“The Monstrous Births of Aladdin Harvard Middle Eastern and Islamic review Aladdin is probably everyone’s favorite folk tale from the Middle East, a fantasy story of a boy unwilling to learn the trades that come about through hard labor and apprenticeship. After his father dies, a sorcerer who claims to be Aladdin’s uncle by virtue of his being his late father’s brother pops up and demands parental rights. He tries the same thing his father did-to teach him a line of trade- but he won’t have any of it.
Disney’s rendition of the Aladdin story however is a tad bit different from the original. The characters are able to speak fluent American English, but are given dark skin and hair to complement their Middle Eastern origin(Pausch et al. 203). In this rendition Jasmine, has been portrayed as rebel, unable obey and conform to the societal norms of her time. She is a princes and she wants to marry someone she loves out of her own free will and this means her disobeying her culture as an Arabic woman. Disney’s rendition, however, replaces a lot of the original content with Bagdad Changing to Agrabah, it raises a matter of contention especially considering American’s relationship with the Middle East, begging the questions- “ Is it proper for Americans to change the name?” and “Why change the name in the first place ?”
The American aspect of this story has been knitted to fit their culture and point of view, which in some way has taken away the authenticity of what the original writer of this folk tale.
WORKS CITED
Pausch, Randy et al. “Disney’s Aladdin.” Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques - SIGGRAPH ’96. N.p., 1996. 193–203. Web.
