Board Thread:Rant and Rave/@comment-34935885-20180308085918/@comment-1916997-20180309014846

Eskaver wrote: CoolDudeAl wrote:

Eskaver wrote: I wouldn’t use the word “Arab”. I believe Deniz was Turkish and Jafar version 1, version 2, were Indian and Iranian. Peter Gadiot is Mexican/Dutch.

Being upset over one representation missing is impractical. Plus, they lean on more European and more female above most others. Well, sure, but the characters themselves come from an Arab-like region (Agrabah), so would be that in show, regardless of the actor's ethnicities. I mean technically Mulan isn't Asian, because she is from FTL, and Asia doesn't exist there, just some fictional Empire that (presumably because they never actually took the time to show us) has far east Asian stylings. Not really. Arabic culture certainly did spread from Africa to India, but you can’t call all the people “Arab” simply did to the styling.

The actors’ ethnicities trump whatever you see the show imply when talking about POC representation.

If you are saying that they had the culture represented, I totally agree. But as for the ethnicities, not so much.

I give the writers a teeny bit of slack as they don’t cast and in a show about popular fairytales, one can blame Disney. (Or toxic commenters when they do have a POC Rapunzel.) If the land is Arab inspired, than the characters native to that region would be implied to be Arab inspired. The actors don't only have to pass as Arab. Not all the Frozen actors are of Nordic desent, even though Frozen is based on Norway, they just had to be white.