Discrimination Exposed In Disney's Aladdin

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Imagine being in the middle of New York City, purchasing center orchestra seats to the opening of a brand new musical comedy for that evening. Hours pass and you are running late, and are rushing through the streets. You arrive just in time to hear the orchestra begin to warm up and soon the lights dim, and the curtain, ever so slowly, begins to rise. As the actors appear on stage you notice something odd about the way they all look. Everyone on stage is dressed in overalls and straw hats, and all of their faces are smeared with black greasepaint. The actors speak and sing with offensive accents, making audience members uncontrollably laugh. You suddenly realize that the actors onstage are in blackface. You are appalled and immediately leave the theatre demanding your money back. Luckily, this type of …show more content…

Discrimination through Broadway casting is also evident in the award winning run of Disney’s “Aladdin” (Disney’s Aladdin). Aladdin is about a poor man who uses a magical genie to grant his every wish to fall in love with a princess. The show is set in a small Arabian town with many aspects of Middle Eastern culture including names, dialect, and a sultan ruled monarch system. With a huge influence from Middle Eastern culture, one would assume that the show would cast actors of Middle Eastern heritage, however, there are 34 people in the cast, none are of Middle Eastern descent (Arts In Color). A Middle Eastern Actor, who decided to stay anonymous for the sake of his career, stated that I am 100% for casting diversity, but when a story is about race, and about a specific ethnicity, I believe that ethnicity should at least be represented. I do understand that the pool of Middle Eastern actors in NYC is small in comparison to other ethnic groups. I am not suggesting that every actor cast in Aladdin should have been of Middle Eastern descent. I am merely

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