#07 Edward Said that cartoons matter

This blog is going to be about orientalism and the depiction through the art of cartoon (yet again I know! What can I say, I like cartoons. And yes they do count as art -_-)  the perception of the enemy as Jewish transitioning to the enemy as a Muslim... and stuff.

The main place I got this idea from was in a University module where we all had to do presentations on Edward Said.

Here's a rundown of what Edward Said said. Said.                                                                                          In his book 'Orientalism' he defines the title as

"a constellation of false assumptions underlying Western attitudes toward the Middle East. This body of scholarship is marked by a 'subtly and persistent Eurocentric prejudice against Arabo-Islamic peoples and their culture"

Now this might not sound particularly interesting yet, and the book is clearly not written to amuse, buttt one of his ways in which he tries to justify his view in the contemporary age IS. Basically, Ed essentially tries to highlight the way Muslims (or Arabs, of whom many were Muslim) are stereotyped and therefore represented and for what reasons (e.g wars).

Now here's where it gets good for us. Ed-Said writes (best bits in bold):

"Yet after 1973 the Arab appeared everywhere as something more menacing. Cartoons depicting Arab Sheikhs standing behind a gasoline pump turned up consistently. These Arabs, however, were clearly "Semitic"; their sharply hooked noses, the evil moustachioed leer on their faces were obvious reminders (to a largely non-Semitic population) that "Semites" were at the bottom of all "our" troubles... The transference of a popular anti-Semitic animus from a Jewish to an Arab target was made smoothly, since the figure was essentially the same" (286).

He then goes on to explain other ways in which in his view, this racism of sorts, displays itself. We're going to focus on this wee bit about 'animus' though.
So about 10 secs after I wrote the above, I Google imaged "cartoon Semitic" and a lot of disturbing creepy anti-semitic etc things came up.

To illustrate the above point a little though, check this out:

Now I don't understand what that says, but clearly this is an anti-semitic cartoon as he (left) has blood on his hand and is shown in a bad light. HOWEVER

Sharply hooked nose? Check
Evil moustachioed leer? Check

This is obviously a caricature, but that's Eddy's point, that Jewish/Israeli people were characterised like that, as a wicked person with these stereotypical qualities. However, the second half of his point is that this stereotype was transferred to Muslims to then make THEM the wicked ones. Is there any truth to this though?

I don't know about you but THIS lovable rogue is who I thought of when I was thinking about that check-list

Yup, that's right. The evil Wizard in Aladdin.
So OK fair enough although it is known by many as traditionally an 'Arab folk tale' maybe the actual story has no NECESSARY links to Arabia and it was translated a lot and all over, but this is about REPRESENTATIONS. This is a representation by DISNEY of this character of whom they interpreted.

Right so here's the way I see it.
Hooked nose? Yes
Moustachioed Leer? yes
Guy liner and Scouse brow? for some reason yes, but not relevant.

He is clearly wearing a Turban also: Common of Arabs/Muslims in places as far as I know (and other religions and cultures) but not so of Jews.

And here's the clincher:
When Disney's Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio rewrote the screenplay, they "changed the setting from China, to a fictional Arabian city, Agrabah". 

So from my deductions (correct me if you disagree), the evil wizard in Aladdin is supposed to be an Arab, and he has all of the facial features associated with the evil cartoon Semite figure of the old days (according to Ed-Said anyway). We won't get bogged down by conspiracy theorising, and clearly neither Jewish nor Arab people should be portrayed as the bad guy, but this is simply to point out, as Ed does, the natural transition of evil guy from Semite (Jew) to Arab (Muslim), so easily.

What would be the significance of making the evil character Muslim (or even Jewish)? Does that make a character 'creepier'? 

-In this way, does anyone think this is a sort of brainwashing or conditioning, as it is a children's film? 

-Does Religion actually have anything to do with it, or is it simply the culture? Is it racism of some sort?