Muslims were depicted as either “hostile alien intruders waging a holy war” or “lustful, oily sheikhs intent on using nuclear weapons.” Shaheen also pointed out in his research a link between Islam and terrorism from hundreds of Hollywood films over the past 50 years. In American media, the exotic and mystical Middle East disappeared and was replaced with depictions of violence and terrorism. On the political front, there were a series of Middle Eastern conflicts and wars: The Arab-Israeli war of 1967, the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973, the 1979-1981 Iran Hostage Crisis and the Gulf War. Although arguably silly and harmless, these depictions repetitively shaped the image of the Middle Eastern culture in entertainment media, portraying the region as backwards and in constant need of civilizing by the West. “Barbaric”, “backwards”, “cruel”, “silly” and “weak” are some of the stereotypical depictions that Hollywood usually associates with the Arab culture. Among Said’s references were magical Hollywood films such as The Sheik and Arabian Nights, which portrayed the Middle East as a monolithic fantasy land containing a magical desert filled with genies, flying carpets and rich men living in extravagant palaces with their half naked harem girls or conservative oppressed women. Orientalism has a long history in Hollywood. In his 1978 book Orientalism, Columbia University’s late literature professor Edward Said argued that Western cultures historically stereotyped the Middle East to justify its rocky foreign relations with it. So why is Hollywood still releasing movies with false cultural facets? It is the 21st century after all. While the 2019 movie fixed a lot of the stereotypical messages of the 1992 film, like the lyric in the introductory song that described Agraba as, “it’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home” as well as depicting Arab characters with harsh features and mannerisms, except for the main characters who had White, European features and accents it still portrayed the Arab culture as Indian. The women and men also dressed in costumes that are typically Indian, such as the salwar kameez/ghagras and kurta/sherwani. A remake of Disney’s Aladdin movie has remedied a lot of its cultural mistakes from the 1992 animated musical film, but what’s with the Bollywood features that were supposed to be symbolic of a fictional Arab country called “Agraba?”įrom the characters’ clothes, to the dance moves that are typical of Bollywood’s dancing and singing, the animals that are native to the Indian region such as elephants, monkeys and tigers, Aladdin felt more like a fictional Indian tale than an Arab one.
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