This is horrendous racism.”Īs the Disney Co. The lesson is that anyone with a foreign accent is bad.
While the Aladdin character, Jasmine and her father speak unaccented, standard Americanized English all the bad guys speak in foreign accents. “Even worse,” said Bustany, “the supporting characters are all depicted as nasty mean, people. Certainly I think it would be different if the situation involved African-Americans or Jewish-Americans.”īustany said: “There still remains the very sleazy, burlesque character in the prologue and the scene where a merchant is going to cut off the hand of Princess Jasmine because she took an apple from his stand to give to a hungry child.Ĭook said “Aladdin,” which is loosely based on the stories of the “Arabian Nights” should be judged as “an entire work where the hero Aladdin, and the Princess Jasmine also are Arab.” Mokhiber said the message to him “is that we are not worthy of his time or attention. Chairman) Michael Eisner has yet to respond to our letter or to meet with us.” “The changes were the right thing to do,” he said, “but we are still one word away from being pleased. Disney has said the word was used in all versions of Ashman’s verses and will not be changed.Ĭook said, “ ‘Barbaric’ refers to the land and the heat, and not to the people.” box-office gross of $207 million since its release last November, is the most successful animated feature ever and is a highly anticipated product for the home video market.Īlbert Mokhiber, president of the Washington-based American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said Friday that the committee also sought to have the word barbaric removed from the lyric and will continue to press for that. 1, and in any subsequent theatrical release of the film. The new lyrics will be seen on the home video format, which will be released Oct. In no way would we ever do anything that would be insensitive to anyone. The altered lyrics, which were written as an alternate version by Ashman, are:ĭisney distribution president Dick Cook said the change was made after meetings with members of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, but “it was something we did because we wanted to do it.
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