When the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee protested the lyrics, Disney removed the reference to cutting off ears in the home video version but left in the descriptor “barbaric.”
Why did Disney remove the reference but leave the descriptor? This still portrays the Middle East as being bad.
While these depictions were arguably silly and harmless, they flattened the differences among Middle Eastern cultures, while portraying the region as backwards and in need of civilizing by the West.
Why were these put in there to portray the culture?
After 9/11, a spate of films emerged that rehashed many of the old terrorist tropes.
Did 9/11 really make more films emerge, or did more people just pay closer attention?