19 7 / 2017
Oh, wow. The discussion on the Aladdin casting is really something. Who are these people claiming the actress is not “brown enough”? This is wrong in so many ways.
Additionally, as shocking as it might seem to many Americans, who have their own homegrown race classifications, Arabs are white. They identify themselves as white. Many of them are as light skinned as Europeans.
In this context a half-Indian half-white actress is absolutely fine.
I liked this comment by teacakes, among the sea of the cringeworthy ones. She gets why the reverse-paperbag test is wrong.
teacakes says:
…. it’s all very well to talk about how this is a fictional country and any brown person will do, but the 1992 movie literally opened with a song called Arabian Nights. I’d say that’s a pretty strong hint about where in the world this story is set and the origins of the characters.
That said, the ‘not brown enough’ Internet racial purity paperbag test Naomi Scott is being subjected to following her casting, is gross. I’m Indian and I have friends of full Indian descent like me who are lighter skinned than her – one of them was my best friend from school, and Naomi actually looks a freakish lot like her when she smiles.
Colorism is real but I have to say it, it doesn’t give anyone the right to declare her not Indian. And neither does ethnic ambiguity – plenty of non-white Indians look like they could be from other places, it doesn’t make them not Indian. I really feel like this anger is being misdirected at this girl because everyone is more caught up in how she isn’t Indian enough, than in targeting Disney for their screwups) And don’t even get me started on the ridiculousness of people going off on Mena Massoud’s being Coptic – he’s still Arab, isn’t he? As Aladdin should be.