Ryan Tasetano 

Professor Albert 

14, December 2023

Arabian Nights and Disney Days

Representing the Other

There are tons of pieces of work like books and movies out in the world based on the Middle East. These pieces of work have been problematic in a sense. They show stereotypes, racism, and negative outlooks on Middle Eastern culture. The word orientalism is known and brought out from these types of work. Orientalism is the characteristics of people and cultures in asia. Specifically, in the Middle East for the context of these movies. All these stories on Middle Easterners that are accessible to English speaking audiences have succumbed to orientalism and or racism. They all have the intention of making the Middle East look bad and inferior toward English speaking countries. There is no possible way that any of these pieces of work cannot succumb to orientalism. There will always be one thing wrong with it. The Middle East is the most misunderstood place in the world and because of this the intentions always make the Middle East look inferior. 

There is no way to tell stories without oriental perspective. We all have perspectives and different viewpoints on things. We also only have a certain amount of knowledge on certain topics. This creates all different viewpoints on certain topics. For the Middle East it has created a bad one. The Middle East is the most misunderstood place in the entire world. If you walked around a street in America and asked them what they knew about the Middle East a lot would probably say that they do not know much about it or say the same stereotypical things. There are tons of different representations of the orient in movies and in books that have caused us to see the Middle East the way we do. It all comes down to the intention of  the creators of the movies or books. Some of these interpretations and representations you really need to look closely at to see what is wrong with it. While others you can see just by looking at the screen. Aladdin is a great example of one that you have to look closely at. For example, the characters seen first are supposed to be the good guys of the story (Princess Jasmine and Aladdin), when you look closely at them you notice that they look different from everyone else. They have different features, different figures. These characters are actually based on European features, and American people. Making them the good guys puts a negative viewpoint on the people of the Middle East. Whereas, the people in the movie based on Middle Easterners have big noses, do not look the most attractive, and also have bushy eyebrows. The director had the intention to make the European based characters look good and presentable, while his intention was to make the Middle Easterner characters worse than these good characters. Other movies have been like this as well. In the movie The Thief of Baghdad the main character is white. While everyone else has a darker skin tone. The main character’s best friend happens to have darker skin too. When they go on their journey he seems to be the main character’s servant or helper. Making the white man more superior than the kid of color. Later on, in the movie you find out that the girl that he wants to chase is also white. This also makes the Middle Eastern characters in the movie look bad. It makes it seem like the two white people end up in power over the Middle Eastern characters. At the end of the movie it shows that by having them become the king and the queen of the city. In almost all the movies about the Middle East the intention gives a false representation about it. Making the Middle East look bad and European characters look superior. Even in the movie the Sheik it makes Middle Easterners look bad. Throughout the movie Admed kidnapped this girl and he seemed like an awful Arab who would just kidnap people for his own good. Then the lady gets kidnapped from him by Omair the bandit. She soon finds out that Admed is not Arab. When in the movie we thought of Admed being Arab he was the bad character. At the end of the movie we see Omair as the bad character who happens to be Arab, while we see Admed now as the good guy who is found out to be English and Spanish. 

All these movies succumb to orientalist views. The creators of these films have the intention to make the characters of the Middle East look bad compared to the characters of English speaking countries. These intentions put a negative viewpoint on the Middle East and are giving the audiences in English speaking countries a false representation of how the Middle East truly is. This is giving a bad spin on Orientalism, giving us audiences the one viewpoint where if someone asked about how to view the Middle East, the viewpoint will all be the same false representation. These movies’ intention is to give a false representation of the Middle East to make the audiences of these English speaking countries superior.