Princess Jasmine

Today in class we had an interesting discussion about Disney. I was brought up watching Ariel, Jasmine, Pocahontas, and Mulan; and i cannot lie, I can still watch Disney princess on screen and be just as content as I was when I was a kid. But I took a closer look at the minority princesses in Disney, especially Princess Jasmine, and I noticed that she was not a minority at all. She looks like she is a white girl who has a really great tan. In fact, her skin tone is not so different than Cinderella's. But it obvious that Disney wanted to appeal to a larger sect of minorities, not just Arab girls. Anyone with a brown skin tone was supposed to identify with Jasmine. I know I did. I knew she was not Indian but she had "brown" skin, and acted like she was an Indian princess. In fact there was nothing specifically Arab about her. Her name, Jasmine, can exist in many different cultures. Her father is a Sultan, and there were many Sultans that existed throughout the Mughal Empire, which included India. And her tiger, Raja, has a traditionally Indian name. And yet she is an Arabian princess. What a neat little trick Disney. For their agenda, it makes sense for them to group the minorities together because it makes it much easier to reach their newly formed demographic than to go after the individual cultures. As Song mentioned in class, they did not even have correct Arab script when they showed the text. This ambiguity leaves it up to the viewers to fill in the unanswered questions. And as a little girl, why would I not want to be just like Princess Jasmine? She was beautiful, but apparently had a brain of her own (even though all she did was escape her palace to make her man happy). But this rebellious streak tricked the viewer into thinking that she was an independent woman. And when I saw all of these qualities in Jasmine, I immediately felt like she was one of my people. It didn’t matter if she was an Arab princess, she looked Indian enough, and frankly I could not tell the difference between Arab and Indian culture in that movie. And even in Disney's attempt to emulate an Arabian society, everyone had American or British accents. It is obvious that the right culture is white culture. In the mess of cultures and stereotypes, how is it that little girls throughout the world identify with this princess? Its just another success story of the American hegemonic agenda.