Dehumanization: the deprivation of positive human qualities; using inferiority while decreasing individuality and self-esteem.
Villain: the antagonistic character whose evil actions and/or motives are vital to the plot of the story.
Terrorist: a person who uses terrorism- violence and intimidation- in the pursuit of political aims.
Bestial: of or like an animal or animals; to be savagely cruel and depraved.
Eroticized Women: females with erotic qualities.
Erotic: of, relating to, or tending to arouse sexual desire or excitement
Swarthy: dark-skinned
Ignorant: lacking knowledge or awareness
Amoral: without morals; unconcerned with the rightness or wrongness of something.
Now, that these basic categories have been defined. I’m going to attempt to use them to discuss the stereotypes in the movie Aladdin, which happens to be one of my favorite Disney films.
Dehumanization: Inferiority is expressed in the movie by the palace guards when in their opinion of the “street rat” Aladdin. The character Jafar pretends to be an elderly prisoner when he asks Aladdin this question, “You’ve heard of the golden rule, haven’t you boy? Whoever has the gold makes the rules.”
Terrorist: Jafar does desire to rule over the land of Agrabah, so technically he could be viewed as a terrorist. He is aggressive and intimidating in nature. However, I believe that Jafar really fits the definition of a villain much more than the definition of a terrorist.
Bestial: The narrator himself describes Agrabah as “barbaric”. Near the beginning of the movie there is a thief who admits to Jafar that he “had to slit a few throats to get” a magical medallion. The palace guards were cruel when they through Aladdin into a dungeon and then later on threw him into the depths of the ocean while he was chained to a weight. A street vendor showed cruelty when he attempted to cut off Princess Jasmine’s arm after she admitted that she couldn’t pay for an apple, which she had handed to a hungry child.
Eroticized Women: Princess Jasmine is a very beautiful, young woman who dresses in a becoming fashion that shows cleavage throughout the entire story. At the end of the film she is chained due to the power that Jafar has recently taken for himself. Jasmine seeks to entice Jafar so as to distract him from Aladdin’s plan to retrieve the stolen lamp. She acts seductively and even passionately kisses Jafar. Her hopes for distracting Jafar failed. Different scenes also showed harems in which scantily clad women were in groups flaunting their styles or gazing at the handsome Prince Ali.
Swarthy: To be quite frank, the majority of the characters in the movie were very light-skinned. I believe that some of the minor characters may have been darker than the prominent characters, and those that were on the swarthy side were “bad guys”.
Ignorant: No other character represents ignorance better than the sultan. He was completely oblivious to the corrupt mind of his advisor. At one point he states that he “is an excellent judge of character” to which Iago the parrot says to himself “Not!” The sultan thinks that he is very knowledgeable and being the Muslim sovereign, he holds a very high position in Agrabah.
Amoral: The protagonist Arabic characters, such as the sultan and Jasmine, have morals, even though Aladdin himself steals food in order to eat and survive. The palace guards, Iago, Jafar, the thief from the beginning, and even one of the street vendors show lack in morals.
The best theory that I find to study this movie with is the Schema Theory. I believe that the American screenwriters, as clever as they were in making a children's movie, put Arabs in a very stereotypical light. Harems were shown throughout the movie, a short, fat, and dumb sultan was in charge of the land, a tall skinny and sinister advisor wanted to take over the world, the princess was a trapped woman without freedom of choice (until the end of the film), and the main character was a young man living on the streets who had to steal daily. These are stereotypes that Americans use when they think of Arabs. These don't necessarily represent what Arabs today look like or act like, but they are the pictures that immediately come into our minds at the mention of Arabic culture.
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| This is a good picture of (from left to right) Iago, Jafar, Aladdin, and Jasmine. |
