250 word summary:

The release of the movie Aladdin had many criticisms and applause. In the Disney corporation, this movie was the biggest money maker. It brought a lot of success to the industry but gave bad stereotypes to the middle eastern countries. It described the arabian countries as violent and lacking freedom for women. During the times of this movie, the women still had little power in the hierarchy but the movie portrayed it as worse. The main character, Jasmine, was a strong princess. She was a pseudo-feminist, pseudo cross-cultural model and many young girls looked up to her. The movie had many accurate parts of the arabian culture but seemed to americanize some of the characters. Jasmine and aladdin had typical american facial features while the villains had typical arab features. This Disney movie definitely appealed to Americans and had little to no intentions on spreading across the world. There were hopes of this movie being a turning point in history for Arabs in America. After 9/11, many people were questioning “when will it be okay to be an Arab?” These stereotypes were hoping to be changed with this movie. The representation of the colonization of the middle east gave the audience the reassurance that Arabs were good. This disney movie had many critics saying that it didn’t provide a good representation of the arab culture and mocked it. They said that Disney took the authenticity of the culture away in the movie. 

150 character summary:

The Disney movie; Aladdin was americanized and gave an inaccurate representation of Arabian culture. Jasmine was a strong, determined model for all. 

Summary vs. paraphrasing reflection:

There are many similarities and differences between summarizing and paraphrasing. In general, summarizing is usually shorter and condensed while paraphrasing is typically the same length as the original text. Both summarizing and paraphrasing require you to read and understand the text in its entirety. Summarizing gives a general overview of the text without details. Paraphrasing still contains the details but uses synonyms or similar phrases as the original text.