“Fallen Princess” Jasmine Raises Questions About Stereotypes

by Latoya Peterson

When I first spotted this photo over at Jezebel, I didn’t know what to think.

Photographer/Artist Dina Goldstein created the “Fallen Princesses” series as a response to her children’s burgeoning interest in Disney. There are seven photos currently available, featuring Belle, Jasmine, Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Cinderella, and Snow White. The women are placed in a modern setting, so Rapunzel is shown with her braid around her feet after going through chemotherapy and Cinderella is shown drinking at a bar.

While I liked the idea behind the concept, I was brought up short when we got to Jasmine. Deviating from more gender-based themes, Jasmine is put squarely in a war zone, clutching an M-16 and rocking purple camo. While the commenters over at Jezebel cheered Jasmine’s competent and in control facial expression and the fact that the scene was not about her helpless, I found myself hesitating. Why did Jasmine’s story default to her racial background, and why was the idea of the modern day “Agrabah” assumed to be a conflict site?

Over at JPG, where the images originally appeared, the comments ranged from outright love to…well…

On 16 June 2009 What What said:

As a good muslim, Jasmine would have an AK47 and bombs strapped around her instead of bullets.

That was quick.

Another commenter at JPG notes:

On 17 June 2009 Drew Clayton said:

I came to see this because I’d heard rumors about a photo online showing Jasmine “as a terrorist.” Obviously, it was spread by people who had not seen the image themselves, or who do not have a grasp on conceptual thinking. She’s obviously fighting in a war zone, not wearing a suicide belt to the market. I’d look at this and say she’s being a good national leader protecting her war-torn country against malicious forces in person instead of sending soldiers out to die for her.

It’s fascinating that Jasmine’s interpretation is receiving such reviews. Readers, what are your thoughts?

(Thanks to reader Quincy for pointing this out!)

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Princess Fat-Shaming « Women’s Glib on 19 Jun 2009 at 5:34 pm

[...] 19, 2009 · Leave a Comment Via Latoya at Racialicious, I see a series of photographs by Dina Goldstein entitled “Fallen Princesses”. [...]
Dina Goldstein’s ‘Fallen Princesses’ Series. « Words By S. on 28 Oct 2009 at 6:53 am

[...] issues of Red’s obesity and Jasmine’s racial stereotyping have been brought up and flogged to death, so I will not discuss them at length here. I will, [...]

Comments

brendon wrote:

I was more surprised/offput by the hateful image of Little Red Riding Hood – perpetuating stereotypes of fat people as grotesques constantly shoving cheeseburgers down their gullets by the double-handful and washing them down with oversized soda pops.

As for the ‘contemporary issues’ these images serve to ‘address’ – the photographs are vaguely inarticulate about their signifiers – it took me a minute or so to parse that the Cinderella image was meant to address alcoholism rather than, uh– cowboys? The Snow White image seems to indicate that the contemporary issue is babies – very contemporary! Or maybe it’s inattentive fathers.

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 12:11 pm ¶
Tamara wrote:

To say this is a nitpick is a serious understatement, but I can’t help myself – Shes got a shortened magazine thats, what?, 10-15 rounds tops, seems to have no other ones, and her ammo is not only useless for the m-16 in a chain, but looks to be the wrong caliber as well, and not having your strap around your neck in the middle of action is really silly. (I *know* thats not the point of the photo, but if youre going to show a woman in combat, you might as well get it right. Sheesh.)

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 12:15 pm ¶
Wendi Muse wrote:

first questions that come to mind:
1) where is the original princess jasmine supposed to be from?

2) are those camo-print purple “harem” pants?!?!?!

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 12:20 pm ¶
troymccluresf wrote:

Who said anything about Agrabah?

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 12:22 pm ¶
Eric wrote:

Like a few other posters have said, the pictures taken as a collective seem lazy and fractious at best. Thematically, it’s all over the place. Cinderella = alcoholic… what? A modern day Little Red Riding Hood is overweight. Why? What about the original tale would suggest this? And Jasmine as a soldier in a generic Middle Eastern location sticks out like a sore stereotyping thumb. It’s not necessarily that she may or may not be portrayed as a terrorist, rather, I think it’s mildly offensive that her identifying quality is that she’s Middle Eastern, and that what you do in the Middle East is, well, fight. Because we all know that entire area is all the same, with no stability anywhere. You might as well portray Wulan in a school girl’s outfit, working on math problems in a class of a hundred other Chinese kids. Or Pocahontas as a drunk sitting in an Indian casino. At least that’d be more thematically consistent than Cinderella getting drunk with cowboys, which, frankly, I still don’t understand.

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 12:49 pm ¶
Kat wrote:

I don’t see anything wrong with it. I loved all the pictures.

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 12:58 pm ¶
A.D. Nix wrote:

As an artist and as a critic I am overwhelmed by the conceptual laziness. In the other images as well but here, really . . . It’s not like there isn’t something more to work with in Jasmine’s story. As much, if not more, than Sleeping Beauty or Snow White. Once again, nestled in a group of white characters, each allowed their own specificity, the POC is viable as . . . the POC. And that’s it.

She’s also the only one who is given some kind of (false) geographic specificity. Her story doesn’t just default to her ethnicity, it defaults to her “place” in a way that the others really do not.

And if there’s good to be found in her supposed lack of helplessness, I wonder how that works with the “fallen” narrative as well?

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 12:59 pm ¶
A.D. Nix wrote:

@ Eric
Don’t give anyone any ideas.

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 1:00 pm ¶
breaknthings wrote:

For me, Jasmine’s image was by far the most interesting one in the series. The narratives in the others suggested worn out reality TV tropes—Biggest Loser, Super Nanny, Celebrity Rehap, Extreme Makeover (not that issues of family, health, addiction, self image etc., as brendon suggested with Little Red Riding Hood, aren’t important). But Jasmine’s image represents something more global, less self involved. I don’t agree with the terrorist look. Jasmine has a fierceness that I imagine ANY women forced to defend her home from the unwelcomed and dangerous would have.

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 1:03 pm ¶
Mammith wrote:

I think there are multiple readings of this image, some problematic and some not.

I would agree that it seems off to put an image like this among the other fallen princess ones, because Jasmines race is bought to the fore rather than anything to do with gender (other than a woman in a combat situation, something typically thought to be male, but this seems to not be the problem here).

But then again, I’m not sure if this is a majority opinion or not but I look at this and see her more as a protector figure, a warrior for the people, rather than a terrorist or something. I think it’s her cool headed expression and her posture in the face of all the destruction around her.

It’s definatly stupid to go straight from middle east to war and crap, but in all honesty this could have been much worse (which isn’t much of a compliment for the artist, but what’re you gonna do?)

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 1:10 pm ¶
Tim Jones-Yelvington wrote:

I interpreted the Cinderella one as ‘lonely single lady’ as much as alcoholic….

I thought all of these relied upon some pretty tired cliches that were troubling from both gender and race-based perspectives.

The stuff identified as contemporary women’s issues — obesity (this one offended me as well), plastic surgery, childrearing, cancer, etc. seems pretty trite and many also seem like pretty white middle class-coded priorities.

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 1:11 pm ¶
Tamara wrote:

Jasmine of them all maybe works best for me as a commentray of original work (not well, but better than the others.) Disneys culturally appropriative Arabian Nights mirrored as American military exploitaion in the Mid East…or something. That dosen’t put aside the choice to use that aspect of Jasmine, and i’m not sure the movie really deserves the criticism, or that its just anyway (certainly not like this), but thats what I can dig out of it.

(Otherwise its an even more simplistic – and quite cruel -” Life in the middle east *sucks*. No room in the whole region for fairy tales. Disney made Aladdin – but they *lied*. Hah!”)

All i’m getting on Cinderella is some sort of class issue, and Belle-in-plastic-surgery ties in with the originals issues of appearance, but otherwise I find them even less compelling than Jasmine. (To say nothing of the other pictures…because I can’t come up with anything at all.)

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 1:19 pm ¶
Joy wrote:

Mulan, not Wulan

Umm, well this is at least something to think about: some of the other characters had “made up” lands while we could sort of get what area of the globe Jasmine (and the other POC princesses) was in.

I don’t know why this artist felt the need to do this anyway. Disney princess’ are not made to expose your child to reality. If that’s what you want, let them watch CNN. I bet she felt she was being so smart. There are lots of ways for your kids to get the point that the world is screwed without you jacking up fairy tales.

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 1:22 pm ¶
Mistress Scorpio wrote:

I thought the whole concept was lame. And yes, the Jasmine image stood out for me as a fallback on her skin color. I grudgingly wonder what she would have done with Princess Tiana.

I liked this guy’s re-imagining of the Disney princesses better. http://jeftoon01.deviantart.com/gallery/
Maybe because it doesn’t scream “I’m making a statement!”

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 1:42 pm ¶
Zahra wrote:

My first response: WTF is up with Jasmine’s cleavage?

Seriously, she’s wearing that much ammo & an off-the-shoulder shirt? Holy chafing, Batman! She forget the upper half of her shirt but she remembered to pack a push-up bra? Are we sure that the serious look on her face isn’t actually pain from the underwires?

Other people have described better how the photo defaults Jasmine’s identity to race (as opposed to, say, depicting her struggling with an eating disorder in an effort to achieve a cartoon waist) and reinforces a host of nasty stereotypes about the Middle East and violence.

I agree that I found the entire series (w/ the possible exception of the cancer one) lazy and tired in a postfeminist way. It’s unclear exactly what the photographer is trying to say, why she picked these “topics,” and how or if any of these images are critiquing the original source text or Disney. Some of them (RRH & Belle) seem to shade into outright misogyny.

RRH’s inclusion puzzled me a bit because she isn’t actually a princess or a Disney heroine. She & the hunter who saves here are ordinary working-class people. The artist’s take seems pretty classist.

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 1:49 pm ¶
Zahra wrote:

@Mistress Scorpio

I have to say I didn’t really get the zombie/vampire take on Jasmine, Pocohontas et al. either. I was really thrown by the prominence of the tiger in that image–why is there a tiger in the Middle East?–but then a vague memory of that being in the Disney film kicked in.

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 1:58 pm ¶
A.D. Nix wrote:

@ Joy
Jasmine’s Agrabah is just as made up as any of the other mythical magical kingdoms. And all of the other made-up places from which Goldstein’s characters come are well situated in a mythical (probably Western) Europe save ‘Beauty and the Beast’ which I’d argue is pretty French (”Belle” “Gaston” the candelabra/stick with the French accent).

@ Zahra: Good point re: classism.

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 2:00 pm ¶
Jehanzeb wrote:

This bothers me a lot. It actually reminds me of Dust, the female Muslim X-Men character that I wrote about in my essays on Muslim women in comic books. Dust is from Afghanistan and seen fighting off the Taliban, but nowhere is she seen fighting the U.S. military occupation in Afghanistan because that’s not how the western non-Muslim writers want to portray her. A good Muslim is one who fights against the common enemy of the United States, i.e. the “terrorists,” Al-Qaida/Taliban, and random bearded militants.

This picture of Jasmine is supposed to empowering? The Western artists/photograph is placing Jasmine in a conflict setting most likely because she thinks Muslim women are “so oppressed” in Muslim countries. Yeah, let’s show Muslim women kick butt and fight back against the “oppressive Muslim world.”

This is insulting because stereotypes are embedded in this photograph. It also shows how politics has been woven into Muslim life. Muslims are SICK AND TIRED of seeing themselves associated with terrorism, war, and violence all the time. Not every Muslim country is being bombed and not every Muslim women is oppressed. So many times, we fall victim to the Western Gaze, which sees us the way it *wants* to instead of for who we *are*.

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 2:02 pm ¶
Joseph wrote:

::pinching bridge of nose::

So much to say, so little time today. So:

@A.D. Nix
As an artist and as a critic I am overwhelmed by the conceptual laziness. In the other images as well but here, really . . . It’s not like there isn’t something more to work with in Jasmine’s story. As much, if not more, than Sleeping Beauty or Snow White. Once again, nestled in a group of white characters, each allowed their own specificity, the POC is viable as . . . the POC. And that’s it.

Ditto. And Cosign.

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 2:07 pm ¶
ElleDee wrote:

I have to agree with most here. Lazy, lazy, lazy and Jasmine is the most interesting one of the bunch.

But yeah, how is she “fallen”? She seems totally in control and kicking ass, which Jasmine in the movie longed to do. Unless she somehow personally caused the war zone behind her, you believe that she is doing what she thinks is right. That doesn’t begin to touch the race issues, but at least she looks badass.

Also, Belle is the Disney princess the least likely to get plastic surgery. If anything her beauty was annoying to her because she had lame dudes pawing all over her constantly and she hated that, so it just doesn’t make sense. Compare that to Snow White, whose domestic prison is a natural unhappy ending.

And more laziness: since when was little red riding hood a princess with her own Disney movie?

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 2:15 pm ¶
BlackIvy wrote:

Re Jasmine as uniquely evoking race:

I actually think te Jasmine image is the most coherent because it directly relates to who she was as a character. A big part of her image had to do with her ethnicity — like it or not — and her “appearance” isn’t drawn on any more or less than say Rapunzel who is reduced to her hair. All disney characters are defined by their physiognomy — Jasmine just happens to be middle eastern. I dare you to describe her yourself without resorting to race. Just as Rapunzel is the long haired one and Red Riding hood is the one in a Red Riding hood and Belle is associated with beauty (hence the name) and snow white was somewhat domestic (picking up after those dwarfs) Jasmine is the middle eastern princess.

Furthermore, Jasmine was rebellious, ignored authority, and was adventurous. All of these things make the image of her as a soldier fitting to me. Now, I most certainly dont see her as a terrorist — especially since she is wearing military fatigues. Rather, I think the image does a fair job of evoking the irony/hypocrisy of the Disney character. After all, what are the real issues facing middle eastern women? Certainly not whether you should get on a magic carpet ride with the imp from the slums

Just like (some of) the other characters use the key aspects of the disney character to evoke contemporary issues that are more authentic to women, Jasmine does the same.

The images that really fail are Cinderella/Sleeping beauty — neither of which I really get. I guess Sleeping Beauty could have something to do with the notion that we shouldn’t wait for our prince to come because if we do we’ll be waiting till we’re in the grave but thats a stretch.

ALso, though red riding hood isn’t exactly related I feel its fair to use her as a commentary on gluttony since she is associated with that basket of food — even if its not the most powerful analogy. Again, a lot of these are weak, but I dont find any of them offensive. And I think Jasmines was definitely the best.

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 2:28 pm ¶
Kari wrote:

According to this Wikepedia article, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aladdin
, the arabic folk story that Disney’s Aladdin is based on was actually set in what is now China, possibly in the western region of China (Xinjian) where the Uighur prisoners that were in Guantanamo are from. So, modern day “Jasmine” would have likely been Muslim, but not Middle Eastern. And she may have been labeled a terrorist by the People’s Republic of China.

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 2:50 pm ¶
Eric wrote:

@ BlackIvy

You say, “I dare you to describe her (Jasmine) yourself without resorting to race.” And also say, “Furthermore, Jasmine was rebellious, ignored authority, and was adventurous.” I think you just did it yourself, right?

But that’s a minor thing. It’s not really that her skin color/race is highlighted, though it is troublesome on some other levels, its that it’s a lazy way of portraying her. It’s very much like seeing a brown girl of Middle Eastern descent, and thinking, what does the Middle East have a lot of? War! Fighting! Deserts! I think it’s particularly lazy to so easily link the two. Whereas the other princesses are allowed to be defined by characteristics that are separate of their physical features, Jasmine is definitely not allowed that privilege.

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 2:57 pm ¶
Tamara wrote:

@blackivy –

“After all, what are the real issues facing middle eastern women? Certainly not whether you should get on a magic carpet ride with the imp from the slums”

– But they’re not where you’re going to get ammo that will work with that gun either. The vast, vast majority of middle eastern women are not in the middle of a war zone, and those that are are rarely relating to it like that.

“All disney characters are defined by their physiognomy — Jasmine just happens to be middle eastern. ”

- All other disney princesses have a race too. And Jasmine has other issues as a character – yes, even in the original disney! – that have no particular relation to her middle easternishness. In choosing a way of seeing Jas, the artist chose to see ethnicity foremost, in a way she didn’t with anyone else. Belle could have been wearing a beret and reading Sartre while Rapunzel deliberated whether to vote for the EU constitution.

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 3:02 pm ¶
fruitoftheloon wrote:

I feel like it’s hard to judge the Jasmine picture objectively because it comes at the end of all the other pictures. You have a series of images of depressed women, beaten-down by life, surrounded by tired, dull backgrounds, and then suddenly you have a strong, capable-looking Jasmine against a comparatively bright backdrop. Is the picture problematic? Yes, it is. But it’s also not as angsty as the others, which I think people are reacting to.

Having said that, I find the whole thing lazy and poorly-executed. While I appreciate interrogating Disney movies, I think that the artist forced her own interpretation onto the stories, and focused on the details she wanted to, rather than the more obvious themes within the fairy tales. Why is the focus on Rapunzel losing her long hair, rather than being locked in a tower and kept chaste until she finds her man? Why is the focus on Red Riding Hood gaining weight, rather than the themes of sexuality and the consumption of the female body? Why does the artist look at the movie Aladdin and see war, or terrorism, or whatever the hell that picture’s suppose to be? Wouldn’t the more natural critique involve Disney’s commodification and fetishization of an imagined ‘orient’? Or what about discussing how in many cases, marrying non-royalty means giving up one’s title, and how Jasmine would have to deal with a change in social class? It doesn’t help that the artist can’t seem to decide if she’s using Disney princesses or fairy tales in general, i.e. Rapunzel and RRH.

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 3:22 pm ¶
Eva wrote:

I don’t get why Belle was getting plastic surgery. Snow White I could see; Sleeping Beauty was, I guess supposed to be sad, that she never woke up. Why was Red Riding Hood overweight and eating? Jasmine didn’t make sense either.

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 3:24 pm ¶
Eric wrote:

@ fruitoftheloon

Exactly. Agree with every single written word. There’s a LOT of material to be mined in dissecting Disney’s approach to their princess movies, and the artist’s approach, in contrast, seems so superficial.

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 3:34 pm ¶
Safiya Outlines wrote:

Common Arab stereotypes usually fall under the three B’s: Bombers, Billionaires and Belly Dancers. The Princess Jasmine pic falls a little too much into category number one for comfort.

A more accurate and positive updating of her would be as a Queen Rania type figure, polished, but working to make a difference.

I found the little Red Riding Hood photo, with it’s title “Not so little Red Riding Hood” to be snide, size-ist sneering and really rather offensive.

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 3:44 pm ¶
Tracey wrote:

I have so many problems with that image and even the things I like about it are problematic. The facial expression is great but the picture itself can be seen as racialized, and she is depicted as sexualized and as Tamara pointed out incompetant (didn’t notice the magazine but yeah, wearing the sholder strap is pretty 101 not to mention purple camo in a war zone. Someone supposedly in control who did not have access to desert diggies would have at least worn subdued colors).
Though I will say that at first glance I liked the Belle picture. Maybe it’s just me but I noticed she has a black eye in the photo which made me originally think that it is not plastic surgery she was getting, but reconstructive surgery. In the movie her relationship with the Beast was very abusive and the whole premise was her staying with the abusive guy in hopes of changing him. So yeah, she would probally be needing lots of reconstructive surgery if she stayed with a controlling, abusive, hot tempered person willing to starve her if she didin’t eat with him. Then I noticed the collagen injection. Wohoo, I get that she was defined by her beauty but the artist could have did more. I see where the lazy accusations are coming from.

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 3:50 pm ¶
Rob Schmidt wrote:

I don’t mind Jasmine as a freedom fighter. She lived in Baghdad, right? Isn’t the war on Iraq still the primary story there?

Sleeping Beauty sleeps on as everyone around her grows old. Cinderella is some sort of lonely working stiff.

Here are some suggestions for new and improved photos. Note: These are my impressions of what Dina Goldstein would do, not what I would do.

Cinderella should be the one with the babies. Even when she marries Prince Charming, her life is still the drudge-work of caring for others.

Little Red Riding Hood curls up in bed with the Wolf–because women become sexually active when they’re “not so little.”

Belle is a bespectacled scientist in a lab coat.

Mulan marches in military formation to honor Mao’s Communist ideals.

And yes, Pocahontas deals blackjack in a casino.

P.S. I know these images are stereotypical. But I’m guessing Goldstein would go for them because her theme is pretty simple–if not simplistic. Namely, what would happen if Disney characters existed in the real world?

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 3:57 pm ¶
Rob Schmidt wrote:

Oh, and Princess Tiana (nee Maddy) would be a chambermaid–as Disney originally envisioned her–or a Katrina victim in New Orleans.

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 4:07 pm ¶
Kaonashi wrote:

Only the Rapunzel and Snow White images are clever and give food for thought; the rest of the images seem like the artist took the easy way out and as a results the end product is uninspired and not as strong as it should be. Which is a shame, because this had the potential to be really, really good had she thought it out a little more.

While acknowledging the problematic aspects of the Jasmine portrayal, it’s the only one that accentuates strength and determination instead of weakness. Instead of succumbing to her surroundings she stands bold and defiant, and that really doesn’t fit the theme of the earlier images. She’s not a Fallen Princess, she’s a triumphant one.

If the other women were portrayed as equally strong (ie: Rapunzel walking out of a salon with a snazzy short cut [leaving a confused stylist in her wake holding the hair]; Snow White going out for a night on the town leaving the Prince with the kids; Red Riding Wolf kicking a pervert in the nuts on te subway, etc) the Jasmine image would work much better.

Wouldn’t the more natural critique involve Disney’s commodification and fetishization of an imagined ‘orient’? Or what about discussing how in many cases, marrying non-royalty means giving up one’s title, and how Jasmine would have to deal with a change in social class?

…or a critique involving the perceptions of Muslims in this country after 9/11?

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 4:18 pm ¶
Jehanzeb wrote:

Rob,

“I don’t mind Jasmine as a freedom fighter. She lived in Baghdad, right? Isn’t the war on Iraq still the primary story there?”

There’s a lot more to Iraq than just war. And no, Jasmine didn’t live in Baghdad. In the Disney cartoon, she was set in a fictitious country called “Agrabah” Remember that song in the beginning? “It’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home?”

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 4:28 pm ¶
BlackIvy wrote:

At the end of a day, someones race IS a significant part of their person hood. If you described me without mentioning I was black I would think you were insane and probably somewhat uncomfortable about race/racist. I just dont see how you can have a problem with Jasmine and not be mad that Rapunzel is reduced to her hair . Different doesn’t always mean bad and noticing differences isn’t a negative thing. Sure I can describe other aspects of her personality, but those aspects ARE represented in the image. Plus, the most significant part of her princess-ness was that she was an Arabian princess — just like Rapunzel was interesting because of her hair, beauty was known for being beautiful, and snow white was notable for being a sweet “good” caregiver. The artist plays on each of these tropes in her images.

They could have had her all covered up in a Burka but you would probably find that offensive too (as I probably would because the image would likely disparage cultural practice which, if conducted freely as a personal choice, is perfectly valid.) Alternatively she could have been a teacher or something to highlight the struggle for equal access to education. But would that be as salient? At the end of the day the audience for these images is western and to us, war/political instability and religion are two of the strongest issues the middle east evokes. I do not think one can be blamed for wanting to play on this. Subtler messages would be lost and the juxtaposition would lose meaning.

The point of the images is to be ironic — not to endorse an alternative situation. The “artist” wanted to play on oversimplified cliches of female characters and juxtapose them with real life scenarios women face (which in themselves have become cliche– tired house wife, surgery obsessed woman, fat slob). As stereotypical as the image may be it is certainly more “authentic” than the one presented to us by Disney.

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 4:30 pm ¶
BlackIvy wrote:

@ Kaonash

I like your re-imagining of all the scenes.

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 4:31 pm ¶
BlackIvy wrote:

BTW, I totally get how its unfair that minorities are often not allowed to be anything more than base stereotypes, believe me, but I just dont think that this simplistic attempt at artistic irony has room for that kind of nuance. I think here the point was that she was juxtaposing various tropes. If she were just reimagining the women without any pattern this would be problematic (ie red riding hood.) But clearly there is a pattern among most of the images — she who has the longest hair looses it (irony), she who is saved from taking care of dwarfs has to take care of her prince and screaming brats (irony), she who is beautiful goes for plastic surgery (irony) she who is pictured as an oriental sexual fantasy is re imagined as a Warrior (irony.) Its not perfect but I get it.

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 4:36 pm ¶
Rob Schmidt wrote:

Okay, “Aladdin” was set in a fictional city. But many stories in “One Thousand and One Nights,” on which “Aladdin” was loosely based, took place in Baghdad or Iraq. We associate Aladdin with these places regardless of where the Disney film was set.

I’m sure many things are happening in Iraq today. But Goldstein was going for an easily recognizable, headline sort of image. To me that suggests the war, not a supermarket opening or an art gallery exhibit.

I Googled “Iraq news” and most of the hits were about the war. But it’s true the first item was about a soccer game. Does Jasmine the Arab soccer player resonate as much as Jasmine the Arab freedom fighter? I don’t think so.

Incidentally, I like Kaonashi’s list of images. They’re stronger and more provocative than the images Goldstein chose. They make a much clearer statement about modern women vs. traditional princesses and fairy-tale characters.

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 4:56 pm ¶
Seattle Slim wrote:

Not sure what I think yet. I see both sides. I am not sure if I am not offended or offended. Technically it is steeped in some kind of reality, but is not efficiently conveying it.

I liked the pictures. Rapunzel’s was very powerful. Saddening as I had a relative die of cancer. Sleeping Beauty’s was sobering. Little Red’s sucked (I would’ve done better), I didn’t bother to see Snow White’s because I think it could’ve been better.

Cinderella is my favorite. I don’t see alcoholism or anything like that. I see that she had this perfect idea of what life as a princess, and wife would be, and it didn’t turn out that way. I see a woman, based on my knowledge about how these princesses and princes, kings and queens of Europe really lived (terribly), who is at the bar drinking her sorrows away because her prince chose to visit one of his bazillion mistresses or left her alone. I see a woman whose saddened at how her life utterly went the wrong way, saddened that her fairy godmother couldn’t save her; I see regret. I also see someone who might leave with one of those cowboys just so he can make her feel better, but will end up regretting it more.

It’s in the eye of the beholder *shrug*

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 5:01 pm ¶
Seattle Slim wrote:

A lot of the reimagining ideas are awesome. I would say for me Little Red Riding hood would be wearing red pleather, prurient and actually waiting for the wolf to violate him. That’s what I would’ve gone for.

Beauty could’ve turned into this horrible hag, whose looks fade while the prince, who was once beast, is saddened and disgusted at his lot because she is no longer beautiful. So now she is difficult to live with and aloof like he was at the very beginning before he transformed.

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 5:09 pm ¶
Sadface wrote:

I’m sure many things are happening in Iraq today. But Goldstein was going for an easily recognizable, headline sort of image. To me that suggests the war, not a supermarket opening or an art gallery exhibit.

She probably did go for something like that, and this betrays a double standard indeed. The other ladies’ “headlines” would be found in gossip rags: She gets plastic surgery! She has an alcohol problem! She’s fat! There’s a shift in tone for the Jasmine piece. Without a doubt, the other princesses don’t look “exotic” and can therefore stand for various issues and problems “at home”. For Jasmine, the artist grabs at the first thing she knows about the Middle East. Apparantly, Jasmine’s different culture and skin colour is something that makes it impossible for her to embody any of the common issues that can be easily observed in any western country, or anywhere else, that the other ladies get to represent.

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 5:26 pm ¶
Eric wrote:

@ BlackIvy

I see what you’re getting at, especially when you lay out the ironies of the other photographs. I did not look at it in that way previously, and in your light, a number of the pictures make much more sense as a collective. And I do take your point about these characters being easily reduced stereotypes to begin with.

However, while there may be irony (intended or not) in the other pictures, I still wonder if Jasmine’s picture is thematically and tonally consistent with the rest of the pictures. Is it ironic in the same way the other pictures are? The characteristics that handicap the other princesses in the contemporary world serves as a virtue for Jasmine today. Even if it is meant to be ironic, it isn’t consistent. As other posters have mentioned, the repeated mantra of “fallen princesses” depicted in harsh, unforgiving situations for the other six pictures is in stark contrast to the uplifting, heavily idealized Western view of a Middle Eastern woman. They’re clearly not all the same.

I know I’m kind of splitting hairs. But the devil is in the details. By the very act of changing the tonal makeup of the one photograph featuring the only POC, the artist (whether she did it intentionally or not) ends up “otherizing” the only minority.

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 5:44 pm ¶
Titanis walleri wrote:

“why is there a tiger in the Middle East?”
A look on Wikipedia seems to show that tigers once lived in part of the Middle East.

Not to mention Jasmine’s father clearly had the means to import one from further afield…

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 6:09 pm ¶
Kaonashi wrote:

In a sense, it was a bad choice to use Jasmine in the first place for this series. Unlike the others, she (like Mulan) is a very strong princess; very self-determined and in charge of her own path.

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 6:17 pm ¶
octogalore wrote:

The whole thing seems lazy, forced, and trying too hard to be topical and edgy, in the vacuous way of an America’s Next Top Model photo shoot. But credit to ANTM, it’s not pretending to be profound, only to create attractive images.

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 6:37 pm ¶
tr wrote:

I found the Jasmine pic very problematic for different reasons. If she were “fallen” her castle would have been destroyed and she would have been taken prisoner, but she is fighting, so it seems like the artist is saying that she is fallen because she is “fighting”, is she fight the US or terrorism or what? (i’m confused)

Secondly I had a question about Belle. Is she getting plastic surgery or is she a victim of domestic violence? I get the plastic surgery vibe but only after it was mentioned in the comments, on initial look it said DV and therefore I thought that pic was the most true to the story and the most relevant. The Beast was abusive and if there wasn’t a happily ever after the abuse would have continued. There is a documentary that discusses how disney films affect how little girls think about things and beauty and the beast is heavily talked about.

I think the pics could have been very successful (and maybe will be and I guess are somewhat if we are discussing them) but I think they should have been more carefully done, ie less racial ethnic conotations and more relevant topics based on the disney movies themselves.

Despite it all I am really glad it is being discussed because I saw it over at Jezebel, andI was frustrated with the commentary over there….

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 6:45 pm ¶
RCHOUDH wrote:

I too find the Jasmine’s “Fallen Princess” image to be confusing and problematic. The other princess images I got the gist of and they all revolved around depressing realities of modern day women’s lives. I’d like to say that while I understand everyone’s reservations about having Jasmine’s ethnic status dictate her image, I think the same can be said for the other princesses’ images. The realities that the other women face (plastic surgery, obesity, alcoholism, balancing work/family, radiation therapy) are all problems prevalent in Western society. Being white and of higher class backgrounds, the other princesses are also being used to depict problems and issues unique to women of their racial/ethnic backgrounds. So Jasmine isn’t really the only princess whose race/ethnicity is being used to depict problems associated with her identity.
The main problem I have with Jasmine’s image is that it’s a tired image associated with Muslims/Middle Easterners. Perhaps a more interesting image that could relate to her background is that of her and Aladdin being racially/religiously profiled at airports (I know you might be thinking what about the magic carpet, but hey we’re talking about reality here ok?) The irony behind that image would be that Jasmine married to escape her prison palace, only to be prevented from travelling around the world due to being suspected of being a terrorist. This is a reality more fitting to the thousands of Muslims around the world every year who have found it harder to travel to the West for work or leisure due to coming under constant suspicion.

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 7:24 pm ¶
RCHOUDH wrote:

I’d just like to add that by my depiction of Jasmine would be more in line with the other princess depictions, because her inability to travel freely is a common reality to many Muslims; living in a war zone however is not a common reality because only specific Muslim countries are unfortunately experiencing that.

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 7:28 pm ¶
EGhead wrote:

Really, Seattle Slim? Waiting for the Wolf to ‘violate’ her? Go to hell.

But, anyway, yeah… I was completely surprised that so many people liked these pictures. Or, if they did criticize the series it was the Little Red Riding Hood picture. The Jasmine one plays on so many pernicious stereotypes… how can people NOT see the racism?

Mod Note – Don’t tell people to go to hell. It’s rude. And I believe Slim was referring to the original Grimm’s fairy tale, where the Wolf *did* sexually violate LRRH at the end of the original story. Yes it’s sick. But she didn’t make that up out of nowhere. – LDP

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 7:56 pm ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:

oh, more info on little red –

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Red_Riding_Hood

I clearly recall being horrified at the version I read, which was in a collection of fairy tales that included a guy selling his soul to the devil.

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 8:49 pm ¶
yoruba wrote:

I think she should have gone for a picture of Jasmine having her ear cut off by a bunch of thugs who didn’t happen to like her face, as the song from the movie goes.

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 10:05 pm ¶
snickerdoodle wrote:

I don’t deny that there are some potentially problematic dimensions to this photograph, but isn’t it possible that we could also read this as a critique of the fact that the United States is waging an illegitimate war in Iraq? This would have to be premised on the fact that many of the stories from Arabian Nights were set in Iraq, so perhaps there is a bit of a faulty leap there, but still. This would also explain how we can read this as “fallen.” Yes, she is a fierce fighter (not fallen) but her home is being torn apart by an Imperial power who invaded on false premises (fallen).

In this sense, too, can we not read her identity “defaulting” to her ethnicity and place as a source of pride rather than something demeaning? Arabian Nights itself is rich with a sense of place, the settings being an integral part of the stories.

If the photographer had decided to make no recourse to ethnicity or place at all, and had focused on, for example, Jasmine’s rebelliousness, a whole other slew of criticism would have erupted with claims of her ethnicity and place being “elided” and “effaced.”

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 11:12 pm ¶
Lxy wrote:

This Jasmine character obviously reflects America’s War of Terror propaganda, which has become a US nationalist religion since 9-11.

Even so-called innocuous things like pop culture are not immune from American “terrorganda.”

As for Dina Goldstein being “inspired by Disney,” the Walt Disney media behometh has always reflected American values–though not necessarily in the benevolent way most people believe.

Meanwhile back in reality, the American Empire continues to murder people throughout the world (Muslim and non-Muslim) in its crusade to “fight evil-doers who hate our freedoms.”

Posted 19 Jun 2009 at 11:57 pm ¶
Kaonashi wrote:

In the Grimm version, NONE of them had a happy ending. Then again, fairy tales were originally not for children; they were cautionary tales.

Posted 20 Jun 2009 at 1:28 am ¶
little mixed girl wrote:

when i saw these pics on another forum, i thought the jasmine one was just playing on stereotypes of the middle east.
interesting pic, but not very comfortable.

Posted 20 Jun 2009 at 7:33 am ¶
Alston Adams wrote:

@Kaonashi #32: As a cancer patient myself (who may be in remission, we’ll see next month), I have to say that the Rapunzel image resonated with me. I once had longer hair (dreads), which were taken from me by chemotherapy. On the surface, yes, it appears to be a position of weakness. But anyone that can go through that hell and make it on the other side has a strength that others simply do not realize.

As for the Jasmine pic, it seems like a cheap Photoshopping job to me. Technically speaking, it seems weak. Thematically, it is obviously a charged image simply because of her race. Don’t forget that her race has a huge part of her identity, particularly when viewed through the Western lens. It only makes sense that we would see her that way (not that it’s right).

For those that wonder why there are no positive images here, I would say that it is because that is the point: real life stories don’t usually have fairy-tale endings, which is why (Tamara #24) you won’t see anyone voting on the EU constitution in this series. Perhaps in another series.

Is the artist talking more about the Disney princesses, or the original works?

Posted 20 Jun 2009 at 8:57 am ¶
brownskinlady wrote:

Yeah… about this. Um, I don’t like it. I do like the idea of reinterpreting the heroines in the Disney Princess and western fairy tale genre–but as other comments have said, this is lazy, poorly conceptualised and just as problematic as where the images of these women first came from.

At first I gave Goldstein more credit than she deserved. I assumed that maybe she was writing the rest of the story Disney and fairy tales left unsaid but meant to imply through these female caricatures–that ‘Princess Jasmine’ in her Orientalised beauty can just as easily be coded as fallen if she were a freedom fighter, that Beauty is lovely by birth but would be fallen if she used plastic surgery, etc. I guess I thought Goldstein was spelling out, and thus critiquing, the dichotomies of femininity that Disney relies on by showing their ‘fallen alter egos’.

BUT, upon reading this interpretation from Goldstein on her work, I did a total 180: “I began to imagine Disney’s perfect Princesses juxtaposed with real issues that were affecting women around me, such as illness, addiction and self-image issues.” So clearly, what is going on here is that these caricaturised and cliched stories are supposed to be representative of ‘real issues’ Goldstein identifies with women–not be a critique of issues that are associated with women. Sorry, but fail. Goldstein just manages to juxtapose cliched stories with cliched problems that emanate from the broader stereotyped images of women that already exist. I think Tim (comment #11) got it right–that these are white and middle class coded interpretations of women’s issues, leading to the obligatory image of woman of colour that ends up using her race to justify her being a militant. Because clearly brown women can only exhibit agency through violence…

Yeah, so this really makes me mad. Mostly because I think there is much more potential for better art than these images. Maybe I’ll have to design something myself–I would absolutely encourage some of the ideas that are in the comments. Way better than this crap.

Posted 20 Jun 2009 at 9:47 am ¶
jvansteppes wrote:

I wonder if Goldstein is aware of the traditional gendered connotations of the word ‘fallen’, or if she picked that title at random. ‘Fallen women’ is a traditional euphemistic term for sex workers, one that is loaded with moralistic meaning. To be a prostitute is to have ‘fallen’ from one’s moral standpoint. (Morality is, of course, tied into class, race and sexuality; we can’t fall very far when we’re already socially devalued etc).
I expected to see a picture of a princess in a brothel.

As others have pointed out here, Disney could be deconstructed in dozens of better ways.

Posted 20 Jun 2009 at 12:09 pm ¶
brownskinlady wrote:

I also find it problematic to see a lot of comments suggesting that this picture is a zero-sum way of addressing Jasmine’s ethnicity, like this it was either Goldstein create this image or to depict Jasmine ‘without race’, with the implication that we should be happy Goldstein has identified Jasmine’s race/ethnicity at all. Comments along these lines are unhelpful because they shut down critiques of stereotypical portrayals by implying Goldstein’s picture isthe ONLY way to understand Jasmine’s racial politics–and that’s just straight up not true.

None of the comments that call this image a stereotype have assumed Goldstein should have avoided Jasmine’s race altogether–I think they are arguing that Jasmine’s racial identity requires a more complicated picture that what was created here, which is NOT the only way to portray Jasmine’s identity and its intersection with her race/ethnicity. For instance, RCHOUDH (#46) suggested using the backdrop of an airport, where Jasmine has been racially profiled and misperceived as a danger. This conveys a very different politicised image of Jasmine that is not the same as avoiding or neglecting her race. It is more nuanced, innovative, and sensitive to understandings of how race intersects with the ‘real issues’ Goldstein wanted to convey.

Posted 20 Jun 2009 at 12:46 pm ¶
sandeep wrote:

good spot.

she’s left grasping for straws and resorts to current events to fill in the gap of herknowledge. whereas the others seem instantly relatable to the artist. she can put them in more erlatable circumstances. perhaps because for the artist its perhaps implausible to imagine a south-asian woman as most likely being an american, more likely being from “somewhere else” – perhaps distant lands where some unknown and perhaps overwhelmingly so conflict rages on.

really it just highlights the way she can’t possibly imagine a dark skinned south asian being her neighbor, that her first association in her mind when she thinks south asian is = warzone. her loss, the world isn’t quite so black and white.

Posted 20 Jun 2009 at 1:02 pm ¶
anna wrote:

Belle is getting an eye lift. The black eye is because they’ve already started cutting her. And you can see the marker outline on her other eye to indicate where the scalpel cuts should be.

Posted 20 Jun 2009 at 1:06 pm ¶
anna wrote:

The more I think about it, the more the Belle one works for me.

Beast was supposed to be enchanted, not because he was abusive, but because he was unkind. That’s the beastly attribute that gives him his look.

And Belle was beautiful, but as a happenstance. She wasn’t overly concerned with that fact – she looked down on Gaston because he only wanted her for her beauty. And the Beast she loves isn’t unkind, just angry and isolated. He has all the manners and equipment of a noble man, just not the appearance.

Belle is the beauty, not because of her looks, but because of her heart. She’s the one that asks for roses instead of expensive gifts, and she can see beyond the appearance, and treat the prince well.

If Belle is supposed to be fallen, then I think the plastic surgery one works, because she’s abandoning the thing that made her the beauty. It would have worked even more if they showed Beast paying for it.

I didn’t like the others though, and I totally agree with the comments about Jasmine’s tactical gear. What’s the point of wearing camo if you’re going to top it with a shiny crown? It might as well be a mirror for as much light as it reflects.

For her, fallen might have been that she’s selling out her people, like exploiting them in factories or stealing their land. I don’t see how fighting to defend your own land is being fallen.

Rapunzel doesn’t work for me. She’s not seen as fallen because of any general illness, but because of the specific illness whose treatment causes hair loss. But in the story, her hair loss was a form of entrapment: it consigns her to the tower, and prevents the prince from seeing her. Here, it’s liberation – she’s not dying from the cancer. She’s fighting it, and the hair loss is a casualty of the fight.

Fallen here would be that her hair entraps her again. So maybe she refuses the chemo because of her hair. Or she’s shown spending so much time on her hair that she misses the world around her.

Actually, most of these don’t work for me, except maybe Belle.

Posted 20 Jun 2009 at 1:39 pm ¶
Jehanzeb wrote:

@ brownskinlady

Cosign, I completely agree with you. If you ever design something, I would Love to see it

Posted 20 Jun 2009 at 1:39 pm ¶
Joseph wrote:

I didn’t have time to write a proper response when this first went up, which is why I simply cosigned AD Nix, who said exactly what I was thinking. But I want to expand my original thought in light of Snickerdoodle’s comment (#51).

I have often argued in favor of giving artists a lot of room when it comes to racial and ethnic representations (as in the thread about Vanessa Beecroft’s work) so I don’t want to give the impression that I am only offended when such representations touch on my ethnic background. What I am usually encouraging is an analysis of what a particular artwork is doing and not getting stuck in our initial impressions (which is easy to do when it comes to racial and ethnic representations). When it comes to Goldstein’s work we have the luxury of reading her artist statement so we know exactly what she intended to do and can judge the work on those terms. Goldstein writes, “In all of the images the Princess is placed in an environment that articulates her conflict. The ‘…happily ever after’ is replaced with a realistic outcome and addresses current issues.” Others have argued against the representations of the other Princesses and Little Red– but their scenarios are at least drawn from (an admittedly oversimple) reversal of their basic stories. That is not the case with the Jasmine photo, which is why it feels oddly tacked on to this series. For Goldstein, this orientalist image “articulates (Jasmine’s) conflict” but that does not follow her original story. It is rather a result of an overlay of western assumptions about ME women.

Safiya Outlines comment re: the “3 B’s” is right on, although I think offensive stereotypes can be powerful in the hands of the right artist (say Kara Walker, for e.g). So when I saw the Jasmine image, before I understood the context I though I might like it. As others have said her competence is seductive at first (I guess until you realize that she isn’t even holding that gun correctly… sigh). But the more I took it in the worse it got. Goldstein’s lazy, unfoucsed approach to the politics in this work impacts all of these images, but Jasmine’s is the only picture that spills over into a racialized commentary.

So my objection to the Jasmine image doesn’t come from the use of a female Middle Eastern character per se, but rather the message of Goldstein’s larger context: that the “realistic outcome” for the European heroines is domestic unhappiness while the ME one is fated to end up surrounded by war with a gun in her hand. It is this equivalence that makes this an offensive image to me. So what this picture is doing is ultimately the same thing that images of Arab and Muslim women often do: reinforce western stereotypes–not deconstruct them as Goldstein intends. It’s not the transgressive comment that Goldstein seems to think it is, it’s the same old thing.

Posted 20 Jun 2009 at 1:42 pm ¶
Seattle Slim wrote:

Actually to the “person” who told me to go to hell (been there, done that, all I got was a lousy t-shirt and a hell of a lot of grit however) I meant SHE would be WAITING FOR HIM to violate HIM. I could’ve sworn that’s what I wrote. Let me go check…*puts on spectacles*

That’s right, I said violate him. Don’t apologize. There’s no need….

Latoya, thank you as well. Even though that’s not what I meant, you are right about all of these fairytales. The real Snow White is SEXUALLY morbid: necrophilia and wicked as hell. If you read it to your kids, they’d be in therapy for the rest of their lives.

Posted 20 Jun 2009 at 2:32 pm ¶
Kaonashi wrote:

@ Alston: The Rapunzel (along with Snow White) I actually did like. Sleeping Beauty is growing on me; the thought of this Prince being an old man but still in love and ever faithful to someone who really isn’t…there (and will probably never be) is heartrenching.

Posted 20 Jun 2009 at 3:26 pm ¶
minerva wrote:

Great comments, really made me re-think what these were all about.

Thing is, I thought these images were supposed to be “after the marriage” and critiquing what women find after the supposed apex of their life (the moment of getting the guy/the kiss/whatever).

They were never meant to be about strong or positive images – thus Rapunzel cutting her hair, Snow White leaving him with the kids for a weekend, etc are not at all what the artist was trying to do.

[RRH does not fit in here at all, still don't know why it was there.]

Given that aim (I thought) then Snow White, Cinderella, etc all read as: what really happens after the wedding? Many babies/husband doesn’t lift a finger; he goes off leaving her alone, possibly divorced; worry about being traded in if she doesn’t keep up her beauty; etc.

Rapunzel started to break it because it wasn’t about “after the wedding.”

Then Jasmine. Still assuming the post-’happily ever after’ thing, I saw the same thing snickerdoodle notes: Jasmine gets her happy ending, but then the (US) invaders come. Now she has to take up arms to defend her home, life, and people. She is “strong” because that’s the way to survive, and her gaze looks like rage as well as “on lookout for the enemy.”

Another non-”happy ending.”

BUT in the end it isn’t successful – not in small part given the non-fitting images (RRH especially) and the use of “fallen” (?) – as if it was their own fault, which is the point of “fallen” as jvansteppes notes.

So the Jasmine image cannot really be read the way I just put it – well it can, but it fails to contain or deny the other readings: Muslim=war, brown woman must be all about race, etc.

The only way I can see to ensure it stays a critique of US aggression and the failure of the ‘happily ever after’ (if it ever was) would be to somehow portray her as sympathetic and the people she takes arms against as wrong and evil i.e. show her poised behind a wall, perhaps waiting to attack, as occupying US forces march down a road… but then that makes her a “terrorist” right, because only they oppose the US.

Nope, there’s no way to make this one work.

Posted 20 Jun 2009 at 4:10 pm ¶
snickerdoodle wrote:

“None of the comments that call this image a stereotype have assumed Goldstein should have avoided Jasmine’s race altogether–I think they are arguing that Jasmine’s racial identity requires a more complicated picture that what was created here, which is NOT the only way to portray Jasmine’s identity and its intersection with her race/ethnicity.”

Actually, yes, there were comments where the poster took umbrage with the very fact that Jasmine’s portrayal had “defaulted” to her ethnicity and place, period. While some commenters did critique the specific way in which it was dealt with, there were also those who flat-out critiqued that it was addressed (”defaulted to”) at all.

“So my objection to the Jasmine image doesn’t come from the use of a female Middle Eastern character per se, but rather the message of Goldstein’s larger context: that the “realistic outcome” for the European heroines is domestic unhappiness while the ME one is fated to end up surrounded by war with a gun in her hand.”

I still think this could be read as a critique of the fact that the United States and its allies have invaded and meddled in the Middle East. Jasmine’s happily ever after is destroyed by the fact that greedy, imperialistic powers have trumped up reasons to invade and meddle in her homeland’s affairs in order to keep a supply of cheap oil flowing out of it.

Posted 20 Jun 2009 at 8:02 pm ¶
A. wrote:

Where is Mulan and Pocahontas?

Posted 20 Jun 2009 at 8:05 pm ¶
MsBlenkins wrote:

Yeah, I really like the concept of deconstructing the images of the “princesses,” and what we view as a “fairy tale life,” etc. But I think this artist executed the idea very poorly. I agree with other posters that this series is, overall, kind of lazy, and it doesn’t always make a lot of sense. *Why* is Snow White the one with all the kids? *Why* is Cinderella in the bar? *Why* (oh, for the love of Maude, why) is Little Red Riding Hood fat? These things don’t necessarily follow for these particular characters–any of them could theoretically have any of those endings. (And don’t get me started on the freaking fat hatred inherent in “Not So Little Red Riding Hood.” Grrr.) I get Rapunzel, which is probably the most moving of the photos. I even kind of get Belle–that story was about loving someone (the Beast) for their insides, and now she is obsessed with her outsides–it acknowledges a double-standard. But Jasmine seems totally to be built from Western stereotypes about the Middle East. Again, no reason for that ending to follow her story–nothing fresh or cutting-edge here. Sigh.

Posted 20 Jun 2009 at 10:17 pm ¶
Joseph wrote:

@snickerdoodle
You are welcome to think whatever you like but it is very strange that a) when actual Arabs and Muslims describe their objections to this image you discount them and b) you discount what the artist herself says about the work in favor of your own “what if.”

What is that about?

Posted 21 Jun 2009 at 12:28 am ¶
Tiffany wrote:

Okay, so it seems to me like a lot of people are misinterpreting. The image shows, yes, conflict in the Middle East, with Jasmine taking up arms. But, there are two ways to look at this in terms of contemporary issues.
► Jasmine IS meant to look like a terrorist, and they photographer is actually intentionally addressing racial profiling as a problem that middle eastern women are facing.
► The option that I feel is more likely: Jasmine is taking up arms to defend her nation. The unrest in the Middle East has been no secret and women are getting the worst of it. I feel that she’s representative of all the middle eastern women who are trying to fight for their rights amongst all the war and bloodshed.

As for the other princesses, I see a lot of people complaining about how insensitive they are. That’s the point. For Riding Hood’s picture – obesity is a medical issue. They shouldn’t be painting it in a positive light, of course they’re going to make it sound like a terrible thing by calling her Not-So-Little because it IS. It’s terribly unhealthy, and it’s been made “o-kay” in America: which is why it’s being addressed. In a general sense, the fact that they’re so insensitive and bothersome is because they’re true and they’re hitting the points they’re meant to.

Though, I saw a few people (it may have been on ontd_political) that said Belle would have been better as an abused wife with Beast, which I completely concur with. And, I also agree that Cinderella’s has little relevance to her. She would have been better off getting the plastic surgery.

Posted 21 Jun 2009 at 7:16 am ¶
A.D. Nix wrote:

@ snickerdoodle
I don’t see where anyone said “How dare Goldstein address Jasmine’s ‘Middle Easterness’ at all” either.

If you think complaints about voiding the particularities of Jasmine as a character and dumping a bunch of (ill thought-out, grossly problematic) signifiers of “Middle Easterness” are a call for a masking of her (Disney-determined) “ethnicity” then I think you are sorely mistaken.

@ brownskinlady
“I also find it problematic to see a lot of comments suggesting that this picture is a zero-sum way of addressing Jasmine’s ethnicity, like this it was either Goldstein create this image or to depict Jasmine ‘without race’, with the implication that we should be happy Goldstein has identified Jasmine’s race/ethnicity at all. Comments along these lines are unhelpful because they shut down critiques of stereotypical portrayals by implying Goldstein’s picture isthe ONLY way to understand Jasmine’s racial politics–and that’s just straight up not true.”

Yes, that and yes.

Posted 21 Jun 2009 at 8:38 am ¶
Genevieve wrote:

@Tiffany
“For Riding Hood’s picture – obesity is a medical issue. They shouldn’t be painting it in a positive light, of course they’re going to make it sound like a terrible thing by calling her Not-So-Little because it IS. It’s terribly unhealthy, and it’s been made “o-kay” in America: which is why it’s being addressed.”

Excuse me? Who’s to say that this picture is of a woman who is ‘obese?’ By what standard? Even if you’re going by the very-fallible, not-to-be-trusted BMI scale, how do you know how tall she is and exactly how much she weighs? There is a range of weights which can be ‘healthy,’ depending on the person (not to mention that someone else’s health or lack of it is THEIR business, not yours or Goldstein’s). The “not-so-little red riding hood” theme does show an anti-fat bias and doesn’t make sense. Red Riding Hood was shown delivering food, not eating it. If she’s “fallen,” why not portray her as an overworked, underpaid pizza delivery girl who can’t make ends meet at her minimum wage job? That’d be pretty well-meshed with issues like plastic surgery, overworked mothers, and cancer. Much more so than “some people are fat and I don’t like it,” at least.

Posted 21 Jun 2009 at 10:45 am ¶
J. S. Ruthven wrote:

I think that the Jasmine image is unpleasant in context with the rest of the series. The other six images create dissonance by portraying fantasy figures in realistic environments, but Jasmine is placed against a highly-stylized and photoshopped backdrop of a generic Middle Eastern setting; the image could easily be mistaken for a glossy video game ad. There’s nothing subversive about presenting an “exotic” warrior princess in an “exotic” fantasy world. It seems to me that the picture of Jasmine trivializes strife in the Middle East by distancing it from reality.

Posted 21 Jun 2009 at 11:36 am ¶
snickerdoodle wrote:

@Tiffany Re: “► The option that I feel is more likely: Jasmine is taking up arms to defend her nation. The unrest in the Middle East has been no secret and women are getting the worst of it. I feel that she’s representative of all the middle eastern women who are trying to fight for their rights amongst all the war and bloodshed.”

Yes, presactly!

@ A.D. Nix
“It’s not like there isn’t something more to work with in Jasmine’s story. As much, if not more, than Sleeping Beauty or Snow White. Once again, nestled in a group of white characters, each allowed their own specificity, the POC is viable as . . . the POC. And that’s it.

She’s also the only one who is given some kind of (false) geographic specificity. Her story doesn’t just default to her ethnicity, it defaults to her “place” in a way that the others really do not. “

Posted 21 Jun 2009 at 12:00 pm ¶
Layla wrote:

The main issue I have with this image is that the series is called “Fallen Princess.” If Jasmine’s image is supposed to be one of a strong, fierce Arab women defending herself then why is she “Fallen?”

I think it’s important to look at the image and ask what the artist was trying to convey. With Jasmine’s image, I am very confused as to what the artists intention was. It feels to me that she is just resorting to using Jasmine’s Arab identity and reinforcing sterotypes about Arab people, rather than playing with the stereotypes about Arab women. I think this image is a failure because it had so much potential to be truly thought provoking and challenge the typical representations of Arab women in the media.

Posted 21 Jun 2009 at 12:07 pm ¶
snickerdoodle wrote:

@ Joseph
I am not discounting anything the artist said about the work. The artist states: “The ‘…happily ever after’ is replaced with a realistic outcome and addresses current issues.”

I am saying that a possible reading of Jasmines current issues outcome is that her home has been invaded and she is helping to defend it. I don’t see how that is my own “what if.”

There are certainly other ways that Jasmine’s ethnicity could have been addressed, but I can see why the artist decided to pick one that is charged and topical.

Posted 21 Jun 2009 at 12:15 pm ¶
A.D. Nix wrote:

@ snickerdoodle
Yep. That’s what I wrote. And what you still seem to misunderstand. If I’d meant “How dare Goldstein address Jasmine’s ‘Middle Easterness’ at all” (NB: “at all”) I certainly would have written that instead.

I’m black all day everyday. But a portrait of me with a boombox knee high in watermelons with a bucket of chicken would not really say much of anything about me as person at all (I don’t like bucketed food, for one). That doesn’t mean I want a portrait scrubbed of blackness. Same here. If Goldstein was trying to create a true critique of the American occupation, there were clearer, smarter ways to do it (suggestions right on this page) within the same frame she used elsewhere (although LRRH is still kind of an outlier).

I’ll refer you back to brownskinlady at #58 and Joseph at #63 for more on this distinction and why failing to acknowledge it is . . . an issue.

Posted 21 Jun 2009 at 12:36 pm ¶
Joseph wrote:

@snickerdoodle
“I am not discounting anything the artist said about the work.”

Sure you are. The series is called “Fallen Princesses”… meaning that the Disney heroines as portrayed by Goldstein are victims of their own choices (also potentially dubious, as others have said). That is, “fallen” not “pushed.”

In your “reading” Jasmine is reacting to aggression from people who do not even appear in this image, while those of us who have critiqued the image in Orientalist terms are talking about the elements that are actually on display. You are not “reading” this image, you are “reading into” it: imposing a narrative that is not supported by what is actually pictured, or by the context established by the artist. And you are doing it despite the well-thought out and articulated objections of people who are routinely mis-represented by images like these.

Why would you do that?

At the very least, our very different assessments of what is happening here supports the criticism that this image is poorly executed. But even if I were to accept your imaginary narrative, the fact remains that, as pictured, Jasmine is a poor sort of Freedom Fighter… she can’t even hold her gun. She is not heroic, she is pathetic, just like the others. Want to see a glamorous, female, Arab freedom fighter? Google “Leila Khaled.”

Posted 21 Jun 2009 at 12:56 pm ¶
Liz L wrote:

@Joseph

Although now that you’ve thrown Lelia Khaled into the mix (to prove a point about what sexy female violence should look like?), my eyebrows are raised.

Appropriation (and sexualization) of others’ images is a dangerous path to wander down.

I’m thinking about Nazik al-Mala’ika’s poem ‘Jamila’, but I can’t find a copy of it at the moment. Worth a read, though.

Posted 21 Jun 2009 at 2:18 pm ¶
Joseph wrote:

@Liz L
I am not sure exactly what your point is. Can you clarify?

Let me be clear first: I am not wandering down a path, we are on a path set by the artist whose work we are considering, Dina Goldstein. I offered Leila Khaled as a counterpoint to this orientalist image of Princess Jasmine-as-Freedom-Fighter/terrorist because her presence haunts it already.

Posted 21 Jun 2009 at 2:39 pm ¶
snickerdoodle wrote:

The artist never used those words “victims of their own choices.” That is you “reading into” the word “fallen.” The artist used the words “The ‘…happily ever after’ is replaced with a realistic outcome and addresses current issues.”

That is the context the artist created. My reading of the image stays within that context. Conflicts in the Middle East are, in fact, current events we are all familiar with.

And my narrative could very well be supported by the elements in the image. The tanks and helicopters are unmarked. The opposition in the picture is not named. Reading it as the U.S. occupation ties it back to a real current event, which again, is the context the artist created.

The U.S. occupation of Iraq is a real fact, not an Orientalist stereotype. In fact, I would be hard pressed to find many media images that stereotype Middle Eastern women as fighters defending their homeland. The usual Western media stereotype would be the severely confined woman in a burqua or hijab, or else as a terrorist. Those are the negative stereotypes we usually see.

Frankly, the conflict issue is the only issue in any of the images that actually seems of much importance. The other princesses are saddled with the usual tabloid nation crap: plastic surgery, octomomism, beach bodies, etc. This is the crap that many of us complain every day is distracting us from the fact that there are real issues in the news that get buried under Britney Spears’s latest breakdown.

Posted 21 Jun 2009 at 3:02 pm ¶
snickerdoodle wrote:

@ Sadface
“She probably did go for something like that, and this betrays a double standard indeed. The other ladies’ “headlines” would be found in gossip rags: She gets plastic surgery! She has an alcohol problem! She’s fat! There’s a shift in tone for the Jasmine piece. Without a doubt, the other princesses don’t look “exotic” and can therefore stand for various issues and problems “at home”. For Jasmine, the artist grabs at the first thing she knows about the Middle East. Apparantly, Jasmine’s different culture and skin colour is something that makes it impossible for her to embody any of the common issues that can be easily observed in any western country, or anywhere else, that the other ladies get to represent.”

You make it sound as if it is a privilege to represent trivial issues from gossip rags.

Posted 21 Jun 2009 at 3:09 pm ¶
Sadface wrote:

@snickerdoodle
I did not mean to. My main point was that even though none of the princesses are Canadian like the artist, it is only Jasmine for whom she chooses a situation or problem that clearly cannot be found in Canada as well.

Posted 21 Jun 2009 at 3:59 pm ¶
Sobia wrote:

Just a quick point from me, but I echo those who have huge reservations about this picture. The way I read this picture is Arab woman as terrorist, not freedom fighter. Ha! Since when have Arabs been seen as freedom fighters? They’ve only been shown as terrorists.

And those helicopters should have had huge-ass American flags on them if this were some sort of critique of American invasion of “Agrabah.” Otherwise, this is just reads “good” Westernized (Disney) princess gone “Arab-bad.”

Posted 21 Jun 2009 at 6:04 pm ¶
wastelandamerica wrote:

Bad to think that we’d think about Jasmine in terms of her background than think about her in terms of her story, but can someone fill me in on why being a combatant makes her a “fallen princess?”

Posted 21 Jun 2009 at 7:29 pm ¶
Anastasia wrote:

I, too, skipped a beat when I came to the Jasmine image in the series. Yet, fighting–whether it be for freedom or not–is a hellish reality no matter how you cut the cake.

Posted 21 Jun 2009 at 9:31 pm ¶
Katherine wrote:

Actually–writing from outside the US here–I’m fascinated that no-one else has noticed how the artists has Americanized the originally European ‘place’ and ‘ethnicity’ of the non-Jasmine princesses.

Red Riding Hood isn’t eating pretzels and sausages (I do like the idea of RRH eating rather than being eaten) as she skips through the Schwartzwald; the architecture of Snow White’s house is clearly not a Victorian terrace or Alpine cottage; Cinderella is not in an trattoria drinking wine with Italian goatherds. (RRH is originally a German story, and Cinderella Italian.)

Which says something about the long-standing appropriation of European culture by Disney et al. in a manner that ignores historical, linguistic and ethnic difference… As well as the long-standing other-izing of the Middle East in a manner that ignores historical and ethnic difference.

Two sides of one coin.

Posted 22 Jun 2009 at 2:11 am ¶
A.D. Nix wrote:

@ Katherine
Hmm. I’m not quite sure we’re talking about the same coin. That aside – Belle’s de-Frenching is mentioned a few times in earlier comments. And the artist has, if anything, Canadianized Disney’s Americanized retelling of the stories of the non-Jasmine princesses.

Also: If my weak remembrance of conte de fées holds (and if Google counts as confirmation), Perrault’s Little Red Riding Hood is considered the first making it originally French (although there are parallel stories that pre-date it from places quite a ways east of Western Europe).

Posted 22 Jun 2009 at 9:36 am ¶
Zahra wrote:

@minerva

Your comment got me thinking: If these images are supposed to be “after the wedding,” then what’s happened to Aladdin?

Has he been blown up? Is he also a terrorist/freedom fighter? Some of the other images (Snow White, Cinderella, maybe even Belle) show or strongly imply abandonment by the “prince.” There’s a statement being made by showing the woman alone.

But I think the statement is different w/Jasmine, somehow–maybe because “happily married Arab woman” would actually counter a stereotype in the West.

Another point: All the other white figures are the protagonist or title character of their stories, but both the story & the Disney version are about Aladdin. Jasmine’s just his love interest. I know she’s been marketed as one of the Disney princesses, but your comment made me think about that choosing Jasmine for the picture is also actively renders invisible an Arab man who, for all the problems in that film, was presented to the West as a hero.

Or maybe she just picked J because showing Aladdin in a war zone with a gun wouldn’t have a pseudo-feminist shield against the charge of stereotype.

Posted 22 Jun 2009 at 11:42 am ¶
Joseph wrote:

@Snicerkdoodle
I “read into” the word “fallen” because I am fluent in English and that is what it means in this context. Your repeated, purposeful mis-reading of the insightful critique others have offered is becoming an Orientalist exercise in and of itself.

Bored now.

@AD Nix
Thanks for said insightful critiques. Cosign #78 et al.

Posted 22 Jun 2009 at 12:06 pm ¶
BlueRidge wrote:

I find it very odd that all the other “princesses” are in their fairy tale outfits. Their princess clothes themselves are central to the images (e.g., a woman in a bar or on an operating table is not all that remarkable unless dressed like a princess). Jasmine has princess hair and tiara, but her clothes have been completely changed. I’m not quite sure what to make of it, but it is odd when juxtaposed with the others.

Posted 22 Jun 2009 at 1:23 pm ¶
Sadface wrote:

Zahra, the topic WAS “Princesses”, so a focus on Jasmine over Aladdin makes sense. It’s true he could have been fighting with her. That’s kind of what makes the picture so unreal, that she is just standing there alone, posing in a context where one wouldn’t pose. Hm.
Taking Aladdin the character into a count, a realistic outcome of the story would have been that Aladdin is uneducated and unfit to rule a country, so Jasmine is stuck with all the work.

Posted 22 Jun 2009 at 1:33 pm ¶
Sobia wrote:

@ Tiffany:

“The unrest in the Middle East has been no secret and women are getting the worst of it. I feel that she’s representative of all the middle eastern women who are trying to fight for their rights amongst all the war and bloodshed.”

Wait. What?

ALL Middle Eastern women? What? Really? One Middle Eastern woman represents ALL ME women?? First, that’s irrational. One woman cannot represent all women. Second, not ALL ME women are facing war and bloodshed. Where’s the war in Dubai or Damascus? So your comment isn’t even accurate.

Posted 22 Jun 2009 at 7:10 pm ¶
hlynn wrote:

While I really applaud the concept, I felt the project as a whole fell short. I thought the Cinderella image was one of the best ones in the series, and I didn’t think the Snow White image was bad, either. However, I thought the rest of them weren’t really thought out well enough because the way they addressed the fairy tales didn’t completely make sense. I guess the chemotherapy one made some sense, but I felt like the Sleeping Beauty one could have been very powerful. She could have been in a coma, hooked up to breathing tubes after a car accident or something, and it would have made a lot more sense than having her in a nursing home. Jasmine’s image was also a bit weak conceptionally. I see what the author is getting at, but there had to be a better way to make her point. I also simply don’t understand Belle’s picture. I guess since she’s supposed to be beautiful, she’s getting plastic surgery? Little Red Riding Hood and the ‘obesity crisis’ was probably my least favorite of all the pictures. In the end good concept, poor execution.

Posted 23 Jun 2009 at 9:50 am ¶
Zahra wrote:

@Sadface

Yes, but the Snow White picture includes her prince. The Jasmine one doesn’t.

If the artist wanted to give us a princess-as-warrior- woman, she could have done a take on Mulan. The princess criterion can’t be that important, or Goldstein wouldn’t have included Little Red Riding Hood. (I don’t think Rapunzel was one either, actually, but maybe she married a prince?)

But she didn’t do Mulan; she did Jasmine, I would argue, because the Arab-woman-as-terrorist image rings certain cultural bells.

Posted 23 Jun 2009 at 11:09 am ¶
drst wrote:

I wrote about the Little Red Riding Hood image here the other day.

I had major problems with the Jasmine image. On the one hand, she’s not being passive, and I can see the interpretation that she’s a “freedom fighter” of some sort, or even defending her home against the tanks and helicopters (which may represent an external invasion force from an evil Western power).

On the other, there are so many images of Middle Eastern Arabs toting guns and acting as terrorists, the image made me uncomfortable.

Posted 23 Jun 2009 at 3:11 pm ¶
luisa wrote:

I’m not sure exactly what I think about these images, or all of the comments (though at first glance the Jasmin piece struck me as relying on offensive stereotypes)

The most interesting thing about this whole discussion are all the comments that oppose the racialization of Jasmin but treat the other images as though they are simply “real issues” that modern women face. There is room for that interpretation, but its alot more interesting to consider whether the other images are just as racialized as that of Jasmin.

Whiteness does not equal neutral. The most interesting question to me is what do these other images say about white women? (whether purposely or not.)

Posted 23 Jun 2009 at 9:07 pm ¶
Thalia wrote:

It’s interesting that Jasmine is the only princess to be displaced from the us. You could argue that it’s only natural, since the Disney story takes place in the ME, bus at Katherine noted, Goldstein re-locates all the European princesses to a basically North American reality – and her re-interpretations really don’t relate that well to the original fairy tales anyhow. This suggests to me that Goldstein did indeed percieve Jasmine first and foremost as a representation of a particular ethnicity and geographic place. The other pictures show, however clichéd, narratives of individual life situations and alleged ‘womens’ issues’ but all individuality and female personhood is scraped from Jasmines situation. And yes – war and terror? Really? Of all the possibilities with such a diverse region as the ME, she chose the helicopters and camo suits?

And, I have a serious issue with the LRRH. I interpret the fairy tale as a metaphor for sex – the consumption of it (the food) and the male sexuality’s potential to destroy a woman (the wolf devouring LRRH). In this interpretation LRRH is ‘fallen’ because she’s fat = not suitable for devouring = not attractve and not sexual. It’s offensive and hostile towards women.

Posted 24 Jun 2009 at 4:26 am ¶
n wrote:

I actually liked the Jasmine one the most. Perhaps it unfairly brings her race into play, but to me that makes it more powerful. I saw her as being strong enough to shuck off the traditional helpless harem girl/princess role expected by the masses and doing something powerful.

I suppose the theme was “fallen” so this was meant to be a bad fate, but having grown up seeing images of Angela Davis and Foxy Brown I thought this was kinda badass in a good way.

Posted 28 Jun 2009 at 5:57 pm ¶