Hey Will, first of all I agree with the fact that a lot of the liberal performative crap Disney does is just that: crap. But as a bit of a Disney aficionado (not to toot my own horn to hard but I can do very accurate impersonations of almost every song from every one of those Disney classics, including this one. Perhaps some day I shall sing both the parts of Aladdin and Jasmine for you in "A Whole New World" lmao)-- I am both proud and ashamed of the fact that I know every word to every song and that occupies space in my brain that could arguably be afforded to far more useful things.
That being said, I rewatched Aladdin too last month and saw that same message. What was interesting is that in the very first song of the movie, which features the setup of the story as told by the merchant selling the lamp and other junkie items, voiced also by Robin Williams (if you didn't know), is that they changed one of the verses of that song. A verse that is pretty flagrantly racist, and which sets up a lot of what *was* racist about this movie, but I'll get into that in a moment if you'll bear with me. The verse as he's describing Agraba/something like Saudi Arabia where the movie pretty clearly takes place, is as follows:
"where they'll cut off your ear if they don't like your face, it's barbaric, but hey, it's home!" It comes right before the line "where the wind's from the east and the sun's from the west and the sand in the glass is bright, come on down stop on by hop a carpet and fly to another Arabian night. ARABIAN NIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT" etc. I'm sorry I really did just recite that from memory and by golly let me tell you I do a good impression of it I sound like Robin Williams when I sing it I really do. Should I be proud of this???
Anyways, you're right that on the one hand, Jasmine and Aladdin are presented in a very desirous way. Then again, Jasmine is by far the most hypersexualized princess (The Little Mermaid wears a shell bra when she's swimming and is half fish, but when she has legs and is living as a human on land she's covered up and more "proper"), and to my knowledge aside from possibly the sheer The Rock style beefiness of Hercules, Aladdin and his little sexy vest over bare 6 pack getup is probably the most sexualized Disney prince too. That's not necessarily any worse than the standards of masculinity or femininity engendered by Disney or Barbie and Ken or any of the other cartoonish paradigms that are so prevalent in our society, but the milieu and the many villains and background characters of Aladdin are what make it a little murkier and more racist than other Disney tropes--but again, Disney doesn't have a particularly rosy record anywhere.
When the first thing you hear about in Aladdin is barbarianism, and one of the first things you see is a bunch of official royal guards chasing a poor person with giant knives and then a shopkeeper almost cutting off the hand of a princess because she gave a hungry kid an apple, it's pretty freaky to see--especially when you're a child. And remember, that's the core audience for this. You may not see that as something to be taken too literal or as anything other than fodder for a good story, but I can still recall how terrified I was of this aspect of the movie, and especially Jafar. He was the scariest villain to me. Next to Ursula, he was pure savagery and terror. I had nightmares about him. They exaggerated everything about his face in that Disney way, except they were caricaturing the face of an Arab person to make it as scary as possible--not a purple octopus woman (or a witch with a green face who zaps into a crow like Sleeping Beauty); compare that to someone like Gaston, who still looks like a Ken doll, albeit a crazed and murderous one. But Jafar is distinctly pointy and dark and scary in a way that aesthetically is probably closest to the portrayal of Scar in Lion King (I sing such a spot on Be Prepared, Will. Even when I sing the part of the hyenas it sounds almost identical. Would this content be good for a YouTube channel?)--except that is an African lion and not a human being.
The rest of the background characters in Aladdin are fat violent guards carrying knives, selfish thieves, or goofy townspeople eating fire or walking across spikes for some reason or just being dowdy and fat and silly. There's really nothing aspirational about it. It certainly looks exotic, but the people are frightening and appear savage, and that is why it does indoctrinate kids with a lot of racism. Honestly until I went to the Arab market in Jerusalem when I was 16, I had an idea about the Middle East that was precisely like Aladdin (I'm sure that 9/11 happening when I was 10 didn't help).
Disney surely isn't solely to blame for this trope (it's an old one for sure), and I think a lot of arguments could be made about having a Middle Eastern princess as part of the Disney portfolio being on some level indeed progressive in the 90s--then again, people once thought that Sex And The City was progressive, and maybe it was, but that doesn't mean it holds up well or that it's progressive in the context of today. And look! Backwards liberal society has decided it's not done with either one of these stories, hence the reboots of both, neither of which I have any interest in seeing, personally. Apparently many people disagree with me but I wish they would just let some shit lie in the past.
Anyways, I really agree that adding a ten-second cautionary blip isn't going to change any of the stuff that gets internalized by little children or anyone for that matter. For me the bigger thing is, why do they even keep making these into live action movies? Having a Black character play genie doesn't inherently mean that all the racism of the original story or even any that gets carried over to the reboot goes away. I think it all just seems lazy and it feels like Disney is just trying to protect their precious IP by ensuring its continued relevancy for generations to come so they can keep cashing in on homogeneity and blind allegiance. Then again, pot-kettle since I clearly have some side of me that feels like a superfan. I guess we are all full of contradictions!
But yes, woke Disney is the biggest oxymoron ever, and that is reflected in literally anything and everything Disney has ever and probably will ever make because all they care about is money. Thanks for sharing about the origin of the story--in all my adoration I never knew this fact!
Please let me know if my talent in singing each character of Hercules sounds like something that ought to be shared with the world or kept to myself and locked up in a box with the key thrown away :)
