Misrepresentation of Women (rough draft)

Orientalism is how Asia and The Middle East are portrayed, specifically in a stereotyped Western viewpoint. A huge misconception, created by orientalism, is the treatment of Middle Eastern women. Oftentimes Oriental women are often shown as being exotic and provocative. Throughout a lot of Western culture, these women are often overly sexualized and portrayed as being exotic in their homeland. A lot of this negative and untruthful representation can be found all throughout Aladdin and The Arabian Nights by Haddawy. 

The Arabian Nights is a collection of Middle Eastern stories that has been translated, in this case, by Husain Haddawy. While these stories are actually from the Middle East, there is still some very negative portrayal of women within these stories. There is one story in which, everytime the King left town on a trip his wife and slave girls would have sex with his male slaves, and within this same story the wife of a demon forces both the King and his brother to take turns having sex with her. She threatens that if they didnt t both sleep with her she would awaken her husband, who was sleeping only a few feet away. Afterwards, she explains that she has cheated on her husband with one hundred men. In both of these scenarios, and in many others throughout the tales, the women are portrayed in a negative way. Almost, as if sex was all women could think about. The stories in The Arabian Nights are very old, having been passed down from generation to generation. This portrayal of women most likely stems from the intense oppression and sexism women faced all over the world. However, I think that in this case these portrayals just feed into our stereotypes about oriental women. Especially with some of the other representations of Middle Eastern women in Western Media. There are countless examples throughout The Arabian Nights where women are portrayed in a very negative light and in very sexual ways. These representations of Middle Eastern Women can be incredibly harmful and lead to incorrect generalizations about Middle Eastern women as a whole. 

Aladdin is an insanely popular Disney movie, both the old cartoon and new live action version have been enjoyed by millions of people. A lot of people grew up watching this film and loving every minute of it. Except, when you look closely at Aladin, you’ll start to notice just how harmful this movie can be. In the scene “Jafar’s 3rd Wish,” where Jafar takes Jasmin hostage, Jasmine is made to be very sexual. Throughout the entire movie Jasmine wears a very revealing outfit, that would not have been accurately representative of a Middle Eastern princess. However, in this scene the outfit changes from a shade of light blue to a bright red. Red is a color that is often used to symbolize attraction and sex. Her outfit in this scene sexualizes her to an unnecessary degree. This scene only gets worse when you start paying attention to the dialogue. Throughout the entire film, but especially this scene, Jafar aggressively flirts with Jasmine, calling her things like “pussycat” and “a beautiful desert bloom,” even though she makes it abundantly clear she is not interested. During this scene Jasmine is depicted as the child-friendly version of a sex slave. I’m not entirely sure that Disney intended to portray Jasmine in such an inaccurate and sexual way. I assume that the directors were trying to pique viewers’ interests, by making this movie seem to take place in an exotic land. This is even stated in the opening song, “Arabian Nights,” when the song says, “Oh I come from a land, from a far away place.” This line is logistically confusing, because if this character is from Agrabah, the setting of Aladdin, why would they refer to it as a far away place? I interpret this as the director trying to add intrigue and a sense of exoticness to the film. This may also explain why the women wear outfits so inaccurate to what actual Mideastern women would wear. The outfits in Aladdin are far from accurate. This may be because Disney again, was trying to make the characters in this movie seem more exotic and unique. Whatever their reasoning was, this depiction of Middle Eastern women was and continues to be incredibly harmful. This representation can be interpreted, by the uneducated mind, that women in the East are only used for their bodies, and that they are thought to be nothing more than their bodies. This image is a very inaccurate depiction, middle eastern women can be independent, incredibly powerful, and highly respected. The sexualization of the women, especially Jasmine, in Aladdin feeds into a harmful orientalist stereotype that needs to be stopped. 

There are many different depictions of Oriental women, but many of them are negative and inaccurate. Many representations of Middle eastern women, that Western civilization views, depicts them as oppressed people, that mean use solely for sex. Although this stereotype is being perpetuated by movies and books, such as Aladdin and The Arabian Nights, it can be very dangerous. Also, these stereotypes could not be farther from the truth. Middle Eastern women are no more oppressed than the women of the Western civilization. The sooner we recognize how harmful our biases and assumptions may be, the better.