After a ten-year gap, Disney has resumed dubbing its works in Egyptian Arabic, beginning with its latest animated film, ”Encanto”.
The film will include two complete dubbing tracks, one in Egyptian colloquial Arabic and the other in Standard Arabic.
Disney began Egyptian dubbing with Snow White and the Seven Dwarves in the 1970s but was put on hold in 2012 when they replaced us with classical Fusha Arabic.
Following that, Arab audiences began a series of online campaigns, some in the form of e-petitions, some in negative iTunes reviews, and sometimes in the form of hashtags to express their outrage.
The most famous hashtag was #Disney_must_return_Egyptian, which quickly became trendy worldwide and several Gulf and Arab countries. Many Egyptian celebrities, like Mohamed Henedy and Mona Zaki, who have played Disney characters, backed the campaign, which several media outlets also covered, including Al-Arabiya, Al-Jazeera, the BBC Arabic, and MBC.
”Encanto” was released on the Disney streaming service on December 24, 2021. The story revolves around a remarkable Colombian family who lives in a mystical place called ”Encanto”. The town’s magic has endowed each kid in the family with distinct magical abilities, except for Mirabel, who later attempts to save the town after learning that the magic surrounding it is in jeopardy.
Jared Bush and Byron Howard directed the film, which won the Golden Globe Award for Best Picture – Animated in 2022.
