Mena Massoud (Aladdin) is Egyptian, Nasim Pedrad (Jasmine's handmaiden) and Navid Negahban (the Sultan) are Iranian and Marwan Kenzari (Jafar) is Tunisian. Interestingly though, Naomi Scott (Jasmine) is a British actress whose mom is Ugandan with Indian decent, neither of which are Middle Eastern.
MEET the Egyptian-Canadian star who played the ever-so-handsome lead role in Disney's Aladdin. Mena Massoud was catapulted onto the international stage when he joined the all-star cast of the popular children's classic in 2019.
In fact, records show that the folktale on which Disney's Aladdin is based is originally set in China, and later mixed with a story set in Persia as told by a Syrian woman, then translated and added to 1001 Arabian Nights by a French man, adding to the layers of cultural conflation and Orientalism at play.
While some claim Jasmine is Arab because the movie opens with a song called Arabian Nights, others believe that the architecture in Agrabah is clearly based on the Taj Mahal, making Jasmine Indian. It's a debate that has fueled speculation that in Hollywood, Indians and Arabs are interchangeable.
The reason we think of the story as one of the true-born Arabian Nights is that many of the characters in the tale of Aladdin are Arabian Muslims with Arabic names. But Aladdin is Chinese … at least, he is if you go back to the known origins of the story.
In the original story, Aladdin is born to a poor tailor in “the capital of one of China's vast and wealthy kingdoms”. The Chinese setting of the story, however, has in most recent iterations, notably the Disney animated film of 1992, been almost entirely rewritten.
3. Aladdin doesn't come from Agrabah. In the both Galland's text and Richard Burton's popular 1885 English translation, Aladdin lives “in a city of the cities in China.” Illustrations of the tales from the Victorian era depict the story and its characters as Chinese.
In the collection of tales recorded around the 15th century in Arabic, and which comprise "The Thousand and One Nights" or "Arabian Nights," Aladdin and Jasmine were actually residents of Baghdad, Iraq, a city widely considered a center for Arab culture and civilization.
In the Disney animated film "Aladdin," Princess Jasmine is not specifically identified as Indian. Instead, the fictional city of Agrabah is presented as a fantasy setting in the Middle East, and Jasmine is depicted as a Middle Eastern princess.
On Oct. 15, Disney Plus introduced a new disclaimer that appears before older films like Dumbo (1941) and Aladdin (1992), warning viewers that the films include harmful stereotypes. The new message replaces the one that came with the original launch of Disney Plus late last year.
I used to have this Ali Baba story book when I was a kid and all the buildings and characters in the book were drawn like East Asian, except for the leader of the 40 thieves, who was dark and South Asian looking.
The animated 1992 Film most likely takes place after Islam had already started spreading as early as 700 CE but most likely it's meant to take place later than that.
Jasmine debuted in Aladdin (1992) as the Princess of Agrabah, daughter of the Sultan. Frustrated with constantly having decisions made for her and being pressured into marrying a prince by law, Jasmine disguises herself as a peasant and escapes the palace.
In the 1992 version of Aladdin, all of the 'bad guys' were portrayed with heavy, obnoxious Arabic accents, including, at times, the lead adversary 'Jafar', while the protagonists, Aladdin and princess Jasmine, both spoke with clear Americanised accents and had Western-looking features.
She is also the first princess who is from the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia. She is the second princess to have her own television series, the first being Ariel. She is also the first princess who is from the Hellenistic Era (Ancient Greece) as it is confirmed in the Hercules crossover with Aladdin.
Agrabah is a fictional sultanate that serves as the setting for the Aladdin franchise. Aladdin was initially intended to be set in the Iraqi city of Baghdad, but after the Gulf War happened, the name Agrabah was chosen as an approximate anagram of the name of the city of Baghdad.
Final Verdict. With everything we have to go off of, Aladdin is set in the 15th century in the Ottoman Empire. With Agrabah seemingly being in a desert, I initially set this movie in 1521 after the conquest of Cairo and the areas of Arabia that bordered the Red Sea.
Princess Ananya, has been confirmed by the team, but they have also added that it's quite in the early stages and the team isn't even close to launching her. Having grown up with Ariel, Elsa, Rapunzel, and Snow White, having a Disney Indian princess is a big step towards cultural representation.
If Ritchie's film was based on the original story, the entire cast would be Chinese - apart from the sorcerer, who would be North African - but as it's said to be a faithful remake of Disney's animation, Aladdin and Princess Jasmine should really be Middle Eastern or South Asian, despite the film not being an authentic ...
In the original animated film, the Sultan yells "Praise Allah" after discovering that his daughter, Jasmine, has finally found the man she wishes to marry. And Allah is also mentioned a few more times as the plot progresses, however the religious figure is not discussed in the remake.
While the movie is set in a city based on Baghdad, Iraq, Aladdin contains aspects of multiple Middle Eastern and Asian cultures. The sultan's palace in Aladdin, left, and the Taj Mahal in Agra, India.
Here are 5: Dumbo (1941): Contains a scene of a group of cigar-smoking crows, with their leader named Jim Crow, referring to the racist segregation laws of the South, and voiced by a white actor.
Peter Pan. The film portrays Native people in a stereotypical manner that reflects neither the diversity of Native peoples nor their authentic cultural traditions. It shows them speaking in an unintelligible language and repeatedly refers to them as "redskins," an offensive term.
