American Eid
The Review
American Eid is the first chapter in Disney’s Launchpad series, centering on the celebration of Eid through the eyes of a girl called Ameena. She, along with sister Zainab, have recently moved to America and struggle to fit in. In fact, Zainab has decided to keep her heritage a secret, even calling herself Z now. Ameena however is a bit more optimistic. With Eid on the horizon, Ameena’s ability to collect up signatures is a nice touch and shows the power of togetherness and embracing different cultures nicely. Zainab is embarrassed in a way by who she is, keeping it a secret from her friends. However, Ameena’s persistence and passion brings Eid to school instead, with a nice ending that sees all the kids celebrating together and embracing this holiday. American Eid is a little on the nose at times, with lots of exposition to explain the holiday and what it entails, but it does help to inform those unaware of Eid. In that respect, this uplifting short film does well. There’s also some ideas around environmental issues and growing older but these ultimately come secondary to the primary ideas being shown. Either way, this is a pretty good film.
The Ending Explained
As the chapter comes to a close, Ameena and Zainab dance together at school. The latter finally seems to embrace her past and despite being in a different room to Ameena, understands and accepts her Pakistani heritage The final shot during the credit sequence depicts Ameena and Zainab together, fixing up the tent outside and placing a placard on the front reading “Ameena and Zainab Pakistan.” This reinforces that Zainab has finally decided to embrace her culture. There’s a part of her that’s grateful to Ameena for pushing her outside her comfort zone. Interestingly, the film also sees a dominant colour of yellow used. This is usually depicted in the form of hope, happiness and joy; three traits that perfectly sum up this wonderful celebration.
