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.
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.
Galland's tale isn't even set in the Middle East - it's actually set in a Chinese city, and Aladdin is not an orphan but a poor Chinese boy living with his mother, with the only other location mentioned in the story being Maghreb, North Africa, where the sorcerer is from.
Her country of origin, for example, has been frequently disputed. 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.
Mena Mansour Massoud (Arabic: مينا منصور مسعود; born September 17, 1991) is an Egyptian-Canadian actor. He is known for playing the title character in the Disney fantasy film Aladdin (2019), which earned him nominations for a Teen Choice Award and two National Film & TV Awards.
Examples: The architecture is more Indian than Arabic in the movie. The large pointy domes and the elaborate carvings, it may be Islamic related architecture but it is also the type found in non Arabic states. And considering that Aladdin story supposedly set in the Arabic world this is not very accurate.
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.
Galland's Aladdin story is explicitly set in China, but the world it describes doesn't seem to match up with the real place. “The characters live in a society defined by Muslim practices,” says Horta.
Surprisingly, Aladdin and Princess Jasmine speak in excellent American English while the rest of the characters in the film speak in heavy Arab accents.
Universally accepted, the character's status as Disney's first Arabic princess "won over hearts" upon the film's 1992 release, according to Andre Tartar of Vulture.com.
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.
And despite the fact that some white extras had their skin darkened during filming, Disney did cast actors of Middle Eastern descent in most of the main roles.
It is deliberately not attributed to any specific modern country. The implication is that it is in what one might call Arabia or that part of the Middle East, rather than South Asian like Pakistan. So no, Princess Jasmine is not Pakistani.
During the interview, Musker said that the movie's composers, Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, had originally decided Aladdin would be set in Baghdad, Iraq, but they were forced to change that. “We kept it Baghdad in our first treatment, and then the Gulf War happened — the first Gulf War.
By October 1991, Katzenberg was satisfied with the new version of Aladdin. As with Woolverton's screenplay, several characters and plot elements were based on The Thief of Bagdad, although the location of the film was changed from Baghdad to the fictional Arabian city of Agrabah.
(For an interesting video about the relationship between the Sami, Norway, and the making of Frozen 2, click here.) Anna and Elsa are not white either. They are Northuldra raised Arendellian, aka Native Raised Other. Regardless of where they end up by the end of the movie, they are and always will be Native women.
In the Disney film adaptation, she is introduced as a princess in the fictional Scandinavian Kingdom of Arendelle, heiress to the throne and the elder sister of Anna (Kristen Bell).
Princess Jasmine, a fictional character from Disney's animated film "Aladdin," is not explicitly identified as Indian in the movie. Instead, she is depicted as a resident of the fictional city of Agrabah, which is often seen as a blend of Middle Eastern and South Asian cultures and influences.
After receiving criticism last year, Disney is changing the way it addresses racism in its older animated films. 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.
Nearly a year later, on Thursday, Disney said that after consulting with a council of organizations representing minorities, it's added a new disclaimer acknowledging the "harmful impact" of racist stereotypes in some of its older films.
