnt be able to digest it any harder if it was correct. See coco and encanto. Accurate depiction and people still loved it. And Encanto was way too popular when it came out.

[@haroldasusus4684]

Hercules got nike merch in Ancient Greece, it’s not a historic adaptation

[@lonelylotus6]

most of what you are mentioning is coming across to me as laziness.

[@lonelylotus6]

and are you saying racist depictions of arabs are ok because they are easily recognizable? that's just racism.

[@sirseedott4436]

Fun fact: the original version of Aladin was always a strange mushup of cultures. It was set originally in china, but was told and written in the Islamic areas of the silk road. So people used the settings and customs they where more familiar with, since the majority never actually saw china beyond what they heard in stories. Then came Disney and said: funny magic land.

[@elagabalusrex390]

Disney has always taken a hodgepodge philosophy with its films in accordance with whatever works as a story. Look at the 1991 Beauty and the Beast: half of it looks like it's set it the late 1700s while the other half looks like something out of the middle ages.

[@nonsonomoltobravoconinomi1531]

@@elagabalusrex390 yeah it's true, even stories about white people sorely lack in properly fleshed out or somewhat accurate settings unless it's white America, Disney's usual liberal watered dows approach to adapting folk tales mixed with non european folklore is a bad recipe in terms of rapresentation.

[@seekingabsolution1907]

Ironic given they moved the Tail of Sinbad to a more fantastical version of Greece. At least I think, was the Sinbad film a disney film or a dreamworks?

[@TheJFGB93]

@@seekingabsolution1907 That was Dreamworks

[@diegotorres2101]

I fear for the day they make a movie about the dominican republic...

[@connormackay7098]

Amerikans would have to remember that the Dominican Republic exists for that to happen.

[@hitoshura2800]

Maracas, Sombreros, and quite possibly Jamaican stuff, I can picture it and it makes me wanna vomit.

[@camelopardalis84]

@@hitoshura2800 Don't forget Voodoo.

[@Y2KFroggyAngel]

Then they would talk about Haiti and say they are the same place or make it to be Africa or some shit 😂😂

[@Y2KFroggyAngel]

@@camelopardalis84 That would be the most accurate shit in the movie than anything else 😂😂

[@ZorroVulpes]

You can't hand wave the inaccuracies sayting "it's a fictional setting, agrabah isn't real" because we all heard a dude scream ARABIAN NIGHTS for like 5 minutes at the start of the movie.

[@andresanguianozuniga6798]

You nailed on the cultural fusion... I always get confused if Aladdin was on Middle East or India...it was Always confusing, and i say this being someone Who likes the movie. Interesting view you have.

[@m.rattus]

Arab here. Fuckin love Aladdin and all my Arab fam does too. I've read Orientalism and its an amazing work, but sometimes you really gotta just enjoy life and not get so wrapped up in the world's imperfections that you spend the better part of a weekend crafting a video essay about flaws in a whimsical fantasy musical for children. It's not healthy for one's psyche to dwell in this negativity. I used to be just like this guy, nitpicking everything wrong and inaccurate and problematic in the world around me. And I alienated so many people in life, being stuck in a mindset of criticism and negativity, reinforced by media I thought was "progessive" and "enlightening". Neuroticism is contagious, so be careful how much of this stuff you consume. At the end of the day, yes indeed the world is a mess but it's best to love it anyway.

[@botondhetyey159]

Honestly this is like picking apart all the inaccuracies in Hercules, or how Beauty and the Beast is supposedly 13th century France, but everything from architecture to dresses is England, like 400 years later. It's good to learn about, and yea, it would be neat if it were more accurate, but it's a kids movie in the end. I'm more annoyed by inaccuracies in supposedly more historical works, like Braveheart, or the Vikings series.

[@kenouk6183]

This man gets it

[@Schewschewan2000]

this is very well said

[@SteelPanda220]

THANK YOU.

[@dayuchuu]

this right here

[@FrogInShorts]

Great takes but one I didn't agree with is at 13:50 how you said Jasmine falling for Alladin didn't work for the character. It makes perfect narrative sense. Jasmine was shown to be a princess who didn't want to live the royal life, opting for a desire to explore the world instead. Every suitor she had has just thrown wealth at her expecting that to work, as show how even for Aladdin it didn't move Jasmine, but when Aladdin showed Jasmine he can offer exactly what she desires, freedom, then she give him her affection.

[@jacobblack2381]

Our Girls Dont do that Shxt🙄🙄🙄 so it's a western idea of what Arab rich girl would be like😑😑😑😑😑😑

[@honeybun8823]

Well honestly it was more of one of those “problem meets solution” type of relationships. I think it does makes sense narratively for the story they’re telling but when you look at it through a realistic lens so to speak it ends up being more like she loved him because of what he provided for her, even though it wasn’t wealth, rather than him as a person (I know that’s not all she falls for him for if you look at the other movies as well but I’m just going off of your counter argument & the first movie). Those kinds of relationships aren’t really good either.

[@DawnA123]

"I can show the world"

[@StrawberryFeildsforNever]

Jasmine wants freedom, she doesn’t want a man that can offer her freedom. She wants freedom for herself by herself.

[@spicy_mushrooms2476]

@@honeybun8823 I completely agree, but you also have remember this was made with families and children in mind. Nobody is looking at they’re relationships this way unless they are REALLY BAD relationships yknow?

[@Dan-id8wv]

I think the name Abu was picked because of the baby sounding quality. Many languages in the world use a "buh" sound in their word for baby. Baba in Afrikaans, or Bibi in Yidish for example. It's because human babies burble when forming words, meaning words like baby, mother, etc tend to be quite universal. Films use that same quality when they are selecting character names which they want to appeal to young children. BB-8 from Star Wars jumps to mind as a good example.

[@picklesthewise]

The main controversy I remember about this movie at the time was how they screwed over Robin Williams in their contract with him by over-merchandizing the Genie against his wishes. It was a moral point for him that they wouldn't do that, and they went along with it so they could get him in the film, but inevitably (as a huge company) they went back on their word. The bit I remember that was funny and still sticks with me, though, is when Jeffrey Katzenberg tried to apologize to Robin by way of buying him a Picasso. An actual Picasso. And in response, Robin said that he and Eric Idle made plans to go on television and burn it!! 😱😂 I mean, they never actually followed through, but can you imagine?! That would have been both awful and hilarious. As the kids say, we stan a mad king.

[@rivkahhaubner7498]

I love this video. There’s plenty of talk surrounding Disney and racism, but I have never heard Aladdin mentioned in this discussion. That is telling. In my experience, U.S. education teaches so little about Eastern Europe and Mid to West Asia that our idea of those places is comprised of stereotypes. Thank you for allowing me to recognize my own ignorance.

[@Yoobster]

Is it really your fault tho? Idk this dude loves to blame others for 5hings beyond there control e en as a middle eastern I didn't even know some things about my culture, just some place especially America just want to keep it secret so of course 5he producers of Disney would have no idea what Iraq is that's why its animated and a fantasy world

[@derpydino17]

The U.S. does the same thing with Sub Saharan Africa. They always depict it as some jungle with people living in huts. They also act like Africa is a country.

[@marpro212]

Eastern Europe also doesn’t each much about American history either. I know because I am half Polish myself. They teach Polish and European history. Common fking sense. Not any type of "racism". School days would be twice as long if you had to cram everyone’s history in there.

[@danielfaller5617]

Youre joking right? Nobody can be that supid.

[@calundoconteal6851]

Lmao racism? It’s not accurate so it’s rrrracist, yeah, that’s racism right there…totally a Nazi propaganda film about Arabs. Just enjoy the damn live, it’s not meant to be accurate anything, just inspired by the Middle East and South Asia. Agrabah, a fictional land, in the story Aladdin from the overall book Arabian nights. A fantasy, not supposed to be historical reality. Lol

[@enlosluceros7236]

Disney DIDN'T do good depictions of European cultures, THAT JUST NEVER HAPPENED. You think that because you're not European.

[@light9205]

Disney DIDN'T do a good depection of Arab culture(s) THAT JUST NEVER HAPPENED, you think that because you're not Arabian

[@molochthegod9936]

He is delusional as shit. What do you expect from a guy with Lenin as his profile picture?

[@botondhetyey159]

Yep, what he describes in the beginning is similar to how all the European folktale based Disney movies have the wrong accents, architecture, dresses, etc. for their place and period. And don't get me started on Hercules

[@norbertsreignofterror9418]

Americans just tend to lump europeans together with this broadband idea of "white culture" pretending as if we even have a big stake in our portrayal in pop culture lmao. ive literally never seen an accurate non-stereotypical portrayal of my country in any american produced media.

[@skyeblu3178]

Hunchback seems relatively historically accurate though, no?

[@cake_9510]

Fun fact: Robin Williams hated this movie. They overstepped his boundaries quite a bit.

[@ai_hi5115]

Imma be honest, I never really thought about the location in Aladdin and just kinda went oooo cool magic stuff

[@captainayaaya28]

Midget Tennis Player Profile!

[@porsche911sbs]

The original folktale actually took place in China. But the point wasn't really where it takes place, just that it's an exotic, magic place.

[@lordnyko1860]

@@porsche911sbs Exotic magic place with turbans, magic lamps, djinns and a pseudo Taj Mahal? I call cap.

[@porsche911sbs]

@@lordnyko1860 Yep that's exactly it. Back in the middle ages China was an exotic, foreign place nobody really knew much about. It was a great setting for medieval Arabs to place a story about strange people, fantastical palaces, and magic jinn.

[@Naheed_Ahmed14]

Mashallah daddy Hakim has uploaded.

[@unclejeffthechad9459]

*Allah is an eviI deviI*

[@thechekist2044]

@@unclejeffthechad9459 ok inbred.

[@nomorelibsplease1975r]

🙏

[@papichulo4171]

You’re truly doing God’s work Naheed

[@Naheed_Ahmed14]

@@papichulo4171 thanks daddy

[@ldayco26]

Another thing to point out is that Jasmine’s look is mostly inspired by 90’s American teenagers. With her loose pants and tube top that were popular at the time.

[@thefirm4606]

No it’s inspired by the orientalist works by people like Chagall, Picasso and others. Read the Arabian nights and you’ll see this

[@765infinity]

I think this is a bad argument. For one, just because it tries to capture a general Arabian aesthetic rather than picking one specific culture doesn't nessicarily make it racist. It doesn't make it something that you put on if your goal is teach about other cultures or be good representation, but it doesn't inherently make it bad representation either. The fact that say Raya and The Last Dragon just goes for general South East Asia rather than picking a specific culture or, to counter your point of "Disney never does this with European stories", The Little Mermaid being unidentifiably European (a French chef, Spanish castle, German/british town, temperate coast and waters, a Caspian sea reference, etc.) doesn't make those movies racist either. Doesn't mean you can slip in a Disney movie and have it be an accurate representation of a given culture either, but I mean come on, are you really putting on the animated musicals with talking dragons, pop culture referencing genies, and mermaids and one of your major complaints is "man, they aren't very realistic with their portrayals of the relevant cultures", especially with all the other plot liberties they take in transcribing these stories into animated form (oh ya, Quasimodo, Ariel, Elsa, they *totally* live at the end of their stories to go on to make sequels). It's like saying Hercules is a racist movie because it doesn't accurately depict the culture of ancientGreece. Like dude it's Disney's Hercules, if accurate cultural representation is what your looking for rather than a Fairy Tale-esque/romanticized depiction from a company whose movies are known for Fairy Tales and romanticization, your just looking for reasons to shit on something. Also hard disagree on the sexism in Jasmin. Again while not a shining feminist icon, she's not bad. She actively fights back against the idea that she is some prize to be won by a guy and that she has to be married to some prince because the patriarchal laws of her country say so. Also definitely not the most sexualized Disney princess/female lead of the Era when "only a shell bra" Arial and Esmerelda (whose story cannonically has men sexualizing her as a villain plot) exist.

[@enfysiridescent]

From my understanding, the problem largely lies in the fact that eastern countries are often treated as a monolith. Movies like this often shape how western people view these countries and cultures, at least subconsciously. This is especially true because they're directed at children, combined with the fact that many western parents either don't care enough to teach their children about the inaccuracies and stereotypes, or don't know enough to do so in the first place. This is the representation of eastern countries that the west produces, and it goes largely unchallenged. People have made these criticisms when it comes to Raya and the Last Dragon as well. It's not about having perfect realism; it's about taking care not to promote caricatures of real cultures. (Additionally, the idea of the "general Arabian aesthetic" is, in and of itself, a mystified caricature)

[@shipperina2213]

south east Asians hate raya the last dragon as well, so I don't know where you are pulling from

[@felixknorke5072]

You are right, there are countless other examples as well.

[@12000gp]

Well said, I’m with you all the way. It’s a cartoon not a documentary

[@GrimatheFelldragon666]

This guy gets it

[@azrieldawson7377]

So basically Aladdin’s universe is like Civ V when you go off building a bunch of other world wonders

[@comradesoros2681]

I'd love hear more about islamic law and systems in Iraq and the Levant as a whole from a marxist perspective. It's something we in the North America and Europe never really get.

[@nuclearcatbaby1131]

Islamic law has the right idea on banking. That’s the real reason why the West hates them.

[@nuclearcatbaby1131]

@so so Not charging interest.

[@Redbird-dh7mu]

@@nuclearcatbaby1131 yeah, as nice as that sounds, there is more to it. You see, let’s say a bank loans money to a business, it isn’t just, “ok, pay me back the money without any interest”, it is, “ok, give me equity in your company and, assuming you do well, we can sell it for a big profit”. This means that you won’t get boggled down with debt, but it does mean that if you are successful, you most likely won’t get as much money than you would with the west’s way of doing things. Just to be clear, it doesn’t mean that you don’t have to pay back the loans, you just usually do it in a different way, which is better for some people than others (which might be the best way to help the most people, I don’t know). Basically, instead of giving them money, you are giving them assets that they will most likely sell when the time is right. It should also be worth noting that, while this model is more friendly when it comes to businesses/people with a good track record, if you have a bad record, you are most likely not getting a loan.

[@MFTQ]

I swear in the West you just here IN THE ISLAMIC WORLD IF YOU STOLE A CRUMB OF BREAD YOU WOULD BE TORTURED TO DEATH

[@porsche911sbs]

In Islamic law a woman's legal testimony is worth half that of a man's. I think that would be seen as unnecessary by Marxists.

[@azamonra]

Why would you thing Aladdin has anything to do with real world? It isn't like the "European" Disney films are anything like the actual countries they're suppose to be set in.

[@VirtualMilk]

Its so funny when they said “Oh, ___ isn’t in here because they forgot.” Because when i looked up what’s Aladdin based on, it has China in there. WHERE??? THE SHORT DRAGON DANCE?

[@lucidhighway4403]

DISCLAIMER: You can still enjoy the movie, it's characters and it's story and it's message, however it's important to take into consideration the racism in the movie and the many issues it has and accpet that it's not okay and that we shouldn't use this movie as a way to teach or introduce others to other cultures.

[@masterspark9880]

This is what I felt the video was missing

[@LillianGish4711]

🙄

[@doritodorito492]

We need to bring this up more.

[@diamondinvr]

I've never made a connection between Aladdin and any real life culture, I always thought it was just a fantasy world. Cus y'know, flying carpet

[@thescreamingelfwillcry409]

@@diamondinvr right. Plus Agraba is a completely fictional place. And as for the whole racist imagery. It's basically a Disney cliche for the side/ background characters to look bad while some of the main characters look good I don't see it as racist because Disney's been doing the whole ugly characters thing since day 1

[@daensk6690]

while I do agree with most of this video, there is one thing that annoys me. It's your constant depiction of anglification of names and words being racist. As someone who lives in a country with famously hard words and names to pronounce for foreigners, I have never had the slightest irritation at people not being able to pronounce certain words or names. It's hard to suddenly have to think in different phonetics, that's why accents exists or other words for cities and names. This is just a difference in opinion though

[@WishGender]

Agreed. I mean English is my first language and English pronunciation is a nightmare. I’m also learning Japanese and I’m not going to give someone shit for trying their best to pronounce an unfamiliar word.

[@WishGender]

Also are you European? when I think of famously hard words I think of Wales lol

[@poyloos4834]

If it’s an english movie, spoken in english, meant for english-speakers. So it should use english words for things

[@quietman208]

It’s like getting mad because Japanese people pronounce “basketball” as “Basukettobōru”. That’s just... how the language works.

[@AkjobAlgvak]

The movie has an evil wizard, a talking parrot and a genie who references things from the future. Disney should've done more research, but if someone grows up still believing that Aladin accurately portrays the middle east, that's mostly their fault, not the movie's.

[@FriedRice3519]

that's what i'm thinking. I still like the movie, it's funny, but i never thought it actually represented any culture, i just thought (as a kid) it took place in a distant desert fairy tale or whatever, and i feel bad that many ppl were dumb enough to think it was an actual portrayal of culture/a people. I'm rly glad my mom would always play documentaries abt history/science and culture on national geographic/discovery and i didn't whimsically think a disney movie playing in front of my face was real. Jesus ppl rly gotta stop showing only cartoons to kids bc then they only think a bad portrayal of a certain culture is all that culture is.

[@captaincapitalis1205]

@@FriedRice3519 I’ll admit as a small kid I would probably believe this could be accurate but then again I didn’t even really know about the Middle East or India when I was that young. It seems to me that if someone bases their perceptions off of a 30 year old animated movie with magic, then it is more their ignorance than the movies racism that is the problem.

[@lordnyko1860]

Lemme guess all 3 of you are yt?

[@AkjobAlgvak]

@@lordnyko1860 And that matters because?

[@babyblue3717]

It's a movie for kids, who will literally believe anything. If that's their first introduction to the middle east, they're gonna internalize that and subconsciously associate everything wrong about the movie with the real world middle east.