This barbarianism looking like a social norm being an unfair and unjust society, yet again further absence of positive representations of Eastern or Arabic culture (Hurley, 2005). A key example of this barbaric behaviour of Arabs crafted within the film is when a merchant threatens to cut off the princess Jasmines hand, for stealing an apple to give to a child (see appendix D). The merchant throughout is represented as mysterious and initially presenting the lamp, making Arabia seem almost “magical.” Throughout the whole of the film Arabic males are all represented as either scheming, violent, mystical, stupid or greedy (Srambeau, 2010). Here is the first example of the mixed American- Arabic culture by the merchant using language such as ‘on sale today’ and ‘…also makes julienne fries’ both Westernised terminology to make the predominantly western audience to associate and relate to the story from the beginning. The first character introduced to the film is a scheming travelling merchant (see appendix C), he instantly fits the stereotype of an Arabic male, with an exaggerated size turban, large nose and dark skin (Nittle, 2018). Although Karaman and Wingfield (1995) see Aladdin in ‘many ways charming and artistically impressive,’ the film also represents Arabs in a negative disposition, from the opening if the film through the use of ‘Arabian Nights’ song. Moreover, with Disney taking 55 years to release Aladdin, the first film that represented any other race than white, shows that ethnically diverse children were deprived of relating themselves to a Disney text at young age. Furthermore, at such a young age it is crucial for children to develop a positive self-image, to see ‘themselves’ or their images in texts (Hurley, 2005). All these images created by the media and fed to the audience to create stereotypes, a clear example of the hypodermic syringe model (Shaw, 2017) many of these images engraved in the minds of children from films of the likes of Aladdin. The image that springs to mind when thinking of ‘Arabs’ is those from the Middle East and North Africa, hot sand, belly dancers and market stalls. Throughout this analysis I will be combining both my methodology and published literature on the topic of representations of ethnicity and culture within Disney’s Aladdin. Disney’s Aladdin has received criticisms since its release in 1992 over the representations of Arabs and race within the film.
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