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.
1. The original Aladdin was actually Chinese. While the true origins of the tale of Aladdin cannot be completely verified, the story is often attributed to French writer Antoine Galland, who claimed a Syrian told him about a boy and a genie in China.
The casting call for Aladdin asked specifically for Middle Eastern actors and performers, and the company ultimately decided on Egyptian-Canadian actor Mena Massoud in the title role, and Indian-British actress Naomi Scott as Princess Jasmine.
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.
Where is Jasmine from Aladdin supposed to be from?
Princess Jasmine is the deuteragonist of Disney's 1992 animated feature film, Aladdin. She is an independent, rebellious young princess from Agrabah, a Middle Eastern kingdom ruled by her father, the Sultan. As the future sultana, Jasmine has a strong sense of obligation to her country.
Princess Jasmine: Indian or Arabian? Disney's HUGE Cultural Inaccuracy! | Cartoon Analysis
Is Jasmine in Aladdin Arabian?
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.
The original story of 'Aladdin' is, maybe surprisingly, set in China. In the earliest versions of the story, Aladdin is Chinese. He's also not an orphaned street urchin but a lazy boy living at home with his mother. All the characters in the tale are also Chinese apart from the wicked magician who is from North Africa.
Aladdin is a young man from a Chinese/Cathay town tricked by a sorcerer from Maghreb (North Africa). While the setting is in China, most of the characters of the story are moslems, which suggests that the setting is probably in Turkestan (from Central Asia to Modern China's province of Xinjiang).
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.
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.
The rise of our current era of big names plastered over animated film posters has been traced back to Robin Williams in the 1992 Aladdin. And it's that same Aladdin that gives Tom Cruise a connection — albeit a loose one — to animation: he was actually a model for the main character.
Cassim is the father of Aladdin. Long before the events of the first film, he left his wife and young son in order to find a better life for the poverty-stricken family. While he was gone, Aladdin's mother died, leaving Aladdin as a presumed orphan.
The Sultan's Palace is a colossal structure that serves as the home of Agrabah's Sultan, Princess Jasmine, and most recently Aladdin. The palace appears in all Aladdin-related media. The design is loosely based on the Taj Mahal, which is located in India.
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.
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.
While it isn't explicitly clear how old each of them is, Jasmine appears to still be a teenager while Jafar is an old man. It all leads to Jafar essentially making Jasmine his scantily-clad servent, who then has to seduce and kiss him in the third act.
What's fascinating about the origins of this tale is that, even though 1001 Nights has been traditionally translated in English as Arabian Nights, the original story was set not in the Arab world, but in China. Early 19th and 20th-century versions of the story clearly show Aladdin as culturally Asian.
Ironically, the Agrabah Sultan's palace also resembles the Taj Mahal in Agra, India, despite being supposedly based in an Arabian country. The original Arabic folk tale of Aladdin was originally set in China, specifically an Islamic city in China (most likely an Uyghur kingdom in the Xinjiang region).
