Thread by @stephenniem

The tension between the intensity of U.S. engagement with the Middle East militarily, economically, and politically and the average American's profound ignorance about the region's history and culture is neatly summed up in the architectural absurdity that is @disneyaladdin

I realize this may be difficult to even recognize. So here: imagine a film set in medieval Europe that had buildings that were a combination of Greek temples, Viking longhouses, Gothic cathedrals, and Swiss chalets. That's the level of architectural crazy going on in Aladdin.

Why does it matter, you might ask? It's just a kids' movie. But Aladdin is not just a kids' movie - it's the latest cultural manifestation of a 500-yr history that uses reductive imaginings of the M.E. to justify its conquest.

In the architecture of Aladdin we see the rich complexity of the M.E. reduced to a fantasy: simplified place, a backward place, a place that exists only for our visual pleasure. Said taught us this 40 years ago. It seems we still need to learn his lessons.
khanacademy.org/humanities/bec…

Visual representations matter, perhaps today more than ever. Whether in the form of art, social media, games, or film, visual culture has never been more central to our experience as human beings, and it powerfully reflects and reinforces how we see the world.

And at the very moment the U.S. teeters on the brink of another military engagement with #Iran, #Aladdin is a tragic missed opportunity to present the region’s rich complexity and diversity: to humanize a place that has been systematically dehumanized in the West for centuries.