10 Disney Movies With Completely F*cked Up Morals

3. Aladdin - Swarthy People Are Bad

It seems like Disney and racism go together like a horse and carriage and like Pocahontas and Song of the South, Aladdin suffers from a serious case of whitewashing and prejudice.

Take the titular street urchin and his love interest Princess Jasmine. Not only are they basically a carbon copy of every other Disney couple except with slightly darker complexions, they also speak with American accents whereas the other citizens of Agrabah have thick, exaggerated non-Western accents (apart from Jafar, who has that evil British accent thing going on).

Accents aside (I mean, it’s not like the characters in France-set Disney films speak fluent French or anything), if you’re still not convinced Aladdin might be just a tad racist consider the original lyrics to the song Arabian Nights.

What is now heard as ‘where it’s flat and immense, and the heat is intense’ was originally ‘where they cut off your ear if they don’t like your face’ and only altered after the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee protested it. Strangely, Disney saw fit to retain the following line ‘it’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home’ so apparently it’s quite alright to imply the Middle East is still uncivilised and brutal so long as you omit any dismembering references.