Why South Asians Are Disney’s Forever Maybes
From Prince Naveen to Jasmine, the community has always existed in the famed animator’s fantastical in-between.
The 1992 animated film Aladdin opens with a turbaned man riding a camel in a vast desert, passing by domed palaces and street markets. In the background, you hear instruments like the oud, a Middle Eastern stringed instrument, and the tabla.
We soon meet Princess Jasmine in a turquoise blouse and matching harem pants. She’s sitting in front of her palace, which looks an awful lot like the Taj Mahal, and stroking her pet tiger Rajah. “I’ve never had any friends of my own,” Jasmine says. “Except you, Rajah.” Quickly, her fate will change. Aladdin, a poor thief pretending to be a prince, enters her life. They float across the fictional Agrabah on a magic Persian carpet, rub lamps to call genies (jinns), and dance to big Bollywood sequences (with Arab tunes, of course). Is this a Middle Eastern or a South Asian story?
Then there’s Prince Naveen from The Princess and the Frog, who seems South Asian, though Disney never confirmed it, either. To the animator, everything is one hodgepodge of Brown culture.