didn't she stayed in the army in LA? because in the original Legend she returned home after the war, so overall her jedi like powers and that ending are buchering the original story
True, the live action Mulan was not just offensive, it was boring, the choices made in the story are extremely infuriating at times for no reason, and not to mention the chinese government pandering. Despite it's demonizing design of the huns and some historical inaccuracies, the animated one had an entertaining story, good characters, and they still managed to make it more historically accurate than the LA one (PS, some of the historical inaccuracies in the animated one were done because the team took creative liberty)
Just wanna say as an Indian , the wedding in the live action is disrespectful since wedding is a sacred process in some areas of South Asia I don't know about Africa during that time , and we don't kiss in our wedding it's sometimes called dirty or really disrespectful kissing in a wedding is a Christian process
@@mikelheron20 Well one of the important issues in the world is racism. And to conquer that pointing out societies racist flaws is a good start. So shut it.
@@mikelheron20 Your use of the fallacy of relative privation only ousts your dysfunctional cognition. Please usher yourself to the 'important issues' you refer to no doubt of your fashioning and correct those errors rather than burdening us with your negatory comments, whilst we are honourably tackling this IMPORTANT and VALID issue that you with the aid of your unscrupulous and sa'age ancestors continue to burden us with.
and, fun fact, Aladdin was originally going to be explicitly set in Baghdad. but then after the Gulf War happened, they changed it to Agrabah, which is apparently an anagram of Baghdad.
@@monicaglasgow1989 yeah I know it doesn’t make sense, which is why I used the word apparently, but that’s what it said in an official interview with the director
I just want to point out that the directors and filmmakers being white Americans doesn't necessarily mean they know European countries any better than any other countries and saying they do is kinda harmful. These other countries are not necessarily accurate either. White doesn't mean expert on all white cultures ever lol. America is very different from Europe and even within Europe there's many different "white" cultures and histories. No shade or anything just pointing that out. It was a good video though and very educational. I learned a lot. Edit: Wow, thanks for all the likes! ❤️
@@Finnboy-ml5jv I'm sorry but I don't agree. The Scots have a culture, the Germans have a culture, the French have a culture, the Irish and the Polish and the Hungarians have cultures. The Scandinavian countries have cultures. They all have traditions and food and music and languages and history all their own, meaning they have culture. So saying they don't is a bit ignorant I think.
@@jaimedreamsx Those are European cultures not fucking "white" cultures. Cultures that happened to be in a geographical vicinity of each other. And god, if you imply that hungarian and polish cultures are of the "same race" as scots and germans I will roblox myself because I am tired of dealing with racialism. Also have you seen my nick name? I am pretty sure I am not ignorant on the subject that involves my country.
Imagine if Mulan was based in "definitely not China" and suddenly had samurai as part of their forces. A show like Avatar The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra can get away with this blending of cultures because 1. it does it with care and 2. it establishes its own unique identity that's strong enough so that you recognize it's fictional and doesn't 100% represent one culture (although for the most part, Earth Kingdom is inspired by China, Republic City is inspired by Hong Kong and Korean history, Fire Nation is inspired by Japan, Water Tribes are inspired by indigenous Canadians, and the Air Nomads are inspired by Tibetan monks and other things) And it's not claiming that samurai were a part of China by misplacing the cultural influences.
Naw that avatar argument is weak af. Avatar is sent in a fictional world just like Aladdin. Avatar and aladdin are two sides of the same coin. Arguing any differently leads to a logical fallacy
And on top of all that, you said that avatar seamlessly blends cultures so that it seems fictional, while completely ignoring that aladdins best freind is a genie in a bottle.
As a Scottish person who has lived in Kuwait and Oman for almost half my life, it almost pains me to hear the inaccurate accents, incorrect architecture and blatant disregard of respect towards actual culture of middle eastern religion , harmful stereotype and to know all of the cast and writers etc are white and have never been to the middle east.
The worst thing they don't allow a Middle Eastern girl to play the role of Princess Jasmine....the British director deliberately brought a British girl with an Indian mixture.
I feel bad because Aladdin(both 1992 nd 2019) is my favorite Disney films. I am not from that region nor have any connections with them (I am a Filipino) but I respect and appreciate West and South Asian cultures a lot. I understand that Disney could have made it better by hiring people from those regions and cultures to make it more accurate and authentic. They cold have been part of the production from start to end. Maybe because Disney is an American own company that's why they made this in their own way but I know that's not an excuse. I think there are also a lot of Arabian Nights inspired films from the past too which were made by Hollywood. I would also love to watch any Arabian Nights inspired films made or produced the Middle East. I think that would be a great experience. Any recommendations? 😅
@@MBThomas that has a lot of truth. When you watched Aladdin you were probably really young and didn’t even know. Plus, this video is just to educate lang naman ^^✨ Di naman ata nila sinasabi na bawal gustohin yun movie kaya okay lang yan dw dw ✨ Just as long as you know the harmful stereotypes and don’t look at real life people in that light you’re alright. 👍🏻✨
Hey also, maybe go find media from the cultures you are interested in. I think I was weirdly obsessed with the taj mahal as a kid, because kids are silly, so that's why I liked this movie lol. But then I actually got really into Bollywood movies, and guess what? There's a lot of problematic issues with their media too! But at least in some ways it is more authentic. And it's interesting to see how other cultures view American culture too, lol.
Interesting because literally ALL of the European princesses had their cultures so misrepresented to not even present at all in some of the movies. Strange how no one talks about that. 🤔 An excruciating example is the natives who were based off of the Sami people in Frozen 2. They made the Frozen 2 natives look like native Americans. The Sami are white. Just because they are one of the indigenous peoples to Scandinavia doesn’t mean they aren’t white. 😭. There are so many cultures in Europe and even multiple in each country. And actually a few different indigenous peoples.
Especially considering how Sami are heavily discriminated against. They also had their children taken away and put in residential schools to eradicate their culture. And people are still trying to erase their culture by, for example, diminishing their languages. And that is just one small part of the systemic discrimination they face. The dam from the movie was inspired by the Alta controversy when the Norwegian government was planning and building a dam and powerplant, which would also flood a Sami village and severely disrupt their natural resources. And as you mentioned, there are a lot of indigenous groups in Europe, and most of them are also being discriminated against. Nationalities are also important; if someone is from an Eastern European country, they will also be discriminated against. For example, Eastern Europeans are followed in stores because people think they will steal due to the horribly xenophobic stereotype that Eastern Europeans are criminals, which is perpetuated by most of their representation in media.
@@mariavi33 Yes. Sami and many Eastern Europeans are discriminated against currently and historically. The Sami people are effected by loads of things even climate change. It’s too bad, because the Sami have a beautiful culture…and also because they are human beings and they deserve respect. Germanics faced genocide and oppression because of Rome during Julius Caesar’s time and all the way up until the fall of Rome. That’s the reason they were forced into Christianity. Honestly, Europe has a sad history anyway, especially central and Northern. The Irish and the Scottish also faced terrible things… They should have taken more care when making the Sami. The fact Disney can’t do any of this right is a little disappointing. I understand they are kids’s movies so it’s more the lesson in the movie than anything else…but I felt icky after seeing Frozen’s version of Sami. Upsetting.
Technically if u google them you’ll find they often look white but some also Inuit. But yeah I found that very weird too,. Actually I know where that comes from, like Kristoff is supposed to be Sami too, but people got upset that he’s white even tho he’s indigenous. Like I looked it up once and there was some sort of huge backlash. So I’m guessing Disney changed it the second time for pandering. They could’ve just had the correct mixture of both and it would’ve been fine,. It’s so annoying they think white people can’t be indigenous or minorities or have their culture or people misrepresented. it just shows how little viewers outside of Europe know about these countries and cultures and thus think they can just lump all of them together and think there’s not much more depth than “they’re just white”.
@@richardmangelmann4975 Yes…some look Inuit. But they are indeed native to Northern Europe (predominantly). Having hooded eyes isn’t necessarily a sign of not being white. I have a Scandinavian friend who isn’t at all Sami [as far as I know], and she has hooded eyes but is white. But yes, many do look Inuit. I cannot believe people really spewed hate because Kristoff looked “white”. Honestly the west needs to grow up and educate themselves. Society is going downhill. 🤦🏼♀️
@@Veronica-pz4gw Yeah that's why I think they could've just done a bit more of a mixture of looks and it would've been fine. But uff, to represent all of them as one homogenous mass like that? Pretty exclusive to all other members of that minority. I mean we all know Disney isn't at all good at being accurate, but at least they've been trying with some other ethnicities during these past years so its sad to see them nearly doing it right but in the end giving in to pandering. I mean what do you expect of people going on a rant saying Frozen is racist because its main characters aren't POC. Yeah that happened too, there was a lot of very weird controversy.
While I agree with most of what is said in the video, I think the girl oppressed by their male relative is not a completely outdated subject. When looking at incidents such as the Tal le ben and women's rights being pushed back against in America, (especially violence against women of color) this message for women to fight back is needed. It's not done in the best way by disney I mind you, but still needed.
Yes it is a real problem but we have to ask ourselves by western writers chose to portray this specific picture? Whenever there is a muslim kid in western media there's always an oppressive father uncle. The only exception to this was in Midnight Mass but even there we have conflict between father and kid. How comes this is the first thing we get associated with? Yes woc get attacked and its important to teach to fight back. But let's not forget who attacks women of color and why.
@@hassanalkhalaf1115 To be fair tho, it is incredibly common in Asian, Middle Eastern or Arabian households. It is a very important issue to discuss, but unfortunately we don't have enough of our own people discussing these events publicly through different forms of media.
Talking about woc issues isn't a problem. The problem is... 1. Woc issues presented in Hollywood films are done so through the lens of yt ppl. 2. Woc (esp. Mideastern women) are constantly painted as victims. There's no other nuance to their characters or stories other than "boohoo, i have an arranged marriage." 3. These sorts of films are often used to dehumanize poc to fufil sinister political agendas. 4. It's pretty hypocritical, considering the west isn't perfect in it's treatment of women either. Western patriarchy isn't any better than Eastern patriarchy.
I just wanna say that they can’t even get this sort of continuity with European based stories. They get the fashion wrong for the era and location as well as other issues. Architecture. Practices. It’s all pretty muddled, and they don’t care to get the ancestry of European based cast members correct for their character ether. They just don’t care about culture or accuracy for anyone. Disney is lazy as hell. I want people who are not lazy to remake all of their stories.
I really don’t think it has anything to do with laziness, Disney purposefully made it historically inaccurate, because historical accuracy wouldn’t have made it fun to watch. The worlds in Disney are fantastical places inspired by real places, and like you said, European stories are inaccurate too, so racism is a bit of an extreme term. To be honest, I don’t think Pocahontas was less successful than the Lion King was because Pocahontas was racist, I think it’s because they didn’t go over the top with the magic of Disney. Pocahontas was too realistic. And it may have its issues, but if people expect the Pocahontas movie to be accurate, then Disney never should have started with Pocahontas in the first place. Yeah, a bit more accuracy that doesn’t take away from the story would be better, like in Finding Nemo, but it’s not super necessary. What most viewers want are talking animals, fun musical numbers and memorable stories, characters and locations, not facts. If you want historical fiction, Disney isn’t the right place
@@eliben4066 Any YT enterprise looking to entertain YT masses should do so using their creativity. Do not use historical people and living or extinct cultures in your works to line your pockets if you have no interest in representing these people, places and entities with the utmost respect that they are due. Make your jingles as you please stop continuing to steal from people in the name of entertainment.
@@sepi846 Representing a culture with fantastical elements is not stealing. These morals you create for everybody is the reason why conflicts exist in society. Disney tells fairytales from around the world, so everyone can enjoy the magic of Disney, your suggesting Disney stick with European fairytales, which is honestly kind of offensive towards other cultures. I’m half Japanese, and a lot of times, I see non Japanese people wear Kimono or Yukata to celebrate Japanese culture. For most Japanese, that’s a compliment towards our culture. But then some white person who calls themselves a social justice warrior tells them that celebrating Japanese culture like that is cultural appropriation. Non Japanese people decide what’s offensive towards Japan. Most Japanese think, that SJW is more insulting than the person wearing the kimono. I don’t know how it is in other cultures, but a lot of cultures appreciate it when their stories and cultures are shared, whether it’s accurate or not, so stop deciding what’s offensive and what’s not, because quite frankly, you don’t know any of that
As a North African and Asian, it’s hard to know, I guess they weren’t intending to be racist, but there’s lots of cultural inaccuracies. You guys your comments are scary
@@plzleavemealone9660 Right, but these people don’t care about those inaccuracies because they’re white princesses. It’s himself hilarious how people will act like they’re the only ones who face these kinds of things.
There's so many weird things with Aladin which made it that, even though I always loved this movie, never felt it talked about my people. No way an Arab princess could walk around half naked, or any random woman tbh, yet all the women in Aladin wear that belly dancing outfit. They could have included mosques in the decor, as it's very important in many Arab countries and there are mosques everywhere there is population. They could have shown the characters drinking tea and different animals milk, eating dates and such. But they showed apples and a random fruit that looked like a melon. There's still a lot
They made pretty orientalist depiction of middle east to make setting and characters more interesting but simultiously ruined that by cutting all interesting stuff.
I re-watched the movie recently and came to notice that they either showed women more covered up and in hijab or women in these stereotypical belly dancer outfits but there were definitely more of the latter
Agree, even the European Disney Princesses wear more covered clothes than Jasmine. Not to mention how Jasmine's father has the title of sultan which only applied to Muslim ruler yet somehow Jasmine and Aladdin have Christian wedding.
@@clarimm6675 Yeah there were still plenty in belly dancer attire but plenty of them were covered up hell even Jasmine when she went out at the beginning or at the end when they were annoucing her and Aladdin's wedding were a less revealing outfit
True ,tho saying it randomly mixes up a bunch of misinterpreted cultures might not be completely wrong, it’s still basically just the typical medieval "1001 nights" isolated fairy tale . I mean , the city of Agrabah and the desert around it doesn’t even look like it’s connected to the world , nor does it’s atmosphere even look or feel real .
half of my family are christian arabs. Growing up, this was the *only* semblance of representation i had, and it really sucks that it's not even that accurate. This was honestly the image of the middle east i had growing up, and it makes me kind of sad that the "othering" of middle eastern culture is so prominent. Plus, I literally had to explain to one of my friends that arabs can be white.
I get what you’re saying, but this is children’s cartoon. Even the white princesses aren’t accurate, and there are videos that prove this as well. This would be like me look at at Princess Tiana for representation and accuracy for black people, and that’s just not how it works.
@@tiahnarodriguez3809 Yeah I get that, my issue I guess is that this is literally the only piece of Middle Eastern representation that I know of, which is kinda sad lol
As a south asian muslim, I can relate as well. It’s sad to see that the closest thing I’ve had to any sort of representation had nothing to do with my actual culture at all
Thank you for your perspective and having a critical eye on the movie. It‘s always nice too see other perspectives and learn about orientalism so we stop reproducing these harmful stereotypes. PS: Too all the people who are offended that someone told your favorite movie is racist. You‘re entitled to like the movie, but just understand why there are aspects that are fueling harmful stereotypes to our society. And also try not to reproduce it. Thanks
As Chinese American, I never liked the streotype people referring to us as oriental. I'm not a rug. The orients is an ancient western reference for a region of the world where certain fashions, decore, or designer rugs culturally came from example pursian oriental rugs. That region was mainly Pursia, while cultures like the Greeks called the greater expance of area Asia Miner. Because it was closer to Asia which was largely unexplored. What and who ignorant westerners called oriental, or orientalism never was, and was based on an ancient prejudice toward Persia and India. In the 1950' through 70' oriental was a term commonly used as reference to Asian Americans by caucasian and African Americans who were generally racists towards us. Mainly due to grudges over Japans involvement with the Nazi's in WW2, and of course the US' conflict with North Korea shortly after. Honestly I haven't heard of anyone calling us oreintal since the end of the 1970'. I was born in the early 80' and never have I heard that term revised until now. So if I were you I'd watch what you call rasict. Not all cultural inaccuracies are based on rasicist prejudice. The makers of Aladdin were not racist just ignorant. However your use of orientalism however ignorant you may have been of the origins of it's use is originally associated with ancient prejudice. Know when you reference a culture as orientalism, or a person as oriental your calling them a Persian throw rug.
Yeah right a children's movie that is 20+ years old (maybe even 3 decades old) is teaching harmful stereotypes now and has to be shattered to pieces to save the world. It is such a petty thing that doesn't do shit and won't change a thing. Also nice strawmaning trying to misrepresent people's anger or annoyance as they were "offended" when the people who are complaing about stereotypes in movie sre your kind.
@@FindingsOfAnArmouredMind Is was problematic and still is. When watching the movie one may not connect the dots, but subconsciously, we make connections and form stereotypes in our minds. And it's not like the movie just magically vanished because it's old. People can still watch it, whether on Disney+ or on a DVD. They have also made a remake of the movie which still portrays harmful stereotypes.
just wanna say about the "mixing cultures" it's literally in the beginning of the opening song "Where you wander among every culture and tongue" so they intented the place to be full of cultures from all the places
I don't think these things are racist as much as they are just inaccurate. Throwing a label that is pretty harsh for something I doubt was done for any malicious reason or any sort of prejudice. Let's be real, it's just a generic Asian setting that's not particularly linked to anywhere. It's not meant to be culturally accurate, and I don't think you should be going to a Disney movie to try and find that.
Bad take incoming - Look, you can say all the Disney animated films up until the 2000’s are racist. BUT, you’d be lying to yourself and your audience if you said they didn’t grab your attention. The live-action remakes play it too safe and are therefore BORING because of this factor.
the Lion King is racist because of casting. if I ever make an animated movie. I'll make damn sure no POC voice my villians and their hencemen. don't want to be called racist for letting a non white voice a bumbling baddie.
@@PandoraParoru read someone's blog once. their experance was that. their kid made a remark about how some POC kids on the playground sounded like the hyenas from The Lion King(original) and it broke her heart. and some other blogs or those websites that tackle social and feminist issues. movie makers casting non white actors to voice the bad guy.
@@kaiyodei But wouldn’t excluding POC voice actors from being villains make it just as bad? Also I’m pretty sure the child wasn’t even saying that to be racist when they said that some POC children sounded like the hyenas
This is sort of unrelated, but something I've noticed so often, people who make belly dancer characters often botch them with orientalism and it gives the impression a lot of people design belly dancer outfits more in line with indian clothing; not a saree specifically but there's a specific type of clothing with a cropped top and baggy pants which I've noticed in South Indian movies. I'm not sure the name of this type of attire, but when you look at middle eastern belly dancer clothing vs south Indian clothing in general, the differences are incredibly apparent. As a kid i was always confused by Aladdin, so i appreciate this video. I could tell the setting seemed vaguely middle eastern, but i always thought Jasmine and the castle were meant to look Indian in their style. So hearing that the live action drew from Bollywood is even more of a mess.
cultural inaccurate and racist are not the same thing their intent wasn't to bring them down and the movie itself doesn't bring them down its fine if u don't like the movie and to critique its cultural inaccuracy but it aint cool to just throw around the term "racist" for everything
yo, Imma be real, I ain't even watch the entire video cuz...I got bored and scrolled through the comments. I didn't like how she threw the movie The Princess and The Frog into the mix of "potentially racist" Disney films. why are people using this tired argument "Tiana was a black woman who was turned into a frog for the majority of the movie, therefore it's racist"???? how is that racist?! and what about Naveen? he was a frog WAY longer than Tiana and he's dark-skinned! I don't think he's black, tho. Just goes to show people will FIND things to complain about. it's annoying af.
Aladdin is so confusing, its supposed to be an arab movie (our first arab prince and princess) but somehow they managed to completely confuse arab and indian culture completely. Also, the 'belly dancers' in the background are wearing underwear at that point. Lol idk what they were thinking when they made them wear that
@@munchermuncher7663 dear, I know.. I am arab and I very much know what we wear while belly dancing.... The problem is that they are wearing bellydancing clothes that not only looks histerical, but is also from the wrong area or country. Bellydancing is an Egyptian form of dancing. The movie is set in Baghdad which is in Iraq. Iraqis don't bellydance the same way Egyptians do and the clothing is very different aswell. So 'dear' , don't reply unless you fully understand what I was talking about and what I meant.
This is eye opening. I wanted to ask is there a beloved story with similar appeal to Aladdin set in a more specific region that you think would be perfect for a western audience?
Asking movie directors to make a movie culturally and historically accurate down to the nitty gritty is a ridiculous idea. Disney and other movie corporations have made movies depicting cultures inaccurately all the time, everywhere, (ie brave, with Scottish culture. Or frozen, with Nordic culture) no one movie is guilty of this. I don’t see any Scottish people complaining that brave is racist because it doesn’t depict Scottish white women correctly in their respective historical and social economical framework.
sure but asking them to give them slightly more accurate clothes so they actually look like royalty isnt a big deal. they gave cinderella a proper princess dress
Based on what you saying I still don't see how it's racist. It sounds like the problem is not that it's racist but culturally inaccurate mixing different cultural and geographical references in Concepts in the wrong place in the wrong time. However if there's more to racial Prejudice than hating someone for their skin tone then I could be wrong about this. But I was raised believing that racial Prejudice was simply hating someone because of the color of their skin. Which can tie into a hatred toward their culture. When I was a kid people hated me because I was Asian-American and disabled. However given the cultural inaccuracies I think would be interesting for a writer-director to make a more culturally accurate version of the story into a film. If that's possible. Keep in mind that Aladdin was based a collection of multiple fictional stories from the texts known as the Arabian Nights. A collection of stories that were written over a span of several hundred years believe dating back to the 8th century in or around India and Persia. Now lad and definitely has more aspects of Indian culture. However I don't know enough about Indian history to make out the error its cultural aspects are closer to. It's a subject worth studying.
@@Let_Toons I still don't know about that. The film dosen't give me the impression it was xenophobicly driven. Perhaps xenophobicly ignorant? Or just historical cultural ignorance?
I do believe one of the most prominent parts of racism is hating someone for their skin tone, but that's not all. Racism became a more complicated and in depth topic especially as people started seeing non-white perspectives more recently, having a movie be culturally inaccurate is considered racism. I'm not Indian (Bengali) but I am Muslim and the way Aladdin depicts my culture is in a really white-washed way. Even Jasmine's clothes make her look like a stereotypical belly dancer rather than a princess. There's a lot of racism and fetishization going on in the movie and while I don't believe that was out of malice, it was definitely out of ignorance and can still be called out as racism. I hope this perspective helps in understanding why the movie is racist, I still love it myself but even when I was younger I felt like it was a huge cultural no-no. What's also interesting: India recently made their own version of the tale "Aladdin Naam Toh Suna Hoga" and it's nice seeing an adaptation from the people who actually lived through this culture. Obviously they took a lot of creative liberties too but the culture isn't so wildly inaccurate like in Disney's versions.
@@caseywilde7931 that makes sense I still watch it every now and then but not as much as I used to because I come to expect more cultural accuracy especially in culture set stories. Here's hoping someone will make a more accurate movie. Being half-chinese I've always did not like movies that whitewashed Asian characters and presented them back in the day with terrible stereotypes. So now that you mention it I do know how you feel. Also I'm disabled and they often make movies depicting disabled stereotypically. I did they make a disabled character seem helpless. Or they make them the bad guy. I can think of a lot of movies over the past half a century in which they commonly depicted characters with disabilities as the villains. Never once making them the heroes. Shazam doesn't count considering they covered up the kids disability with magic give me the message to the audience disability is bad a person with a disability is not useful to society.
It's not a documentary, not a historical movie, not based on historical events, not set in a real location, not based on real historical figures, it is just entertainment, an American movie based of a tale, and as everything American, it's nothing personal, it's just business.
My problem is this. Who the hell uses a fictional movie to form their perception of a foreign culture/location? Little kids sure, but guardians should be teaching them at an early age not to believe everything they see/hear. And adults are mature enough to know this (or should know this) by default. This movie tells you nothing about Middle Eastern cultures until you do your own research and verify what's right and wrong (and there's much wrong)
Also fun fact: Alladin is NOT Disney property, it's an Arab story called Alaa Addin (علاء الدين) which is a common Islamic name meaning "nobility of religion" and is way different than the way it's depicted in this version. It was, after all, a folk tale with Baghdad as a setting...(Aghrabah is basically as infuriating as the "shadow realm" in Yu-Gi-Oh or the whole Ace Attorney series being Americanised with Ramen, a character's favourite food, turned into burgers (no joke) and let's not forget 4kids' pokemon.) So the story is way more concise and only the main shocking aspects stick out and remain unchanged (the genie and all that...no talking parrot or monkey there...After all, it's not their homeland and it's cruel to put them far away from it...also only gray parrots are capable of repeating words which, fun fact, isn't them understanding us but it's more keen to us barking or meowing back to animals just to imitate them,without even understanding what we're communicating if we are saying anything in the first place) so it's a short 10 minutes story or 12 pages children book story to tell your kids before sleep.
Aladdin an the magical lamp actually isn’t even an Arab story, it was just inserted into a 1001 nights french translation unsourced by some random French dude and it just stuck.
As Arab, when I heard that the Aladdin project was handed over to a British director, I was washing my hands, and I knew that the movie would be a mess. The worst thing for me is that they don't allow a Middle Eastern girl to play the role of Princess Jasmine....the British director deliberately brought a British girl with an Indian mixture.
the video quality is awesome! why are you so underrated? I hope more people watch this to know the truth. I am from Asia and I know the racism that has been happening. thank you for this video.
I think it would be more fair to call this 'culturally inaccurate' in certain aspects of the story rather than 'Racist'. This is a story that takes place in a fictional setting, while taking inspiration from different cultures, and not a documentary. As a middle eastern person I just personally don't find this animation offensive.
Yeah :/ Sincerely, i think the only people that find this offensive are american-arabs and americans. Yes, it's a VERY inaccurate movie, but not totally racist.
Not to defend anyone, but it's just a movie, not a documentary with 100% accuracy, I'm not saying you have to ignore it's culture and whatnot, but don't expect everything to be treated like it's a real place
Yeah it's a movie but they could infact at least try to show the cultures ACCURATELY the outfit and dances and places, EVERYTHING is from a different country that some aren't even located in middle east And how come when it's princess and the frog people get PISSED about anything that isn't accurately related to black culture but for this ppl say " ItS JuSt A MoViE"
I actually agree. Although I think the topic is more about making a fake culture based off of real ones in an aestheticizing way without any prior understanding or knowledge about each of these cultures. After the last Airbender is a good example of this, because they actually thoroughly study different agent cultures before making a fake world based off of aestheticing The entirety of Asia. Basically yes there’s a way to do it, but especially in the 90s it was uncommon that it was done in a tasteful manner.
Jfc, the musical barely counts as a historical musical. They romanticized the fuck out of his life story. The musical numbers are great, but it's so frustratingly *wrong* There's no justified reason as to why every character was glorified. That lyric about Sally Hemmings in WDM that they mentioned and then just...brushed it off and continued the "fun" and "happy" song? Absolutely vile, considering what happened to the poor girl. The way they acted like George Washington had the highest morals? When they broke down John Laurens' life to make him nothing more than Hamilton's little sidekick? The way they completely filtered out every detail of his life that LMM deemed "too much" and instead replaced it with something completely untrue? If it already wasn't bad enough, the consequences only GREW when it became a hit musical. I love how lyrically ingenuitive Lin is and yes there's a lot of reasons it's enjoyable but they really screwed up on the "historical" part. And I can go on and on about the pros and cons but I think you get the idea already.
As a non-ME fan of Aladdin (one of my favorite Disney movies, in fact), the criticism doesn't fall on "deaf ears", it's just that people cover their ears and chant _"lalala"_ really loudly hoping that you guys will eventually quiet down. I think the problem is that something being problematic becomes its entire identity, ie Aladdin is a terrible no-good bad movie because it's racist. And if you like a racist thing, that must mean YOU'RE racist!! Nobody _wants_ to be called racist, so the only solution in people's minds is to pretend that the things they like aren't racist by actively choosing to ignore criticisms, thus protecting their fragile egos at your expense. But this, obviously, isn't productive or helpful. I think that it's perfectly fine to like something problematic, but you must ACKNOWLEDGE that it IS problematic, how it is so, and be willing to engage with discussions and LISTEN(!!!!) to the people being represented on how future media could _improve_ on representing them! As a small example, being a Latina woman, I knew from a young age that seeing a 15 year old Jasmine showing midriff and being put into a Leia sex slave outfit is INCREDIBLY mysoginistic and fetishizing young WOC and ew ew yucky bad. I hate it so much and always skip past that scene from one of my favorite Disney movies. The Aladdin remake cuts out that sequence entirely, doesn't sexualize her, and also ages her up. Good! More of _that,_ please!! Instead of spray painting your white extras to make them look Middle Eastern because "there just aren't enough aspiring Middle Eastern actors but we tried so hard" 🥴 Uhuh. Sure you did Disney.
As a North African Arab , I think that the produces intend for an Arab prince and princess but mixed up cultures especially with the Indian clothing and dances and also I think it would've been better if they brought an actual Arab to make it more realistic and about the actors they probably didn't find any suitable Arab actors so that's fine with me and I think Arab voice actors would have made it better and more realistic but I watched the Arabic version so I really don't know about the English version that much but overall it was a good movie.
Accurate to what?? Do you guys realize Agrabah is NOT A REAL place, right? What does it have to be accurate at? It's not a real place, it's not supposed to represent anybody and it doesn't have to, it ain't real, so get over it.
Some of these comments are irritating. This movie blends the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia culture all into one. The movie contributed to a an over generalization and misrepresentation of these cultures. As for the people who keep complaining about the video’s critiques;you can enjoy the movie while also keeping these criticisms and flaws in mind
everyone on here with the "its racist" energy, better be about when Chloe plays Ariel. A *Danish* mermaid. And dont hit me w/ she's a mermaid. I KNOW! But if we're yapping on about being culturally appropriate, then fkn be it. Not just when it suits....
@@bikesrcool_1958 no hon. But even if she were, depending if its northern or western Italy, she would still have white skin. Just like the Hans Christian Andersen original. But Disney are the gatekeepers of skintones, cultures, races and ethnicities. Bloody Murica w/ no passports or edumacation, karening every other c*nt cause "its how they feel" fkn boohoo. Shit. sorry about that now. Dont know where that was hiding..... Fuck! anyway. peace. belfast, n.i.
@@REDFRLegend and they want to make a mermaid black even when the sun don’t even get to her kingdom, how to f*ck? If she was a coast african,asian or even australian mermaid then yes, she would have more melanin in her skin, But we are talking about a european under the dark ocean mermaid (?
It's important to keep in mind that Hollywood in America doesn't even give it's OWN cultures a fair representation. As a goth I get frustrated when I see "goth club night" and it's just metal and rock (granted, more darkly inclined but... not goth), or as someone into punk when I see rock music called punk music over and over. Yes, because 80s rockers were the ones in green 1 foot spiked mohawks and leather jackets with spikes and leopard print stitched in... I really don't enjoy being reduced to a slightly more excitable rocker or even just the color black and a collar. >.> So I do empathize with your frustration. Hoooooowever, we have to also keep in mind how much of hollywood is fake just to keep long running assumptions going. They used electric cars, they have to artificially add in the fancy shifting sounds because it's barely audible in reality if at all. Or how creaky they make modern doors that don't often creak like that. Or how the internet geek just presses random keys on the keyboard and oh look, fixed. There's a lot of things that don't work that way, but it was a preconception they keep going because people are accustomed to it and don't even realize it sometimes. Stereotypes are part of that also. Now I do believe that we can change things over time and make better movies and books and comics whatever that represent the cultures, people, and even objects better. It's a risky business however, and honestly big media has decided it's better to recycle the goodies at huge expense rather than make more cheaper films that might do exceedingly well or fall flat. It takes a special flare to make it more realistic but also still just as interesting. Like an indie movie that came out in 2004 or so, dude wanted to make a movie where the teenagers just didn't sleep around every five minutes. He did and it just didn't have enough anything to keep people's interest. When replacing the old, the new has to be that much better or it feels like a drag to people that have been programmed by corporations to like certain things for decades (and increasingly now) while people are also getting addicted to quick feel good stimulus. It's rough. Talking about music for a moment, it's just as bad there. I'm watching as my subcultures slowly die off and are replaced with people who don't know artists outside of the biggest labels. Music can literally shape your personality. AND CORPORATIONS ARE BEHIND THAT TODAY. God help us -_-
I hope this message gets to more people. I’m white myself and didn’t see the racism in Aladdin cause I didn’t know the culture it was referring to and was the ignorant. Im sorry that this happens, I hope that brown boys and girls in the future and see themselves in the future and see that they belong.
As a white girl, this stuff flew right over my head until I got older and looked back at it. The fact that the remake could've used the animated movie as a base, then looked further into the culture and fixed at least some of the problems with it but instead just made the same movie again.
Yes, because apparently all the other Disney princess movies are SO historically accurate! And are all the Japanese anime now racist too because they are mixing European cultures up? Thanks. I guess full metal alchemist is racist now... I mean the way the woman are dressed would have been considered inappropriate in "white countries" at the time.
Imagine if Frozen, a film set in “totally not” Norway had people playing the accordion, Olaf replaced with a short mustache guy speaking in some funny accent working at a French/Italian bakery, angry soldiers with winter caps marching down the street led by a Stalin knock off waving a red and yellow flag. I’m kinda glad they stuck strictly with Norway instead of combining Europe
Same is with Eastern European/Slavic culture: they always grupe us as RUSSIANS and/or drunk and aggressive war criminals. The most famous movie about "slavic" culture is "Anastasia" and the producers couldn't care less to check how to even pronunce her name correctly. Hope there will be more better representation of both cultures in the future💖
You made good points. But the background music made it VERY hard for me to make out your words and it made the video a bit of a chore to get through. Just a tip for future videos
I don't think of Orientalism as being necessarily racist, because it targets a cultural matrix rather than a race of people; in fact, it targets multiple cultural matrices and multiple races, not all of which correspond to each other on a one-to-one basis. Besides that, Asian countries were far from the only targets of this sort of pseudo-historical mythmaking. People tend to forget that the "Gothic" movement in art and literature (along with all the tropes it inspired, such as the recasting of the Inquisition as sadistic "dungeon porn" and the "iron maiden" torture device that never actually existed) was inspired by a romanticization and fetishization of medieval Europe, no less than Orientalism was inspired by a romanticization and fetishization of Asia. Thanks to Gothicism, among other historical mythologies, many Europeans and Euro-Americans have attitudes that are just as patronizing toward their own ancestors as they are toward non-Europeans.
I see what you mean.... but I don't agree. It's art, not a history documental. Exotism, Orientalism... they're not alone. Even medieval Europe was stylized and reinterpreted by Romantism. Shakespeare was an english writer writing about Italy. Take The Emperor's New Groove, it mixes cultures and styles from latin america, and even though it's supposed to be Incan, it's very much beloved in Mexico. I do agree I would have liked to have seen Aladdin more grounded in a particular culture.
I have a bone to pick with the pop song they gave Jasmine like why couldbt they give her a powerful ballad of cultural relevance instead of a random white pop song like why something that means something to the people they are trying to represent like a hymn to Allah who was mentioned in the original disney version. A pop song makes no sense.
It’s not racist, it’s called Culture appropriation. I hope I saved everyone’s time to look this up instead of watching this girl painfully explaining this for more than 11 minutes. I’m not looking for trouble, but my point is that it’s a comedy! A Cartoon or a fictional movie doesn’t have to be 💯% realistic.
No it’s called cultural misrepresentation. Nothing was appropriated. Disney acknowledged that this story was based on the Aladdin story. You know… cuz Disney makes movies based on fairy tails. And no it’s the not fetishization either. Take your own advice and look up word definitions. You didn’t save time you just spread misinformation just like the speaker.
They did the same thing with Raya and The Last Dragon- They took a culturally diverse place then combined it into one single culture! For example the architecture? No way in hell you'd find something like that in my country The Philippines, we don't associate Raya's palace to be "Filipino architecture" not even close to it! We Filipinos didn't have time to develop our own architecture due to the fact that Spain colonized us so today when we think of "Filipino architecture" a lot of us would think of Intramuros or Vigan City which is Spanish-based architecture and that just goes to show how diverse Southeast Asia is and Disney decided to be complicated and combine it all to the point where some of us will literally not feel a single bit of representation from Raya! Some Filipinos even thought Raya was representing an entirely different culture from us and thought Encanto was the Filipino representation Disney was giving since that felt closer to what Filipinos know than the melting pot Raya showed that somehow we were apart of
who gives a f let ppl enjoy things my god. using "woke eyes" on things from more than 2 decades ago as if society didnt absolutely do a 180. its like critiquing ancient books saying oh this isnt ok, yeah no duh obviously things from a lot of time ago dont hold up forever, but implying yea aladin is racist so therefore if you like it youre racist
I don't understand why you put on the map Latin America as part of the West that doesn´t understand other cultures, is funny considering how insulting are almost all portraits of Latin America in movies from the first world.
as a colombian i kinda felt represented in encanto, until i saw the spanish dub, in which the majority of colombians were white, even when the characters look like the people i see on a daily basis: mestizos (american and european features, also the majority) black people and white people. actually there was only one mestizo in the english dub and none in the spanish dub. it makes sense since the white people usually hold the economical power, consequently the educational and cultural power that made most of us colombians not see anything wrong with the casting choices
I don't see problems ,too :/ you can't see the race in a dubber, just how good he/she is. I don't want to sound angry but, it's that frickin hard to understand that the race isn't everything?
@@listplay7946 the race is everything in encanto, the movie was specifically made to portray in the most accurate way the culture of Colombia, and the diversity of its people is an elemental part of it. in the same way it would be contradictory in the making of a movie that represents colombia and using Chinese dubbers, the same applies to try to represent Colombia diversity and richness in culture while using white dubbers. If anything it accurately portrays Colombia´s race problem. Its a great movie for white people, specially white colombians, but not for the educated rest of colombians, but you cant say it makes a good job representing one of the key elements of the country
@@listplay7946 its basically blackface, casting a white person because people don't want to give opportunities to mestizos to literally give a voice to their community, every person in encanto is supposed to represent a race group in Colombia
@@animacionesamericanas272 How is that blackface? Blackface is the act of colour your face in black and make big lips for discriminate and bullying black people. Technic born in the UK. You can't compare these 2 things like they're the same. You're not changing in any way the race of the character by the dub 'cause its ethnical physical aspect still the same. But i do agree that give changes to minorities can be a beautiful act :D
Another take: you, as a viewer, can't do anything for the cast choices like that. You can just say "Oh, that's a pity". The directors aren't always racist, they simply don't take in consedaration the races, just the talent. Sure, it's good hire minorities for rapresetations, but if the possibilities aren't present for a project, you can't do anything bout it. Embrace this. Actually, hire majorities is a good way to make cultural appreciation!
You do realise making a story with mixed cultures isn’t really racist right? I don’t hear you saying these things for Avatar: The Last Airbender. What about people who were born multiracial? Are you gonna say they’re racist? Besides these movies were from stories written from a time where it was hella normalized, what did you expect?
Ok...i know im gonna get hate from this but the "divide" between East and West has religious connotations, the "orient" is an umbrella term China was part of that and was never colonized , but if you actually studied mediterranean history you would know that the cultural and social othering between europe and middle East goes as far as hellenic greece, and it happened at a time when the persians were the imperialist colonizers,although they were demonized by the greeks further, it is true that since the divide in the church the cultures in the middle East evolved with concepts foreign to europe ....like its the same the other way around ,i really dont get the hostility given that any old fable an exagerated cherry picked cultural mosaich it is something humans have always done whe faced with new concepts and huge cultures, are we only talking about this now bc europe happened to be a monstwr when it comes to internazional colonization?
Yeah. There’s a narrative that only white people can be bad, so now anything that has white origins is being criticized even though every race has pretty much done what white people have done.
Maybe a hot take but, this is a fictional story. They may be taking stuff from real life eras and time periods but guys, this is a fictional world, in a fictional universe! Not real life!
True, but the issue is that Aladdin is supposed to be Arabian and this is really far from how real Arabian people live and look like. And yea it is fictional, but they should try to represent them as accurately as possible like Moana for Polynesia and Mulan for China.
not so much of a hot take : stories and fiction have the ability to shape - maybe even define - people's opinions about real life things. especially when it comes to small, impressionable children, which is who, in case you didn't know, this movie is marketed towards.
@@geraldleyson1722 You admitted that it’s fictional. That means the story didn’t have to be as accurate as possible. None of the other Disney Princess movies are either, yet people don’t complain because they understand these are fictional movies. If you want accuracy watch an accurately based movie. Looking for accuracy in a kids cartoon is pointless.
If the ever remake Pocahontas I’ll have a full blown explosive meltdown. Pocahontas is Chippewa, I’m Ojibwa. We are the same… just she was the American version of my Canadian native. The Pocahontas was a 12 year old little girl stolen from her family and used as a pawn against her father. John smith was in his 30’s and a real pos
@@SuspiciousS. I meant more along the lines of something an american would be taught in public school. The halfway point on the Oregon Trail is the statue of liberty. New york is known for its cowboys.
Like the original story of Aladdin is any better. he literally has the genie kidnapped the princess's fiance so they can't do it so the wedding's null and void in one version. In another he paid off Daddy within giant dowry that he wishes for. So yeah in many versions there's no love between the two of them it's just he wants her that's it no love no nothing no interaction between the two just Caesar out the window when she's passing by and he wants her. So yeah there's a lot of worserversions of the story. And sometimes they're still kids like she could be 13 and he could be 16 or 20. So yeah. You might want to cut this one a little slack on some parts compared to other telling of the story.
Seeing "racism" in a story made up by a french guy in the 17th century that in the original Version was mainly placed in Northafrica and China without ever stating the exact placement of any city or person. People still believe it is part of the 1001 nights stories although it just takes one second to check the facts. Aladdin himself is stated to come from a city in China. Nothing about this is racist. It is a fantasy setting based on a fantasy story from a french guy who added a story that should fit in his Version of the book of 1001 nights. Nothing about any of these Disney interpretations was ever accurate or tried to be accurate to the source material. It is very simple entertainment for children with a very basic moral point and added political correctness preaching in the new one (The Song of the princess about self-empowerment that was just in her head was completely unnecessary and was a farce that turned out to be more of a joke). People nowadays really have to force their "racism everywhere preaching" into everything. Maybe there isn't a bigger outcry because most people aren't interested in creating fake drama for social credit scores 😉
honestly i just thought i was being paranoid thinking that the movie was a racist mix of eastern and south asian culture, turns out i'm not the only one thinking that, i still like the remake but the original movie was way to overly racist
@@hassanalkhalaf1115 back than it was way harder to research this for example mulan isn't an accurate movie but the people pointing out it's flaws do not call the movie racist and the movie makers even traveled to china
@@fireflydog9999 that's a cheap excuse. Hollywood has a large budget. Grabbing a book or talking to an expert isn't hard. What makes it worse is that it came out in the 90s when the US was attacking Iraq. They have the opportunity to fly to this country and bomb it but learning from it is too hard?
@@hassanalkhalaf1115 You want people who made movies in the 80’s and 90’s to do research when computers weren’t Ike how they are today, when research wasn’t as easily accessible as it is now? Take your own advice and research what techno glory and research was like back then.
@@hyunkittyy I don't know, but I double checked and in the original story he was at least living in China. But it's like China in name only? Could be one of the muslim parts of China or maybe the author just didn't know anything about China and just used it because it sounded cool.
@@GinkgoBalboa142 yeah I heard about that, like it being Chinese in origin but associated with Arabic tales or something. Idk but sounds like an interest rabbit hole that makes the situation... Worse, technically speaking. Meaning it's not accurate to the original fable at all, but the cultures it's trying to rep dont get accurate rep.
5:41 So, this vid is about Disney being racist, but you claim that an actress is too "white" and not "Arab" enough for the role? Yeah, that sounds pretty racist to me. Also, doesn't Agrabah have both Arab and Indian influences? Not to mention the history of the original Aladdin story is NOT as culturally segregated as this video makes it seem. v "Aladdin is one of the stories compiled in The Thousand and One Nights - a collection of Middle Eastern and Indian folk tales, however, it did not appear in the original Arabic text. It was added by a French translator. In 1709, Antoine Galland wrote in his diary that he had heard the story from a Syrian man Youhenna Diab. In this version, Aladdin is the son of a deceased Chinese tailor and his poor widow. However, it is laden with Arab references - for example there is a sultan rather than an emperor - so it’s no wonder that later adaptations of Aladdin were set in the Middle East."
I think there was more of the fascination of east then hate, it wasn't also very known that's why it was more idealized. There is some story wich is told us, we don't need to have full accuracy in the movie for kids, especially the target got a problem to see a difference (just as you said at the beginning). The misconceptions of suit don't happen only arabs in the movie even the western prince had mistakes. About the actors we ought to remember that this movie is made by countries wich are mostly white for mostly white countries, if it would be made by orient country there would be a lot less about empowering woman. When got an actor he doesn't need to be exactly the person he plays, that's it is acting and not just being, a person born from Serbia could play a Russian and its nothing wrong in that. Even in the Makbet by Joel Coen the main character is played by black person wich surely wasn't born in Scotland but he plays his role very well even if some pure scot would fit more. I agree that sometimes we need more historical accuracy but sometimes we can't achieve this because the movie would be too boring, sometimes its because there is some fashion that we want to insert and sometimes its just budget wich is stopping us. Aladdin isn't the best movie in the world but surely isn't racist its not about hate or humiliation, the creators just knew what will sell better...
Racist mean's that someone view's some races as worse than other's. Being ignorant toward's other culture is something else (it's still bad but not the same thing)
It’s a very interesting video, and I might watch it again to entirely understand everything said. So what I’m gonna say is not about the content of the video itself. The background music is too loud and makes it hard to clearly hear what you are saying. I’d advise you to tone it down a bit so your video would be more comprehensible.
As a middle eastern, i have a message to people who are upset because they liked the Aladdin movies. Youre NOT racist just because you like this movie. but you still have to listen to people from the countries that were hurt by it, its not your fault they were misrepresented to you. still you have to know that this is the truth. aladdin’s representation is very racist, and no one can really do anything about it right now. just enjoy the movies. I went to europe countries before and saw how little white/non middle eastern people actually knew about middle east countries. it boggled my mind at first, but then i realized how the only “look” most of them had to these places was probably by hollywood. plus marketers around here (especially where i live) sometimes USE orientalism to sell products to tourists, which really dont help.
Can someone explain why princess and the frog is racist? Yeah, I get it. It’s saying black people are nasty slimy creatures but I don’t understand? Why be mad at a movie about a black princess being a frog.. when that’s how the story goes? If she had a reduced amount of “frog time” it just wouldn’t feel right. Most development happens in the “frog stage” (I’m NOT racist but please I need an explanation)
It's mostly because Disney and animated movies in general have a very weird trend, in which black people get turned into animals and other non human forms for a major runtime of the movie. This ONLY happens to people of color, like in Princess of the Frog, Emperor's New Groove, Brother Bear or Spies in Disguise. The main characters almost instantly get turned into something that doesn't show their race, and this has been going on for years. It basically shows that these studios try everything to make sure people of color aren't seen too much on screen, Princess of the Frog was just the first example of this.
Plus, it doesn't have a real narrative reason for them to be Frogs in those developmental stages. Usually, like in Brother Bear or Soul, there's a reason for them to be in a different form since they learn lessons from it and it features a large part of their character development. Tiana is just turned into a Frog... because. It's just strange and nonsensical in this case, but even if it wasn't, there'd still be a very suspicious trend there. I'm definitely not qualified to talk about any of these issues in particular, but it's a very interesting topic and I suggest reading up on this kind of history, there's a lot of stuff to find!
@@shuck5412 ohhh thanks for telling me. the reason I think it’s not super bad is because naveen HAS to be frog, because his character develops as a frog, so if he is a frog then so is tiana?
Yes, the animation in mediocre direct to video Disney films in The Little Mermaid III is mediocre by Hollywood standards, but filmakers in countries outside the Global North would kill for the budgets and resources that make that possible.
I would argue live action Mulan was more racists and overall more offensive than 90’s Mulan, but eh
didn't she stayed in the army in LA? because in the original Legend she returned home after the war, so overall her jedi like powers and that ending are buchering the original story
True, the live action Mulan was not just offensive, it was boring, the choices made in the story are extremely infuriating at times for no reason, and not to mention the chinese government pandering.
Despite it's demonizing design of the huns and some historical inaccuracies, the animated one had an entertaining story, good characters, and they still managed to make it more historically accurate than the LA one
(PS, some of the historical inaccuracies in the animated one were done because the team took creative liberty)
I agree
giving Mulan superpowers just ruins the original message and they erased our bi icon li shang
@@Chm388 Shang, Bisexual legend. He deserved better
Two things that could've made Aladdin less problematic:
- set in an actual location
- have some or all staff visit the place/culture they based it on
kinda like what they did for the lion king, right?
@@THATRANDOMDUDE99999 exactly, they bothered doing it for a fauna, but not for a culture of people? 🧐
In Encanto thats what the people did, they visited Colombia and based Encanto off that.
I wish the ones behind Aladdin visited the place.
@@9ightdreamer colombia*
@@joghissing4634
Thanks!
Just wanna say as an Indian , the wedding in the live action is disrespectful since wedding is a sacred process in some areas of South Asia I don't know about Africa during that time , and we don't kiss in our wedding it's sometimes called dirty or really disrespectful kissing in a wedding is a Christian process
Who cares? There are much important issues in the world to worry about.
@@mikelheron20 it’s racism and their explaining how this is wrong their aloud to say that it’s a problem
@@mikelheron20 Well one of the important issues in the world is racism. And to conquer that pointing out societies racist flaws is a good start. So shut it.
@@mikelheron20 Your use of the fallacy of relative privation only ousts your dysfunctional cognition. Please usher yourself to the 'important issues' you refer to no doubt of your fashioning and correct those errors rather than burdening us with your negatory comments, whilst we are honourably tackling this IMPORTANT and VALID issue that you with the aid of your unscrupulous and sa'age ancestors continue to burden us with.
As an Asian Christian living in an Asian country, we don't kiss in weddings too. We don't ever kiss in front of people
and, fun fact, Aladdin was originally going to be explicitly set in Baghdad. but then after the Gulf War happened, they changed it to Agrabah, which is apparently an anagram of Baghdad.
I don't think you know what the word anagram means...
@@monicaglasgow1989 yeah I know it doesn’t make sense, which is why I used the word apparently, but that’s what it said in an official interview with the director
where tf did they get the R from 💀💀
@@renoirrr idk lmao
Unlikey it is an anagram, as one name misses letters.
I just want to point out that the directors and filmmakers being white Americans doesn't necessarily mean they know European countries any better than any other countries and saying they do is kinda harmful. These other countries are not necessarily accurate either. White doesn't mean expert on all white cultures ever lol. America is very different from Europe and even within Europe there's many different "white" cultures and histories. No shade or anything just pointing that out. It was a good video though and very educational. I learned a lot.
Edit: Wow, thanks for all the likes! ❤️
Case to point: any Hollywood movie set outside UK, especialy East half of Europe.
There are no “white cultures”. It’s a concept championed and spread by American white supremacists.
@@Finnboy-ml5jv I'm sorry but I don't agree. The Scots have a culture, the Germans have a culture, the French have a culture, the Irish and the Polish and the Hungarians have cultures. The Scandinavian countries have cultures. They all have traditions and food and music and languages and history all their own, meaning they have culture. So saying they don't is a bit ignorant I think.
@@jaimedreamsx Those are European cultures not fucking "white" cultures. Cultures that happened to be in a geographical vicinity of each other. And god, if you imply that hungarian and polish cultures are of the "same race" as scots and germans I will roblox myself because I am tired of dealing with racialism. Also have you seen my nick name? I am pretty sure I am not ignorant on the subject that involves my country.
This is 100% true. I saw none of the German cultures representation at all in Repunzel.
I remember when i saw pictures of the original aladdin i was like why do the have middle eastern names and wear indian clothes i was so confused
Even for India, the female clothes in the OG Aladdin are literally the equivalent of underwear.
and some of them are wearing a mix of middle eastern and Indian clothes and some have Indian names. Disney is so confusing 😭
Indians have middle eastern names though 😂
@@hamianagrande because aladdin is a mix of indian and arab culture, not one
those weren't indian clothes either....
Imagine if Mulan was based in "definitely not China" and suddenly had samurai as part of their forces.
A show like Avatar The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra can get away with this blending of cultures because 1. it does it with care and 2. it establishes its own unique identity that's strong enough so that you recognize it's fictional and doesn't 100% represent one culture (although for the most part, Earth Kingdom is inspired by China, Republic City is inspired by Hong Kong and Korean history, Fire Nation is inspired by Japan, Water Tribes are inspired by indigenous Canadians, and the Air Nomads are inspired by Tibetan monks and other things)
And it's not claiming that samurai were a part of China by misplacing the cultural influences.
Naw that avatar argument is weak af. Avatar is sent in a fictional world just like Aladdin. Avatar and aladdin are two sides of the same coin. Arguing any differently leads to a logical fallacy
And on top of all that, you said that avatar seamlessly blends cultures so that it seems fictional, while completely ignoring that aladdins best freind is a genie in a bottle.
As a Scottish person who has lived in Kuwait and Oman for almost half my life, it almost pains me to hear the inaccurate accents, incorrect architecture and blatant disregard of respect towards actual culture of middle eastern religion , harmful stereotype and to know all of the cast and writers etc are white and have never been to the middle east.
The worst thing they don't allow a Middle Eastern girl to play the role of Princess Jasmine....the British director deliberately brought a British girl with an Indian mixture.
@@salimd7842 that always infuriated me so much, like was it that hard to find an arab girl to play Jasmine
I feel bad because Aladdin(both 1992 nd 2019) is my favorite Disney films.
I am not from that region nor have any connections with them (I am a Filipino) but I respect and appreciate West and South Asian cultures a lot.
I understand that Disney could have made it better by hiring people from those regions and cultures to make it more accurate and authentic. They cold have been part of the production from start to end.
Maybe because Disney is an American own company that's why they made this in their own way but I know that's not an excuse. I think there are also a lot of Arabian Nights inspired films from the past too which were made by Hollywood.
I would also love to watch any Arabian Nights inspired films made or produced the Middle East. I think that would be a great experience. Any recommendations? 😅
You shouldn't feel bad for liking something just because some random person on the internet declares it racist.
@@MBThomas that has a lot of truth. When you watched Aladdin you were probably really young and didn’t even know. Plus, this video is just to educate lang naman ^^✨ Di naman ata nila sinasabi na bawal gustohin yun movie kaya okay lang yan dw dw ✨ Just as long as you know the harmful stereotypes and don’t look at real life people in that light you’re alright. 👍🏻✨
It's my favourite film (Animated version) because Robin Williams is in it
Oooooh Arabian Nights inspired movies made in the Middle East should be so cool! I wish I knew of any…
Hey also, maybe go find media from the cultures you are interested in. I think I was weirdly obsessed with the taj mahal as a kid, because kids are silly, so that's why I liked this movie lol. But then I actually got really into Bollywood movies, and guess what? There's a lot of problematic issues with their media too! But at least in some ways it is more authentic. And it's interesting to see how other cultures view American culture too, lol.
Interesting because literally ALL of the European princesses had their cultures so misrepresented to not even present at all in some of the movies. Strange how no one talks about that. 🤔
An excruciating example is the natives who were based off of the Sami people in Frozen 2. They made the Frozen 2 natives look like native Americans. The Sami are white. Just because they are one of the indigenous peoples to Scandinavia doesn’t mean they aren’t white. 😭. There are so many cultures in Europe and even multiple in each country. And actually a few different indigenous peoples.
Especially considering how Sami are heavily discriminated against. They also had their children taken away and put in residential schools to eradicate their culture. And people are still trying to erase their culture by, for example, diminishing their languages. And that is just one small part of the systemic discrimination they face. The dam from the movie was inspired by the Alta controversy when the Norwegian government was planning and building a dam and powerplant, which would also flood a Sami village and severely disrupt their natural resources.
And as you mentioned, there are a lot of indigenous groups in Europe, and most of them are also being discriminated against. Nationalities are also important; if someone is from an Eastern European country, they will also be discriminated against. For example, Eastern Europeans are followed in stores because people think they will steal due to the horribly xenophobic stereotype that Eastern Europeans are criminals, which is perpetuated by most of their representation in media.
@@mariavi33 Yes. Sami and many Eastern Europeans are discriminated against currently and historically. The Sami people are effected by loads of things even climate change. It’s too bad, because the Sami have a beautiful culture…and also because they are human beings and they deserve respect.
Germanics faced genocide and oppression because of Rome during Julius Caesar’s time and all the way up until the fall of Rome. That’s the reason they were forced into Christianity. Honestly, Europe has a sad history anyway, especially central and Northern. The Irish and the Scottish also faced terrible things…
They should have taken more care when making the Sami.
The fact Disney can’t do any of this right is a little disappointing. I understand they are kids’s movies so it’s more the lesson in the movie than anything else…but I felt icky after seeing Frozen’s version of Sami. Upsetting.
Technically if u google them you’ll find they often look white but some also Inuit. But yeah I found that very weird too,.
Actually I know where that comes from, like Kristoff is supposed to be Sami too, but people got upset that he’s white even tho he’s indigenous. Like I looked it up once and there was some sort of huge backlash. So I’m guessing Disney changed it the second time for pandering.
They could’ve just had the correct mixture of both and it would’ve been fine,. It’s so annoying they think white people can’t be indigenous or minorities or have their culture or people misrepresented.
it just shows how little viewers outside of Europe know about these countries and cultures and thus think they can just lump all of them together and think there’s not much more depth than “they’re just white”.
@@richardmangelmann4975 Yes…some look Inuit. But they are indeed native to Northern Europe (predominantly). Having hooded eyes isn’t necessarily a sign of not being white. I have a Scandinavian friend who isn’t at all Sami [as far as I know], and she has hooded eyes but is white. But yes, many do look Inuit.
I cannot believe people really spewed hate because Kristoff looked “white”. Honestly the west needs to grow up and educate themselves. Society is going downhill. 🤦🏼♀️
@@Veronica-pz4gw Yeah that's why I think they could've just done a bit more of a mixture of looks and it would've been fine. But uff, to represent all of them as one homogenous mass like that? Pretty exclusive to all other members of that minority.
I mean we all know Disney isn't at all good at being accurate, but at least they've been trying with some other ethnicities during these past years so its sad to see them nearly doing it right but in the end giving in to pandering.
I mean what do you expect of people going on a rant saying Frozen is racist because its main characters aren't POC. Yeah that happened too, there was a lot of very weird controversy.
While I agree with most of what is said in the video, I think the girl oppressed by their male relative is not a completely outdated subject. When looking at incidents such as the Tal le ben and women's rights being pushed back against in America, (especially violence against women of color) this message for women to fight back is needed. It's not done in the best way by disney I mind you, but still needed.
Yes it is a real problem but we have to ask ourselves by western writers chose to portray this specific picture? Whenever there is a muslim kid in western media there's always an oppressive father uncle. The only exception to this was in Midnight Mass but even there we have conflict between father and kid. How comes this is the first thing we get associated with?
Yes woc get attacked and its important to teach to fight back. But let's not forget who attacks women of color and why.
@@hassanalkhalaf1115 To be fair tho, it is incredibly common in Asian, Middle Eastern or Arabian households. It is a very important issue to discuss, but unfortunately we don't have enough of our own people discussing these events publicly through different forms of media.
Talking about woc issues isn't a problem. The problem is...
1. Woc issues presented in Hollywood films are done so through the lens of yt ppl.
2. Woc (esp. Mideastern women) are constantly painted as victims. There's no other nuance to their characters or stories other than "boohoo, i have an arranged marriage."
3. These sorts of films are often used to dehumanize poc to fufil sinister political agendas.
4. It's pretty hypocritical, considering the west isn't perfect in it's treatment of women either. Western patriarchy isn't any better than Eastern patriarchy.
I just wanna say that they can’t even get this sort of continuity with European based stories.
They get the fashion wrong for the era and location as well as other issues. Architecture. Practices. It’s all pretty muddled, and they don’t care to get the ancestry of European based cast members correct for their character ether.
They just don’t care about culture or accuracy for anyone. Disney is lazy as hell. I want people who are not lazy to remake all of their stories.
I really don’t think it has anything to do with laziness, Disney purposefully made it historically inaccurate, because historical accuracy wouldn’t have made it fun to watch. The worlds in Disney are fantastical places inspired by real places, and like you said, European stories are inaccurate too, so racism is a bit of an extreme term. To be honest, I don’t think Pocahontas was less successful than the Lion King was because Pocahontas was racist, I think it’s because they didn’t go over the top with the magic of Disney. Pocahontas was too realistic. And it may have its issues, but if people expect the Pocahontas movie to be accurate, then Disney never should have started with Pocahontas in the first place.
Yeah, a bit more accuracy that doesn’t take away from the story would be better, like in Finding Nemo, but it’s not super necessary. What most viewers want are talking animals, fun musical numbers and memorable stories, characters and locations, not facts. If you want historical fiction, Disney isn’t the right place
Yeah because the accuracy isn’t the point
Eli Ben exactly
@@eliben4066 Any YT enterprise looking to entertain YT masses should do so using their creativity. Do not use historical people and living or extinct cultures in your works to line your pockets if you have no interest in representing these people, places and entities with the utmost respect that they are due. Make your jingles as you please stop continuing to steal from people in the name of entertainment.
@@sepi846 Representing a culture with fantastical elements is not stealing. These morals you create for everybody is the reason why conflicts exist in society. Disney tells fairytales from around the world, so everyone can enjoy the magic of Disney, your suggesting Disney stick with European fairytales, which is honestly kind of offensive towards other cultures. I’m half Japanese, and a lot of times, I see non Japanese people wear Kimono or Yukata to celebrate Japanese culture. For most Japanese, that’s a compliment towards our culture. But then some white person who calls themselves a social justice warrior tells them that celebrating Japanese culture like that is cultural appropriation. Non Japanese people decide what’s offensive towards Japan. Most Japanese think, that SJW is more insulting than the person wearing the kimono.
I don’t know how it is in other cultures, but a lot of cultures appreciate it when their stories and cultures are shared, whether it’s accurate or not, so stop deciding what’s offensive and what’s not, because quite frankly, you don’t know any of that
As a North African and Asian, it’s hard to know, I guess they weren’t intending to be racist, but there’s lots of cultural inaccuracies.
You guys your comments are scary
So is there in every Disney movie about white princesses. It's not supposed to be historically accurate.
@@plzleavemealone9660 Right, but these people don’t care about those inaccuracies because they’re white princesses. It’s himself hilarious how people will act like they’re the only ones who face these kinds of things.
@@plzleavemealone9660 Latino in Spanish can play aladdin also
So many of them that it never struck me as being part of of my culture.
This reply section made me lose brain cells-
This is like when Disney tried to claim day of the death to sell coco merch
There's so many weird things with Aladin which made it that, even though I always loved this movie, never felt it talked about my people.
No way an Arab princess could walk around half naked, or any random woman tbh, yet all the women in Aladin wear that belly dancing outfit.
They could have included mosques in the decor, as it's very important in many Arab countries and there are mosques everywhere there is population.
They could have shown the characters drinking tea and different animals milk, eating dates and such. But they showed apples and a random fruit that looked like a melon.
There's still a lot
They made pretty orientalist depiction of middle east to make setting and characters more interesting but simultiously ruined that by cutting all interesting stuff.
I re-watched the movie recently and came to notice that they either showed women more covered up and in hijab or women in these stereotypical belly dancer outfits but there were definitely more of the latter
Agree, even the European Disney Princesses wear more covered clothes than Jasmine. Not to mention how Jasmine's father has the title of sultan which only applied to Muslim ruler yet somehow Jasmine and Aladdin have Christian wedding.
@@clarimm6675
Yeah there were still plenty in belly dancer attire but plenty of them were covered up hell even Jasmine when she went out at the beginning or at the end when they were annoucing her and Aladdin's wedding were a less revealing outfit
True ,tho saying it randomly mixes up a bunch of misinterpreted cultures might not be completely wrong, it’s still basically just the typical medieval "1001 nights" isolated fairy tale . I mean , the city of Agrabah and the desert around it doesn’t even look like it’s connected to the world , nor does it’s atmosphere even look or feel real .
half of my family are christian arabs. Growing up, this was the *only* semblance of representation i had, and it really sucks that it's not even that accurate. This was honestly the image of the middle east i had growing up, and it makes me kind of sad that the "othering" of middle eastern culture is so prominent. Plus, I literally had to explain to one of my friends that arabs can be white.
I get what you’re saying, but this is children’s cartoon. Even the white princesses aren’t accurate, and there are videos that prove this as well. This would be like me look at at Princess Tiana for representation and accuracy for black people, and that’s just not how it works.
@@tiahnarodriguez3809 Yeah I get that, my issue I guess is that this is literally the only piece of Middle Eastern representation that I know of, which is kinda sad lol
As a south asian muslim, I can relate as well. It’s sad to see that the closest thing I’ve had to any sort of representation had nothing to do with my actual culture at all
arabs aren't white :)
Thank you for your perspective and having a critical eye on the movie. It‘s always nice too see other perspectives and learn about orientalism so we stop reproducing these harmful stereotypes.
PS: Too all the people who are offended that someone told your favorite movie is racist. You‘re entitled to like the movie, but just understand why there are aspects that are fueling harmful stereotypes to our society. And also try not to reproduce it. Thanks
As Chinese American, I never liked the streotype people referring to us as oriental. I'm not a rug. The orients is an ancient western reference for a region of the world where certain fashions, decore, or designer rugs culturally came from example pursian oriental rugs. That region was mainly Pursia, while cultures like the Greeks called the greater expance of area Asia Miner. Because it was closer to Asia which was largely unexplored. What and who ignorant westerners called oriental, or orientalism never was, and was based on an ancient prejudice toward Persia and India. In the 1950' through 70' oriental was a term commonly used as reference to Asian Americans by caucasian and African Americans who were generally racists towards us. Mainly due to grudges over Japans involvement with the Nazi's in WW2, and of course the US' conflict with North Korea shortly after. Honestly I haven't heard of anyone calling us oreintal since the end of the 1970'. I was born in the early 80' and never have I heard that term revised until now. So if I were you I'd watch what you call rasict. Not all cultural inaccuracies are based on rasicist prejudice. The makers of Aladdin were not racist just ignorant. However your use of orientalism however ignorant you may have been of the origins of it's use is originally associated with ancient prejudice. Know when you reference a culture as orientalism, or a person as oriental your calling them a Persian throw rug.
Yeah right a children's movie that is 20+ years old (maybe even 3 decades old) is teaching harmful stereotypes now and has to be shattered to pieces to save the world. It is such a petty thing that doesn't do shit and won't change a thing. Also nice strawmaning trying to misrepresent people's anger or annoyance as they were "offended" when the people who are complaing about stereotypes in movie sre your kind.
@@FindingsOfAnArmouredMind Is was problematic and still is. When watching the movie one may not connect the dots, but subconsciously, we make connections and form stereotypes in our minds. And it's not like the movie just magically vanished because it's old. People can still watch it, whether on Disney+ or on a DVD. They have also made a remake of the movie which still portrays harmful stereotypes.
@@Yes-oo8rv ??
@@FindingsOfAnArmouredMind TBF people can still watch the film today
just wanna say about the "mixing cultures" it's literally in the beginning of the opening song "Where you wander among every culture and tongue" so they intented the place to be full of cultures from all the places
To add to the fact that is a mystical place that could be located anywhere in Asia.
I don't think these things are racist as much as they are just inaccurate. Throwing a label that is pretty harsh for something I doubt was done for any malicious reason or any sort of prejudice.
Let's be real, it's just a generic Asian setting that's not particularly linked to anywhere. It's not meant to be culturally accurate, and I don't think you should be going to a Disney movie to try and find that.
Bad take incoming - Look, you can say all the Disney animated films up until the 2000’s are racist. BUT, you’d be lying to yourself and your audience if you said they didn’t grab your attention. The live-action remakes play it too safe and are therefore BORING because of this factor.
that's actually really true
the Lion King is racist because of casting. if I ever make an animated movie. I'll make damn sure no POC voice my villians and their hencemen. don't want to be called racist for letting a non white voice a bumbling baddie.
@@kaiyodei since when is it racist to have a non white person voice act a villain??
@@PandoraParoru read someone's blog once. their experance was that. their kid made a remark about how some POC kids on the playground sounded like the hyenas from The Lion King(original) and it broke her heart. and some other blogs or those websites that tackle social and feminist issues. movie makers casting non white actors to voice the bad guy.
@@kaiyodei But wouldn’t excluding POC voice actors from being villains make it just as bad? Also I’m pretty sure the child wasn’t even saying that to be racist when they said that some POC children sounded like the hyenas
This is sort of unrelated, but something I've noticed so often, people who make belly dancer characters often botch them with orientalism and it gives the impression a lot of people design belly dancer outfits more in line with indian clothing; not a saree specifically but there's a specific type of clothing with a cropped top and baggy pants which I've noticed in South Indian movies. I'm not sure the name of this type of attire, but when you look at middle eastern belly dancer clothing vs south Indian clothing in general, the differences are incredibly apparent.
As a kid i was always confused by Aladdin, so i appreciate this video. I could tell the setting seemed vaguely middle eastern, but i always thought Jasmine and the castle were meant to look Indian in their style. So hearing that the live action drew from Bollywood is even more of a mess.
cultural inaccurate and racist are not the same thing their intent wasn't to bring them down and the movie itself doesn't bring them down its fine if u don't like the movie and to critique its cultural inaccuracy but it aint cool to just throw around the term "racist" for everything
I agree. “Racist” is a little too harsh
Right. They’re really trying to make everything problematic, but in doing so they reveal their own problematic nature.
yo, Imma be real, I ain't even watch the entire video cuz...I got bored and scrolled through the comments.
I didn't like how she threw the movie The Princess and The Frog into the mix of "potentially racist" Disney films. why are people using this tired argument "Tiana was a black woman who was turned into a frog for the majority of the movie, therefore it's racist"???? how is that racist?! and what about Naveen? he was a frog WAY longer than Tiana and he's dark-skinned! I don't think he's black, tho.
Just goes to show people will FIND things to complain about. it's annoying af.
Seriously, if you use the term "racist" so loosely then it'll lose its meaning
Easy for you to say when u aren't the butt of jokes and discrimination your whole life.
Aladdin is so confusing, its supposed to be an arab movie (our first arab prince and princess) but somehow they managed to completely confuse arab and indian culture completely. Also, the 'belly dancers' in the background are wearing underwear at that point. Lol idk what they were thinking when they made them wear that
This is what belly dancers wear dear
@@munchermuncher7663 dear, I know.. I am arab and I very much know what we wear while belly dancing.... The problem is that they are wearing bellydancing clothes that not only looks histerical, but is also from the wrong area or country. Bellydancing is an Egyptian form of dancing. The movie is set in Baghdad which is in Iraq. Iraqis don't bellydance the same way Egyptians do and the clothing is very different aswell. So 'dear' , don't reply unless you fully understand what I was talking about and what I meant.
You can’t really expect a kids movie from the 90’s to be 100% accurate.
It's not a kids movie, It's a family movie, It's different
Especially since the whole setting is purely fictional.
Yes but they got alot of things wrong
This is eye opening. I wanted to ask is there a beloved story with similar appeal to Aladdin set in a more specific region that you think would be perfect for a western audience?
Asking movie directors to make a movie culturally and historically accurate down to the nitty gritty is a ridiculous idea.
Disney and other movie corporations have made movies depicting cultures inaccurately all the time, everywhere, (ie brave, with Scottish culture. Or frozen, with Nordic culture) no one movie is guilty of this. I don’t see any Scottish people complaining that brave is racist because it doesn’t depict Scottish white women correctly in their respective historical and social economical framework.
It seems that people only complain if a non-white culture is being portrayed inaccurately.
AsKinG MoViE DiRecTorS tO mAkE a MovIE cUltuRallY aNd hiStorIcAlLy aCcuRatE DowN To tHe nIttY GritTY Is a RidIcuLouS IdeA
Exactly, but people love to not pick and be angry. It’s a kids cartoon. It’s not meant to be accurate.
@@tiahnarodriguez3809 IT's A kIDs cARTooN. It's NoT meAnT tO Be AccURaTe
sure but asking them to give them slightly more accurate clothes so they actually look like royalty isnt a big deal. they gave cinderella a proper princess dress
Based on what you saying I still don't see how it's racist. It sounds like the problem is not that it's racist but culturally inaccurate mixing different cultural and geographical references in Concepts in the wrong place in the wrong time. However if there's more to racial Prejudice than hating someone for their skin tone then I could be wrong about this. But I was raised believing that racial Prejudice was simply hating someone because of the color of their skin. Which can tie into a hatred toward their culture. When I was a kid people hated me because I was Asian-American and disabled. However given the cultural inaccuracies I think would be interesting for a writer-director to make a more culturally accurate version of the story into a film. If that's possible. Keep in mind that Aladdin was based a collection of multiple fictional stories from the texts known as the Arabian Nights. A collection of stories that were written over a span of several hundred years believe dating back to the 8th century in or around India and Persia. Now lad and definitely has more aspects of Indian culture. However I don't know enough about Indian history to make out the error its cultural aspects are closer to. It's a subject worth studying.
Maybe "xenophobic" is a better word for it.
@@Let_Toons I still don't know about that. The film dosen't give me the impression it was xenophobicly driven. Perhaps xenophobicly ignorant? Or just historical cultural ignorance?
I do believe one of the most prominent parts of racism is hating someone for their skin tone, but that's not all. Racism became a more complicated and in depth topic especially as people started seeing non-white perspectives more recently, having a movie be culturally inaccurate is considered racism. I'm not Indian (Bengali) but I am Muslim and the way Aladdin depicts my culture is in a really white-washed way. Even Jasmine's clothes make her look like a stereotypical belly dancer rather than a princess. There's a lot of racism and fetishization going on in the movie and while I don't believe that was out of malice, it was definitely out of ignorance and can still be called out as racism. I hope this perspective helps in understanding why the movie is racist, I still love it myself but even when I was younger I felt like it was a huge cultural no-no.
What's also interesting: India recently made their own version of the tale "Aladdin Naam Toh Suna Hoga" and it's nice seeing an adaptation from the people who actually lived through this culture. Obviously they took a lot of creative liberties too but the culture isn't so wildly inaccurate like in Disney's versions.
@@caseywilde7931 that makes sense I still watch it every now and then but not as much as I used to because I come to expect more cultural accuracy especially in culture set stories. Here's hoping someone will make a more accurate movie. Being half-chinese I've always did not like movies that whitewashed Asian characters and presented them back in the day with terrible stereotypes. So now that you mention it I do know how you feel. Also I'm disabled and they often make movies depicting disabled stereotypically. I did they make a disabled character seem helpless. Or they make them the bad guy. I can think of a lot of movies over the past half a century in which they commonly depicted characters with disabilities as the villains. Never once making them the heroes. Shazam doesn't count considering they covered up the kids disability with magic give me the message to the audience disability is bad a person with a disability is not useful to society.
@@jmk0512 the intro of the film claims that the city is barbaric and dangerous ….
It's not a documentary, not a historical movie, not based on historical events, not set in a real location, not based on real historical figures, it is just entertainment, an American movie based of a tale, and as everything American, it's nothing personal, it's just business.
My problem is this. Who the hell uses a fictional movie to form their perception of a foreign culture/location? Little kids sure, but guardians should be teaching them at an early age not to believe everything they see/hear. And adults are mature enough to know this (or should know this) by default. This movie tells you nothing about Middle Eastern cultures until you do your own research and verify what's right and wrong (and there's much wrong)
That's what i was trying to say! I agree with you☺
Also fun fact: Alladin is NOT Disney property, it's an Arab story called Alaa Addin (علاء الدين) which is a common Islamic name meaning "nobility of religion" and is way different than the way it's depicted in this version. It was, after all, a folk tale with Baghdad as a setting...(Aghrabah is basically as infuriating as the "shadow realm" in Yu-Gi-Oh or the whole Ace Attorney series being Americanised with Ramen, a character's favourite food, turned into burgers (no joke) and let's not forget 4kids' pokemon.) So the story is way more concise and only the main shocking aspects stick out and remain unchanged (the genie and all that...no talking parrot or monkey there...After all, it's not their homeland and it's cruel to put them far away from it...also only gray parrots are capable of repeating words which, fun fact, isn't them understanding us but it's more keen to us barking or meowing back to animals just to imitate them,without even understanding what we're communicating if we are saying anything in the first place) so it's a short 10 minutes story or 12 pages children book story to tell your kids before sleep.
Alaa Addin is Chinese/Mongolian so...
@@sepi846 I'd like to know where you got that from lol
@@highlander6573 From the source itself.
Aladdin an the magical lamp actually isn’t even an Arab story, it was just inserted into a 1001 nights french translation unsourced by some random French dude and it just stuck.
Wasnt Aladdin part of Mil y Una noches? Idk how is called in english but isnt about the Sheherazade lady?
Fun Fact in the original Aladdin the story was actually set in China.
Where did you read that? Aladdin is literally one of the many stories of 1001 nights
@@Lizamarie__ the internet, search it.
As Arab, when I heard that the Aladdin project was handed over to a British director, I was washing my hands, and I knew that the movie would be a mess.
The worst thing for me is that they don't allow a Middle Eastern girl to play the role of Princess Jasmine....the British director deliberately brought a British girl with an Indian mixture.
the video quality is awesome! why are you so underrated? I hope more people watch this to know the truth. I am from Asia and I know the racism that has been happening. thank you for this video.
It could be due to the fact that a Disney movie is being called racist when it’s more like it has some flaws as most Disney movies do.
I think it would be more fair to call this 'culturally inaccurate' in certain aspects of the story rather than 'Racist'. This is a story that takes place in a fictional setting, while taking inspiration from different cultures, and not a documentary. As a middle eastern person I just personally don't find this animation offensive.
Yeah :/ Sincerely, i think the only people that find this offensive are american-arabs and americans. Yes, it's a VERY inaccurate movie, but not totally racist.
I got a heart attack at 10:26 and jumped from my chair xD so loud all of a sudden haha
10:26 scared the sh-t out of me
same
Not to defend anyone, but it's just a movie, not a documentary with 100% accuracy, I'm not saying you have to ignore it's culture and whatnot, but don't expect everything to be treated like it's a real place
Yeah it's a movie but they could infact at least try to show the cultures ACCURATELY the outfit and dances and places, EVERYTHING is from a different country that some aren't even located in middle east
And how come when it's princess and the frog people get PISSED about anything that isn't accurately related to black culture but for this ppl say " ItS JuSt A MoViE"
I actually agree. Although I think the topic is more about making a fake culture based off of real ones in an aestheticizing way without any prior understanding or knowledge about each of these cultures. After the last Airbender is a good example of this, because they actually thoroughly study different agent cultures before making a fake world based off of aestheticing The entirety of Asia. Basically yes there’s a way to do it, but especially in the 90s it was uncommon that it was done in a tasteful manner.
I get what you mean there nothing wrong getting few things wrong but they got so many things wrong
Did you see Hamilton? It was excellent. And horribly inaccurate.
WAIT WHATTTT
Jfc, the musical barely counts as a historical musical. They romanticized the fuck out of his life story. The musical numbers are great, but it's so frustratingly *wrong*
There's no justified reason as to why every character was glorified. That lyric about Sally Hemmings in WDM that they mentioned and then just...brushed it off and continued the "fun" and "happy" song? Absolutely vile, considering what happened to the poor girl. The way they acted like George Washington had the highest morals? When they broke down John Laurens' life to make him nothing more than Hamilton's little sidekick? The way they completely filtered out every detail of his life that LMM deemed "too much" and instead replaced it with something completely untrue? If it already wasn't bad enough, the consequences only GREW when it became a hit musical.
I love how lyrically ingenuitive Lin is and yes there's a lot of reasons it's enjoyable but they really screwed up on the "historical" part.
And I can go on and on about the pros and cons but I think you get the idea already.
And also pretty racist~
@@elyzionite I've been saying Hamilton is dogshit for years and nobody ever believed it.
But still amazing
As a non-ME fan of Aladdin (one of my favorite Disney movies, in fact), the criticism doesn't fall on "deaf ears", it's just that people cover their ears and chant _"lalala"_ really loudly hoping that you guys will eventually quiet down. I think the problem is that something being problematic becomes its entire identity, ie Aladdin is a terrible no-good bad movie because it's racist. And if you like a racist thing, that must mean YOU'RE racist!! Nobody _wants_ to be called racist, so the only solution in people's minds is to pretend that the things they like aren't racist by actively choosing to ignore criticisms, thus protecting their fragile egos at your expense.
But this, obviously, isn't productive or helpful. I think that it's perfectly fine to like something problematic, but you must ACKNOWLEDGE that it IS problematic, how it is so, and be willing to engage with discussions and LISTEN(!!!!) to the people being represented on how future media could _improve_ on representing them! As a small example, being a Latina woman, I knew from a young age that seeing a 15 year old Jasmine showing midriff and being put into a Leia sex slave outfit is INCREDIBLY mysoginistic and fetishizing young WOC and ew ew yucky bad. I hate it so much and always skip past that scene from one of my favorite Disney movies. The Aladdin remake cuts out that sequence entirely, doesn't sexualize her, and also ages her up. Good! More of _that,_ please!! Instead of spray painting your white extras to make them look Middle Eastern because "there just aren't enough aspiring Middle Eastern actors but we tried so hard" 🥴 Uhuh. Sure you did Disney.
As a North African Arab , I think that the produces intend for an Arab prince and princess but mixed up cultures especially with the Indian clothing and dances and also I think it would've been better if they brought an actual Arab to make it more realistic and about the actors they probably didn't find any suitable Arab actors so that's fine with me and I think Arab voice actors would have made it better and more realistic but I watched the Arabic version so I really don't know about the English version that much but overall it was a good movie.
Accurate to what?? Do you guys realize Agrabah is NOT A REAL place, right? What does it have to be accurate at? It's not a real place, it's not supposed to represent anybody and it doesn't have to, it ain't real, so get over it.
Some of these comments are irritating. This movie blends the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia culture all into one. The movie contributed to a an over generalization and misrepresentation of these cultures. As for the people who keep complaining about the video’s critiques;you can enjoy the movie while also keeping these criticisms and flaws in mind
Exactly people seem to do this on every single video calling out Aladdin’s racism
How is that blending thing an issue lol? That too in a fictional story about magic carpets and genies.
everyone on here with the "its racist" energy, better be about when Chloe plays Ariel. A *Danish* mermaid. And dont hit me w/ she's a mermaid. I KNOW! But if we're yapping on about being culturally appropriate, then fkn be it. Not just when it suits....
I thought Ariel was Italian
@@bikesrcool_1958 no hon. But even if she were, depending if its northern or western Italy, she would still have white skin. Just like the Hans Christian Andersen original. But Disney are the gatekeepers of skintones, cultures, races and ethnicities. Bloody Murica w/ no passports or edumacation, karening every other c*nt cause "its how they feel" fkn boohoo.
Shit. sorry about that now. Dont know where that was hiding.....
Fuck! anyway. peace.
belfast, n.i.
@@bikesrcool_1958 I think Disney made it Italian based, but it was a Danish Fairytale first
It gets even worse! Ariel is a danish mermaid whos world looks like everything happens in Italy when it actually happens in Greece!
@@REDFRLegend and they want to make a mermaid black even when the sun don’t even get to her kingdom, how to f*ck? If she was a coast african,asian or even australian mermaid then yes, she would have more melanin in her skin, But we are talking about a european under the dark ocean mermaid (?
It's important to keep in mind that Hollywood in America doesn't even give it's OWN cultures a fair representation. As a goth I get frustrated when I see "goth club night" and it's just metal and rock (granted, more darkly inclined but... not goth), or as someone into punk when I see rock music called punk music over and over. Yes, because 80s rockers were the ones in green 1 foot spiked mohawks and leather jackets with spikes and leopard print stitched in... I really don't enjoy being reduced to a slightly more excitable rocker or even just the color black and a collar. >.> So I do empathize with your frustration.
Hoooooowever, we have to also keep in mind how much of hollywood is fake just to keep long running assumptions going. They used electric cars, they have to artificially add in the fancy shifting sounds because it's barely audible in reality if at all. Or how creaky they make modern doors that don't often creak like that. Or how the internet geek just presses random keys on the keyboard and oh look, fixed. There's a lot of things that don't work that way, but it was a preconception they keep going because people are accustomed to it and don't even realize it sometimes. Stereotypes are part of that also. Now I do believe that we can change things over time and make better movies and books and comics whatever that represent the cultures, people, and even objects better. It's a risky business however, and honestly big media has decided it's better to recycle the goodies at huge expense rather than make more cheaper films that might do exceedingly well or fall flat. It takes a special flare to make it more realistic but also still just as interesting. Like an indie movie that came out in 2004 or so, dude wanted to make a movie where the teenagers just didn't sleep around every five minutes. He did and it just didn't have enough anything to keep people's interest. When replacing the old, the new has to be that much better or it feels like a drag to people that have been programmed by corporations to like certain things for decades (and increasingly now) while people are also getting addicted to quick feel good stimulus. It's rough.
Talking about music for a moment, it's just as bad there. I'm watching as my subcultures slowly die off and are replaced with people who don't know artists outside of the biggest labels. Music can literally shape your personality. AND CORPORATIONS ARE BEHIND THAT TODAY. God help us -_-
I hope this message gets to more people.
I’m white myself and didn’t see the racism in Aladdin cause I didn’t know the culture it was referring to and was the ignorant.
Im sorry that this happens, I hope that brown boys and girls in the future and see themselves in the future and see that they belong.
brown is a reaaaally inaccurate word to describe arabe people ; just say arabe girls or boys.
@@meameaplok1321 okay, I just heard it in the video and thought it’s was the correct term
As a white girl, this stuff flew right over my head until I got older and looked back at it. The fact that the remake could've used the animated movie as a base, then looked further into the culture and fixed at least some of the problems with it but instead just made the same movie again.
you bein' white ain't got shit to do with anything. we were KIDS when we saw these movies. NOBODY cared back then.
Here come the white saviour XD
Get over yourself, it's 2022, SJWs need to shut up XD
Yes, because apparently all the other Disney princess movies are SO historically accurate!
And are all the Japanese anime now racist too because they are mixing European cultures up? Thanks. I guess full metal alchemist is racist now... I mean the way the woman are dressed would have been considered inappropriate in "white countries" at the time.
Fr
Yes.
What do you mean?
Imagine if Frozen, a film set in “totally not” Norway had people playing the accordion, Olaf replaced with a short mustache guy speaking in some funny accent working at a French/Italian bakery, angry soldiers with winter caps marching down the street led by a Stalin knock off waving a red and yellow flag. I’m kinda glad they stuck strictly with Norway instead of combining Europe
Same is with Eastern European/Slavic culture: they always grupe us as RUSSIANS and/or drunk and aggressive war criminals. The most famous movie about "slavic" culture is "Anastasia" and the producers couldn't care less to check how to even pronunce her name correctly.
Hope there will be more better representation of both cultures in the future💖
You made good points. But the background music made it VERY hard for me to make out your words and it made the video a bit of a chore to get through. Just a tip for future videos
This was excellent. It opened my eyes to problems I was unfamiliar with, and I thank you for that.
I wish iraq would make a super popular movie set in America and point out how offensive every little thing is to americans
it's similar for different peoples of Europe. Everyone will be played by anglo-saxon actors from hollywood
Great video, but the background music is way too loud. Some parts, we can barely hear what ur saying.
I love Aladdin no matter what you say it will still be me and my family and friends favorite
Okay
I don't think of Orientalism as being necessarily racist, because it targets a cultural matrix rather than a race of people; in fact, it targets multiple cultural matrices and multiple races, not all of which correspond to each other on a one-to-one basis. Besides that, Asian countries were far from the only targets of this sort of pseudo-historical mythmaking. People tend to forget that the "Gothic" movement in art and literature (along with all the tropes it inspired, such as the recasting of the Inquisition as sadistic "dungeon porn" and the "iron maiden" torture device that never actually existed) was inspired by a romanticization and fetishization of medieval Europe, no less than Orientalism was inspired by a romanticization and fetishization of Asia. Thanks to Gothicism, among other historical mythologies, many Europeans and Euro-Americans have attitudes that are just as patronizing toward their own ancestors as they are toward non-Europeans.
That’s not solely a European thing. Many non-European races do the same thing as well when it comes to their own people and foreign people as well.
I see what you mean.... but I don't agree. It's art, not a history documental.
Exotism, Orientalism... they're not alone. Even medieval Europe was stylized and reinterpreted by Romantism. Shakespeare was an english writer writing about Italy.
Take The Emperor's New Groove, it mixes cultures and styles from latin america, and even though it's supposed to be Incan, it's very much beloved in Mexico.
I do agree I would have liked to have seen Aladdin more grounded in a particular culture.
I have a bone to pick with the pop song they gave Jasmine like why couldbt they give her a powerful ballad of cultural relevance instead of a random white pop song like why something that means something to the people they are trying to represent like a hymn to Allah who was mentioned in the original disney version. A pop song makes no sense.
Exactly!
It’s not racist, it’s called Culture appropriation. I hope I saved everyone’s time to look this up instead of watching this girl painfully explaining this for more than 11 minutes. I’m not looking for trouble, but my point is that it’s a comedy! A Cartoon or a fictional movie doesn’t have to be 💯% realistic.
But isn't cultural appropriation also racist?
@@ellieezraphone7948 In my opinion not necessarily. It’s more fetishization than anything.
@@ellieezraphone7948 It doesn’t sound like you didn’t take my advice on searching the word Cultural appropriation 😂
No it’s called cultural misrepresentation. Nothing was appropriated. Disney acknowledged that this story was based on the Aladdin story. You know… cuz Disney makes movies based on fairy tails. And no it’s the not fetishization either. Take your own advice and look up word definitions. You didn’t save time you just spread misinformation just like the speaker.
@@dangerheart2578 which is racist.
They did the same thing with Raya and The Last Dragon- They took a culturally diverse place then combined it into one single culture! For example the architecture? No way in hell you'd find something like that in my country The Philippines, we don't associate Raya's palace to be "Filipino architecture" not even close to it! We Filipinos didn't have time to develop our own architecture due to the fact that Spain colonized us so today when we think of "Filipino architecture" a lot of us would think of Intramuros or Vigan City which is Spanish-based architecture and that just goes to show how diverse Southeast Asia is and Disney decided to be complicated and combine it all to the point where some of us will literally not feel a single bit of representation from Raya! Some Filipinos even thought Raya was representing an entirely different culture from us and thought Encanto was the Filipino representation Disney was giving since that felt closer to what Filipinos know than the melting pot Raya showed that somehow we were apart of
It is a work of fiction and I am middle eastern.. it should not be seen as racist
who gives a f let ppl enjoy things my god. using "woke eyes" on things from more than 2 decades ago as if society didnt absolutely do a 180. its like critiquing ancient books saying oh this isnt ok, yeah no duh obviously things from a lot of time ago dont hold up forever, but implying yea aladin is racist so therefore if you like it youre racist
aladdin was originally from china
Thank you for making this video, this is so important!
As an Indian-Nigerian I feel like Aladdin would be a lot better if the teams/Disney did some research on the Eastern world.
I don't understand why you put on the map Latin America as part of the West that doesn´t understand other cultures, is funny considering how insulting are almost all portraits of Latin America in movies from the first world.
as a colombian i kinda felt represented in encanto, until i saw the spanish dub, in which the majority of colombians were white, even when the characters look like the people i see on a daily basis: mestizos (american and european features, also the majority) black people and white people. actually there was only one mestizo in the english dub and none in the spanish dub. it makes sense since the white people usually hold the economical power, consequently the educational and cultural power that made most of us colombians not see anything wrong with the casting choices
I don't see problems ,too :/ you can't see the race in a dubber, just how good he/she is. I don't want to sound angry but, it's that frickin hard to understand that the race isn't everything?
@@listplay7946 the race is everything in encanto, the movie was specifically made to portray in the most accurate way the culture of Colombia, and the diversity of its people is an elemental part of it. in the same way it would be contradictory in the making of a movie that represents colombia and using Chinese dubbers, the same applies to try to represent Colombia diversity and richness in culture while using white dubbers. If anything it accurately portrays Colombia´s race problem. Its a great movie for white people, specially white colombians, but not for the educated rest of colombians, but you cant say it makes a good job representing one of the key elements of the country
@@listplay7946 its basically blackface, casting a white person because people don't want to give opportunities to mestizos to literally give a voice to their community, every person in encanto is supposed to represent a race group in Colombia
@@animacionesamericanas272 How is that blackface? Blackface is the act of colour your face in black and make big lips for discriminate and bullying black people. Technic born in the UK. You can't compare these 2 things like they're the same. You're not changing in any way the race of the character by the dub 'cause its ethnical physical aspect still the same. But i do agree that give changes to minorities can be a beautiful act :D
Another take: you, as a viewer, can't do anything for the cast choices like that. You can just say "Oh, that's a pity". The directors aren't always racist, they simply don't take in consedaration the races, just the talent. Sure, it's good hire minorities for rapresetations, but if the possibilities aren't present for a project, you can't do anything bout it. Embrace this. Actually, hire majorities is a good way to make cultural appreciation!
Really densely packed video but I really appreciate it. Well said.
the audio at 10:26 scared me to death! please fix it or put a warning :C
You do realise making a story with mixed cultures isn’t really racist right? I don’t hear you saying these things for Avatar: The Last Airbender. What about people who were born multiracial? Are you gonna say they’re racist? Besides these movies were from stories written from a time where it was hella normalized, what did you expect?
Yes but they did it right and the movie did it wrong
@@mitsume_slay How?
The original Aladdin was NOT racist
Ok...i know im gonna get hate from this but the "divide" between East and West has religious connotations, the "orient" is an umbrella term China was part of that and was never colonized , but if you actually studied mediterranean history you would know that the cultural and social othering between europe and middle East goes as far as hellenic greece, and it happened at a time when the persians were the imperialist colonizers,although they were demonized by the greeks further, it is true that since the divide in the church the cultures in the middle East evolved with concepts foreign to europe ....like its the same the other way around ,i really dont get the hostility given that any old fable an exagerated cherry picked cultural mosaich it is something humans have always done whe faced with new concepts and huge cultures, are we only talking about this now bc europe happened to be a monstwr when it comes to internazional colonization?
Yeah. There’s a narrative that only white people can be bad, so now anything that has white origins is being criticized even though every race has pretty much done what white people have done.
@@tiahnarodriguez3809 yeah thats not an excuse gieven that euoropean atrocities still have the biggest impact
I still love the original Aladdin. But having the movie be culturally correct would’ve been even better.
Maybe a hot take but, this is a fictional story. They may be taking stuff from real life eras and time periods but guys, this is a fictional world, in a fictional universe! Not real life!
True, but the issue is that Aladdin is supposed to be Arabian and this is really far from how real Arabian people live and look like. And yea it is fictional, but they should try to represent them as accurately as possible like Moana for Polynesia and Mulan for China.
not so much of a hot take : stories and fiction have the ability to shape - maybe even define - people's opinions about real life things. especially when it comes to small, impressionable children, which is who, in case you didn't know, this movie is marketed towards.
@@geraldleyson1722 it's a Chinese tale
@@ridaali8545 Except most people know this is a fictional movie… plus it’s Disney.
@@geraldleyson1722 You admitted that it’s fictional. That means the story didn’t have to be as accurate as possible. None of the other Disney Princess movies are either, yet people don’t complain because they understand these are fictional movies. If you want accuracy watch an accurately based movie. Looking for accuracy in a kids cartoon is pointless.
I disagree with your take.
This makes me want Disney to do Ancient Egyptian movie
If the ever remake Pocahontas I’ll have a full blown explosive meltdown. Pocahontas is Chippewa, I’m Ojibwa. We are the same… just she was the American version of my Canadian native. The Pocahontas was a 12 year old little girl stolen from her family and used as a pawn against her father. John smith was in his 30’s and a real pos
🙄🙄
@@t-t5589 fck off im am native, don’t like my opinion? Tough sh!t. Disney screwed up big time on many movies but this one was egregious as was Aladdin
Excellent analysis thank you!
This is an interesting subject, but I could barely hear you. Your voice is mixed WAY too low, and your background music is too overpowering.
Saying the movie is from the ottoman empire is like saying the greek epics are from the ottoman empire.
The whole mismash of different cultural aspects of the setting makes me want to make a really painfully inaccurate movie about colonial America.
You mean Disney’s Pocahontas
@@SuspiciousS. I meant more along the lines of something an american would be taught in public school.
The halfway point on the Oregon Trail is the statue of liberty. New york is known for its cowboys.
But you’re right, that description also applies to Pocahontas.
Like the original story of Aladdin is any better. he literally has the genie kidnapped the princess's fiance so they can't do it so the wedding's null and void in one version. In another he paid off Daddy within giant dowry that he wishes for. So yeah in many versions there's no love between the two of them it's just he wants her that's it no love no nothing no interaction between the two just Caesar out the window when she's passing by and he wants her. So yeah there's a lot of worserversions of the story. And sometimes they're still kids like she could be 13 and he could be 16 or 20. So yeah. You might want to cut this one a little slack on some parts compared to other telling of the story.
Almost every original fairy tail story is messed up. Your point?.
Seeing "racism" in a story made up by a french guy in the 17th century that in the original Version was mainly placed in Northafrica and China without ever stating the exact placement of any city or person. People still believe it is part of the 1001 nights stories although it just takes one second to check the facts. Aladdin himself is stated to come from a city in China. Nothing about this is racist. It is a fantasy setting based on a fantasy story from a french guy who added a story that should fit in his Version of the book of 1001 nights. Nothing about any of these Disney interpretations was ever accurate or tried to be accurate to the source material. It is very simple entertainment for children with a very basic moral point and added political correctness preaching in the new one (The Song of the princess about self-empowerment that was just in her head was completely unnecessary and was a farce that turned out to be more of a joke). People nowadays really have to force their "racism everywhere preaching" into everything. Maybe there isn't a bigger outcry because most people aren't interested in creating fake drama for social credit scores 😉
Absolutely.
Drops microphone
Why are we lessening the actress Indian heritage because she’s mixed?
honestly i just thought i was being paranoid thinking that the movie was a racist mix of eastern and south asian culture, turns out i'm not the only one thinking that, i still like the remake but the original movie was way to overly racist
Its only racist for weak minded people
The whole point was that it isn’t based in any specific country … a Mix of different countries & cultures
That's a cheap excuse to not research
@@hassanalkhalaf1115 back than it was way harder to research this for example mulan isn't an accurate movie but the people pointing out it's flaws do not call the movie racist and the movie makers even traveled to china
@@hassanalkhalaf1115 they did not have the same knowledge like we do now we are able to do more research because of what we have
@@fireflydog9999 that's a cheap excuse. Hollywood has a large budget. Grabbing a book or talking to an expert isn't hard. What makes it worse is that it came out in the 90s when the US was attacking Iraq. They have the opportunity to fly to this country and bomb it but learning from it is too hard?
@@hassanalkhalaf1115 You want people who made movies in the 80’s and 90’s to do research when computers weren’t Ike how they are today, when research wasn’t as easily accessible as it is now? Take your own advice and research what techno glory and research was like back then.
Wasn't Aladdin Chinese in the story from 1001 nights?
Rlly.. why does a Chinese have an arabic name. Can you explain further
@@hyunkittyy I don't know, but I double checked and in the original story he was at least living in China. But it's like China in name only? Could be one of the muslim parts of China or maybe the author just didn't know anything about China and just used it because it sounded cool.
@@GinkgoBalboa142 yeah I heard about that, like it being Chinese in origin but associated with Arabic tales or something. Idk but sounds like an interest rabbit hole that makes the situation... Worse, technically speaking. Meaning it's not accurate to the original fable at all, but the cultures it's trying to rep dont get accurate rep.
I am not surprised, since this _is_a large corporation we are talking about.
Why is this channel so underrated? Great stuff!!!
It's Disney, I'm not surprised
5:41 So, this vid is about Disney being racist, but you claim that an actress is too "white" and not "Arab" enough for the role? Yeah, that sounds pretty racist to me. Also, doesn't Agrabah have both Arab and Indian influences? Not to mention the history of the original Aladdin story is NOT as culturally segregated as this video makes it seem. v
"Aladdin is one of the stories compiled in The Thousand and One Nights - a collection of Middle Eastern and Indian folk tales, however, it did not appear in the original Arabic text. It was added by a French translator. In 1709, Antoine Galland wrote in his diary that he had heard the story from a Syrian man Youhenna Diab. In this version, Aladdin is the son of a deceased Chinese tailor and his poor widow. However, it is laden with Arab references - for example there is a sultan rather than an emperor - so it’s no wonder that later adaptations of Aladdin were set in the Middle East."
I have loved this movie since I was a kid but I think I was ready to ignore that stuff since I was just desperate for representation
I love it, very Funny from beginning to end. I hope you enjoy it to. Thank you for sharing.
I think there was more of the fascination of east then hate, it wasn't also very known that's why it was more idealized. There is some story wich is told us, we don't need to have full accuracy in the movie for kids, especially the target got a problem to see a difference (just as you said at the beginning). The misconceptions of suit don't happen only arabs in the movie even the western prince had mistakes. About the actors we ought to remember that this movie is made by countries wich are mostly white for mostly white countries, if it would be made by orient country there would be a lot less about empowering woman. When got an actor he doesn't need to be exactly the person he plays, that's it is acting and not just being, a person born from Serbia could play a Russian and its nothing wrong in that. Even in the Makbet by Joel Coen the main character is played by black person wich surely wasn't born in Scotland but he plays his role very well even if some pure scot would fit more. I agree that sometimes we need more historical accuracy but sometimes we can't achieve this because the movie would be too boring, sometimes its because there is some fashion that we want to insert and sometimes its just budget wich is stopping us. Aladdin isn't the best movie in the world but surely isn't racist its not about hate or humiliation, the creators just knew what will sell better...
Racist mean's that someone view's some races as worse than other's.
Being ignorant toward's other culture is something else (it's still bad but not the same thing)
It’s a very interesting video, and I might watch it again to entirely understand everything said.
So what I’m gonna say is not about the content of the video itself. The background music is too loud and makes it hard to clearly hear what you are saying. I’d advise you to tone it down a bit so your video would be more comprehensible.
As a middle eastern, i have a message to people who are upset because they liked the Aladdin movies. Youre NOT racist just because you like this movie. but you still have to listen to people from the countries that were hurt by it, its not your fault they were misrepresented to you. still you have to know that this is the truth. aladdin’s representation is very racist, and no one can really do anything about it right now. just enjoy the movies.
I went to europe countries before and saw how little white/non middle eastern people actually knew about middle east countries. it boggled my mind at first, but then i realized how the only “look” most of them had to these places was probably by hollywood. plus marketers around here (especially where i live) sometimes USE orientalism to sell products to tourists, which really dont help.
Can someone explain why princess and the frog is racist? Yeah, I get it. It’s saying black people are nasty slimy creatures but I don’t understand? Why be mad at a movie about a black princess being a frog.. when that’s how the story goes? If she had a reduced amount of “frog time” it just wouldn’t feel right. Most development happens in the “frog stage” (I’m NOT racist but please I need an explanation)
It's mostly because Disney and animated movies in general have a very weird trend, in which black people get turned into animals and other non human forms for a major runtime of the movie. This ONLY happens to people of color, like in Princess of the Frog, Emperor's New Groove, Brother Bear or Spies in Disguise. The main characters almost instantly get turned into something that doesn't show their race, and this has been going on for years.
It basically shows that these studios try everything to make sure people of color aren't seen too much on screen, Princess of the Frog was just the first example of this.
Plus, it doesn't have a real narrative reason for them to be Frogs in those developmental stages. Usually, like in Brother Bear or Soul, there's a reason for them to be in a different form since they learn lessons from it and it features a large part of their character development. Tiana is just turned into a Frog... because. It's just strange and nonsensical in this case, but even if it wasn't, there'd still be a very suspicious trend there.
I'm definitely not qualified to talk about any of these issues in particular, but it's a very interesting topic and I suggest reading up on this kind of history, there's a lot of stuff to find!
@@shuck5412 ohhh thanks for telling me. the reason I think it’s not super bad is because naveen HAS to be frog, because his character develops as a frog, so if he is a frog then so is tiana?
Anyways I hate UA-cam commenters. Good video!
Yes, the animation in mediocre direct to video Disney films in The Little Mermaid III is mediocre by Hollywood standards, but filmakers in countries outside the Global North would kill for the budgets and resources that make that possible.
Agrabah is a fictional kingdom, just like Gondor was in Lord of the Rings.