An Examination of How the Stereotyping of Middle Eastern Features Leads to a Negative Sense of Self (Final Essay)

Aladdin is a cunning and handsome street urchin with a heart of gold, which the audience of Disney’s Aladdin sees as a victim of his circumstances instead of through a dispositional explanatory lens. He is the chosen one by the Cave of Wonders and the valiant hero who helps rescue the kingdom of Agrabah. Jasmine is the most desired woman in all the land who has an independent mind and a strong desire to connect with her kingdom, and with Aladdin, she defeats Jafar, the Sultan’s evil and greedy vizier. It is quite obvious that Aladdin and Jasmine are the heroes in the story, and Jafar is the villain, but even without ever seeing the movie or even hearing of Aladdin, anyone would be able to point them each out as such just by looking at their appearances side by side. If you were to ask someone why they thought Jafar was evil, it would be hard to get a definitive answer because the decision is mostly made by the unconscious mental processes that make most miscellaneous decisions in our lives. Our developed schemas of good and bad characters have been built on what we have been fed about heroes, villains, and beauty standards all our lives, and as we begin to process the world around us more critically, we begin to see the blatant racism that is intertwined in Western media. It is these bigoted, normalized stereotypes in children’s media that result in negative self-esteem in those who resemble the ethnic features of the villains. 

Aladdin has straight, easily tameable hair, a small nose, a round face, and a chin that slides perfectly into a point. Aladdin’s story is based in the Middle East, so you would think these characters would possess characteristics of that region. However, our hero does not possess anything but Eurocentric features, which is very much in contrast with the background characters that are portrayed more ethnically. These characters present the Middle Eastern features of a larger nose and longer chin, and it is much easier for the children watching the movie to class them as villains or comedies in their heads. Aladdin’s appearance looks European because he is a pure-hearted, kind soul who values freedom and happiness. He is someone who is a victim of his circumstances, and he is given leeway for the crimes he commits and the people he tricks. Other characters throughout the kingdom behave in ways not seen as the most upstanding, but rather foolish and air-headed. Aladdin’s features afford him privileges that others do not get. The movie represents that characters of these white-passing appearances are destined to be virtuous, always the heroes, and will never lose in the end. Media beyond Aladdin reaffirms the idea that only people with typical, Eurocentric features are wanted. Many of these examples are seen within Disney productions, which have a history of these racist implications in their movies where they give the villain of the story dramatic ethnic features. Then, throughout the movie, they portray them as ugly and brainless. Aladdin did not introduce the complex and shame of cultured looks that plague children, but it is one of the earliest examples we see in mainstream media of the ethnic features of the Middle East being overshadowed, disparaged, and lauded as unpleasant. It is this shame that is subtly intertwined throughout most media that allows institutional racism to infect continuing generations, making anyone without Eurocentric attributes live with an inferiority complex. 

Our beautiful, independent protagonist, Jasmine, could pass as European with her small, delicate features. She is the female heroine who fights for her independence and freedom from the kingdom’s laws. She only represents the Middle East because of her slightly darker skin. Jasmine showcases Western stereotypes and has nothing to show for anything the Middle East values. This type of character design plants a subconscious seed in the heads of everyone watching it, and the people with the features and values of Jasmine are the pretty, pure, and desirable personas. Anything different is seen as strange and unfavorable. It is worth mentioning that none of the characters display ethnic, curly hair, a characteristic common to the Middle East. Instead, they are animated to have tamed, untextured hair, resembling every other European princess created at that time. Not only are Jasmine’s physical aspects detrimental to the influence of a young audience, but her clothing garments, such as her belly dancing attire, create this idea that Arab women are sexualized. With her exposed stomach and off-the-shoulder sleeves, she is presented in this excessive manner, which instills the stereotype that all Middle Eastern women belly dance and wear revealing clothing. This makes young children expect these cliche archetypes in people they will meet from the Middle Eastern region.

Jafar, our well-known villain, has a long, stretched face with a large, hooked nose, dramatic facial hair and eyebrows, and a chin that sticks out beyond his face. It is only the malicious villain who has these prominent features that are most commonly associated with people from the Middle East. Most notably, his character is shown as the wicked antihero who tricks the sultan and wreaks havoc all over Agrabah. The whole goal of Jafar’s heinous actions was to gain power, ultimately displaying his greed. All these things seem insignificant, especially in a story that most of us are introduced to as children, but this representation is extremely damaging and helps to form the schemas that support our automatic characterization of good and bad characters. Given that most people from the Middle East, where the movie is supposedly set and where the people are said to be from, have Jafar’s more ethnic features, they are seen by Western culture as unattractive. Rather, most Middle Eastern children will find themselves looking more like Jafar and will think that they are inherently ugly. Jafar’s portrayal creates the stereotype that Arabs are power-hungry and greedy beyond belief. As a result, many children will have a deep-seated hatred and dislike of themselves or other racial groups that were placed there by society, and that grows into a festering self-esteem issue that is only worsened by every villain in the form of media that, again, has exaggerated ethnic features and atrocious behavior. 

These representations in media create a cycle of abuse with their impossibility of escape as each generation unknowingly passes it down to the next. As children see that the villains share their features, they begin to see themselves as they see the villains. They are led to believe those behaviors are what they are destined for, which reinforces the stereotypes in these movies. This causes the cycle to repeat. While it is not the same as what we have seen in the underlying racism of Aladdin, it has the same outcome, with the internalized and systematic racism being implanted within another generation, who will believe poorly in themselves. This pattern will continue until Middle Eastern features are used for a true form of representation that shows off the beauty we are constantly told by a brainwashed society that we do not possess. It is the responsibility of our new generation to end these horrid stereotypes and find ways to accurately incorporate other cultures and races into our widespread media.