11 Screwed-Up Messages From Disney Movies We Learned As Kids

Growing up makes watching most of the Disney movies you loved as a kid difficult, especially if you got a Liberal Arts degree. You start to see things that went way over your head as a kid, subliminal messages and recurring themes that you never picked up on. Disney movies are pretty fucked up — from pervasive racism to weird gender politics and Stockholm Syndrome bestiality. Loving Disney movies as an adult means coming to terms with what’s in them, the good and the bad,

Here’s 11 messages from Disney movies that you might not have picked up on when you were a kid.

1. Aladdin

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkiITQnrAYM&w=584&h=390]

“It’s barbaric/But hey, it’s home.” These lyrics from “Arabian Nights” let you know what you’re in for here. Aladdin shows you that you can be a “crazy Arab” or a “cool Arab,” and all the good brown people are the ones who look the most white. Aladdin and Jasmine look and speak like Mickey Mouseketeers while all the other less-sensible characters around them look like they’re in a Bob Hope vehicle. Aladdin looks just like every other Disney prince — a corn-fed Midwestern boy with a dashing smile — which is why he’s not a street rat but a diamond in the rough. He’s white.

If there were any doubt, compare Aladdin with the most “Arab-looking” Jafar, the obvious villain. He even has a twisty beard, forgodsakes.

Takeaway: If you’re Arab, just don’t rub it in our faces. Keep it to yourself.