Wise Text Response

Recently, I have read "Notes from the Aladdin Industry: Or, Middle Eastern Folklore in the Era of Multinational Capitalism," by Christopher Wise. In this piece, I really enjoyed that Wise chose not to focus on the countless racist implications given throughout the film. Instead, Wise explicitly states that "I will seek to demonstrate how the film functions as a symbolic resolution of the contradiction (for Westerners mainly, especially Americans) of the persistence of Islamic theocratic government in the era of former president George Bush's '[whole] new world order,'"(Wise 106). Now, that's a mouthful and a lot to take in. Basically, Wise wants to prove that Aladdin promotes freedom in a western sense and vilifies Islamic Law.

I particularly enjoyed this article because it created a new point of view that I previously did not have before. Honestly, I do not know much about Muslims or the Islamic culture. The only thing that I understood before reading this article is that Muslims are heavily misrepresented in the popular media. I did not know about Muslim culture or anything. As someone who has grown up in the United States surrounded by patriotism, I never stopped to wonder whether other countries had the same desires as the United States. Freedom, to me, had always been the ideal. In my head, I always had this image that Islamic people were oppressed by their government because they did not have the same freedoms that the people of the United States have. Then, I reached the point in the article that made it all clear to me: Islam is the Arabic word that signifies submission to the will of God.

As soon as I read this, I felt as though I had been in a darkness that was just illuminated. Islamic people do not want freedom the way that the people of the United States do. They do not value freedom as much as we do; instead, they wish to devote their lives to the will of God. The Islamic people are not oppressed, their laws are simply based off of their religion.

At this point, I finally realize how insensitive the government is for trying to force democracy on Muslims, who deem Western-style democracy as inappropriate for themselves (Wise 108). Even though democracy and freedom are seen as unfit for Muslims, the United States still continues to paint them as oppressed to the public and force its values on them. Now that I understand that most of Islamic Law is based off of belief and religion, I can see that the constant implications that their laws must be changed are, in a way, an attack on their religion.

In addition, Disney portrays the Middle East as a barbaric place where the hu-dud laws are always executed. For example, the punishment for being a thief would be to cut off the thief's hand. Disney does this to promote the Middle East as backward and culturally undeveloped, making the audience believe that the United States must intervene and impose itself. However, what Disney does not show is that these punishments have been rarely administered during recent times. Muslims do not always practice a literal interpretation of the Qur'an. Many places do not even carry out these laws that Disney presents as "barbaric" anymore.

Ultimately, I enjoyed reading Wise's text because it effectively opened my eyes to a new perspective in an educative, but also interesting, way.