Is Disney's Aladdin Racist?

Twitter: @YaBoiHakim
Disney's Aladdin was considered problematic by the people(s) it attempted to simulate ever since its release day. Sadly, this conversation never went anywhere, and barely made it to a wider public audience, if at all. In this video, I attempt to illustrate at least a few examples of the horribly orientalist and ridiculous caricature of over a dozen cultures that is Aladdin.

[YaBoiHakim]

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:

[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.

[ancient_bam]

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

[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.

[seekingabsolution]

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.

[matzmilan]

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

[santiagogallego]

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

[pepesfinalform]

This is what decades of Orientalism does to a mf

[comradesphinx]

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

[BawonSamndi]

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

[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.

[gabrielchillemi]

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

[zejalt]

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.

[Pridetoons]

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

[AnchoviePossum]

i am so glad to get a non-western perspective

[midge_gender_solek]

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

[dawnrose]

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.

[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.

[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.

[drpepperfan]

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