Speechless: In Praise of Naomi Scott, Benj Pasek, Justin Paul & Alan Menken

If there was one living Disney legend I could have lunch with, it would be Dame Julie Andrews.

But if I could have lunch with two Disney legends, it would be Dame Julie Andrews and Alan Menken. I have no musical talent whatsoever, but even I can recognize that Alan Menken is in a class of his own. 

I've been listening to the Aladdin soundtrack on repeat, especially the score. (I don't know if it counts as "classical" music, but I find the instrumental music helps me concentrate when I'm writing or course planning.) And the more I listen to "Speechless," the more I find myself humming it as I'm unloading the dishwasher or singing fragments when I'm replying to emails. 

Take a listen below:

Yes, it obviously has a different sound than the other music -- but it's not like the music from the original animated film is completely coherent. As Mari Ness explains for Tor, Aladdin's production history was interrupted by Howard Ashman's death. Jeffrey Katzenburg didn't like the initial script that Musker and Clements produced so they brought in Tim Rice (who would later work with Elton John on the soundtrack for The Lion King). Of the main songs on the soundtrack "A Whole New World" and "One Jump Ahead" are written by Rice and Menken, and "Prince Ali" and "Friend Like Me" are Menken and Ashman's collaborations. 

All of this is to say -- there's a pastiche element to the soundtrack already, so adding "Speechless" to the mix doesn't really bother me. Perhaps that's because it was written by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul who worked on two of my favorite soundtracks at the moment, Dear Evan Hansen and The Greatest Showman. And they're Disney aficionados, which endears them to me even more. Look at them, they're adorable!

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I appreciate that they pointed out that Jasmine needed her own song -- it's always struck me as odd that, despite it being Aladdin's movie (technically), Jasmine is one of the official Disney princesses. To be fair, when they created the brand in 2000, they played fast and loose with the definition since Tinkerbell was originally included (before they realized that the Fairies could be a profitable brand on their own) and characters like Pocahontas and Mulan are included, despite not technically being princesses.

And yes, the song is a powerful feminist anthem, especially considering that, in the film, it comes directly after Jafar's line that "princesses should be seen and not heard."

But more than that -- it's intricately connected to the original animated film in such a smart, subtle way that you could almost miss it if you were dazzled by the visuals of the film. (I did. And I loved that scene where the characters around Jasmine disappear into poofs of smoke as she dismisses each of them. I think critics were divided over it, but I thought it was a visually cool effect.) It was only after I started listening to the song divorced from the visuals that the connections started to click together.

The song starts with the lines:

"Here comes a wave meant to wash my away / A tide that is taking me under / Swallowing sand, left with nothing to say / My voice drowned out in the thunder..."

The line to "swallowing sand" struck me -- and it seemed more than just a throwaway reference to the Arabian setting. To me, it seemed like a callback to the scene in the original film where Jafar traps Jasmine in the giant hourglass, literally silencing her.

It's a scene that increasingly bothers me the more I teach the film. It's weirdly sexual for a kid's film and is rivaled only by, perhaps, Frollo's "Hellfire" song in Hunchback. Plus Slave Jasmine makes me think of Slave Leia in her gold bikini, but without any of the subsequent empowerment Leia gets. 

Pasek and Paul thought so too, apparently. In an interview with The LA Times, Pasek says:

“We were really inspired by a line in the original movie where Jafar very misogynistically says, ‘You’re speechless, I see. A fine quality in a wife'...In the world that we live in, so many people need to reclaim their voice — or claim it for the first time — and be outspoken about who they are and what they believe in. It was a really exciting opportunity to put that message into the voice of Jasmine.”

Which...I love. I love that they found inspiration in a line from the film -- one of the more misogynistic parts of the film, TBH -- and flipped it on its head and turned it into an empowering anthem.

And there's another part of the song that I think is also a direct callback to the original film. In the song, Jasmine sings,

"Try to lock me in this cage / I won't just lay me down and die / I will take these broken wings / And watch me burn across the sky..."

I can't be sure, of course, because Pasek and Paul don't address it specifically with The LA Times (which isn't to say that they don't address it somewhere else; I haven't found it yet, if they have) -- but it reminded me of the scene in the animated film where Jasmine is in the courtyard with Rajah. The Sultan's just come pestering her about marrying a prince before her 16th birthday (UGH) and Jasmine is lamenting her lack of freedom and her desire to get out of the palace. (Although this exact scene isn't in the remake, the premise is consistent, and may be alluded to when Jasmine sings "written in stone / every rule, every word / centuries old and unbending.") Frustrated, Jasmine sets the birds, who were previously locked in the cage, free:

It's a nice moment in the animated film -- foreshadowing Jasmine's escape from the palace -- but given that she ultimately ends up back in the palace, it rings a little hollow. (And heavy-handed with the symbolism, but that's definitely an adult perspective.) I like that this scene wasn't kept in the remake, but I love that Pasek and Paul alluded to it. It shows a familiarity with the original film and pays homage to it by acknowledging that there were memorable moments in the original film that don't hold up in 2019. 

It's smart and it's subtle and it works. And it makes a kick-ass anthem. 

Where Is Skanland? -- Aladdin's "Controversial" Prince Anders Role Revealed

As I sit here, waiting for a band of thunderstorms to roll in and listening to the Aladdin score (whatever else you want to say about the live-action Aladdin, you cannot deny the talent of Alan Menken) -- I want to revisit something I blogged about a year and a half ago:

This Guy:

This is Billy Magnussen, a.k.a. Prince Anders in the new live-action version who, as many people have pointed out, does not exist in the animated version.

Back in September 2017, I wrote about my thoughts on this, which are complicated given my privilege.

For the record, I was almost exactly spot-on about Magnussen's role:

"FWIW, and this is probably a best case scenario, I hope Magnussen is playing the role of Prince Achmed from the animated film -- the prince who looks disdainfully at the people of Agrabah and who Jasmine (and Rajah) promptly rejects when he tries to impress her with all his wealth and status.
Maybe the Sultan is so desperate to see Jasmine married that he tries to arrange a marriage with her fairy-tale style -- you know, how in the fairy tales the King always says "whoever can complete task X can marry my daughter" and princes come from far and wide to try and win the princess, but in the end, it's the miller's son, or the stable boy who succeeds and rises up. (Which is, essentially, the story of Aladdin.) So maybe Prince Anders is either invited by the Sultan or hears of the stubborn princess and travels from Scandinavia to try his luck. And maybe, just like Prince Achmed, he's arrogant and entitled and elitist and looks down on our hero and the hungry children of Agrabah. And maybe, just like Prince Achmed, Jasmine puts him in his place and rejects him. Maybe there's a subtle commentary on the white savior narrative and this casting/narrative will flip it."

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If you've seen the film, you'll know that's pretty close. Prince Anders does replace Prince Achmed, but it plays out pretty much the same.

Except.

Where in the 1992 animated film Prince Achmed was pompous, arrogant, disdainful, and even cruel -- Prince Anders is...kind of a buffoon? He's pretty -- and it's a genuinely strong moment when Jasmine comments on his beauty (he's just complimented hers) and he says something like, "I know right? But no one ever mentions it!" And Jasmine, being the strong, take-no-BS-feminist that she is retorts with, "Isn't it strange that we have the same title [prince/princess], but people talk about us so differently?" (Something like that -- I don't remember the exact wording.)

And poor Prince Anders -- you can see he doesn't quite get what she means. And you just want to ruffle his hair and pat his head, because he's not very bright.

So, yes. Jasmine does put him in his place and does reject him -- and that's about it. There's no significant change to the plot. Which does lend support to the idea that it wasn't necessary to cast a white man in the role.

I do think there's lost potential here -- I think Ritchie & Co. could have implemented the subtle commentary about the white savior narrative, thereby validating the decision to change Achmed to Anders. And this connects back to one of my other quibbles with the film -- the identity of Jasmine's mother. Or, at least, where her mother comes from. (This was alluded to in interviews, but is never explicitly dealt with in the text of the film.)

One of the minor-plot points of the film is that Jafar wants to control the Sultan/become a Sultan because, like every Super Evil Bad Guy evar, he's bent on world domination. He wants to turn Agrabah into an empire, not just a prosperous city. To do that, he needs to invade [insert fictional name of country where Jasmine's mother is from]. Jafar also indicates that Skanland -- Prince Ander's fictional country -- could be a strong military/political ally.

Sure. They're fictional countries, so why not.

I'm just saying: there could have been a 30-second addition to the scene where Jafar is trying to mind-meld the Sultan with a map that shows where each of the countries are located. The country where Jasmine's mother is from could look vaguely like India (as I suspect it's supposed to be) and Skanland could be...IDK, near Arendelle or something? This would fit with the military strategy the Sultan is supposed to be reviewing and could neatly tie these loose ends together. (Maybe the countries are on the map when Jasmine is trying to find Ababwa, but I was distracted by the Fantasyland easter egg. I'd have to rewatch to verify.)

Giving Skanland a strategic military value -- paired with the obvious buffoonery of Magnussen's Anders -- would be enough to flip the white savior narrative: Look at this idiot who thinks he's coming to save the day but is really just being used and manipulated by an evil vizier. The potential was there--it just wasn't actualized.

Let's get this together before you deal with The Little Mermaid, Disney. You've got LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA working on this with you. Don't screw it up.

"It's Chaotic, But Hey It's Home": Disney's Live-Action "Aladdin"

"Oh, imagine a land, it's a faraway place where the caravan camels roam,

Where you wander among, every culture and tongue--

It's chaotic, but hey, it's home!"

So starts Disney's live-action Aladdin -- a new beginning for the now infamous lyrics of "Arabian Nights*." That line -- "it's chaotic, but hey, it's home" -- seems to nicely sum up the 2019 version: the live-action adaptation is a bit of a hodge-podge, and I'm not entirely sure the film knows what it wants to be (is it a straight remake? is it a retelling? is it a feminist story about a non-mad-queen's rise to power? is it an action movie?). But it's familiar and comforting and taps into the nostalgia 90s' Kids (those of us who were kids in the 1990s) have for Renaissance Disney films.

*(See, for instance, the NY Times review, "It's Racist, But Hey It's Disney!" and the LA Times' coverage of the changes Disney made in response to that criticism. Vanity Fair also seems to have a pretty good piece on the changes that were made in the 2019 version, but I admit I haven't fully read it yet.)

My husband and I had a chance to see it this afternoon, and, per usual, I went in without reading any extensive reviews. I can't help seeing the headlines as I scroll past them on social media but I try to avoid them so I can form my own, relatively uncolored opinion. On the way home, we had a pretty good discussion about what we thought of it and it ended with my saying, "I bet Glen Weldon from your NPR podcast will hate it." For the record, I don't think I was wrong. My husband loves this podcast -- I can't really do podcasts or audiobooks as I tend to zone out, no matter how engaging they are; and I do think this one is pretty engaging -- and we usually listen to their discussion of films after we see them.

But I couldn't get on board with their review of the film. From what I've seen in just Googling the articles I've needed for this post, the reactions seem to be mixed, with some critics praising Will Smith as the saving grace of the film and others lamenting his role, so, to paraphrase Will Smith's Genie, there's a lot of gray area here.
I've embedded the podcast here, since my post is largely a response to this discussion. Read more below the jump cut!

Disney's Aladdin Trailer -- Will Guy Ritchie Give Us More Of The Same?

A few days ago, Disney dropped a new full-length trailer for Aladdin (2019). Watch it below:

Unsurprisingly, I have thoughts. Lots of thoughts.

My feelings about some of Disney's live-action adaptations have been laced with a heavy dose of skepticism. In the case of Dumbo, at least, my skepticism seems to be misplaced. But with Aladdin...? Not so much. I've written about Aladdin before, mainly about the controversy surrounding the production of the movie. But also Guy Ritchie seemed an odd director choice IMHO, mainly because I'm not a fan of his style.

Aaaaand then there was that second trailer that dropped a few weeks ago and sent the internet (rightfully so!) into a tizzy. Just look at these Google hits:

None of it really inspired confidence.

So what's going on with this new trailer? Let's break it down.

1. The opening of this trailer seems really reminiscent of the beginning of Casino Royale with the urban chase scene -- which is apparently something called Parkour? and also something that seems very Guy Ritchie.

2. Will Smith's awful looking blue genie? Well, it seems that he's not blue all the time, which is good, I suppose.

📷: Disney

3. The trailer also gives some much needed humor -- as in the scene above, where Smith's Genie humorously explains the "gray area" the subjectivity of wishes -- and some glimpses of the music. Smith's version of "Friend Like Me" is giving me some very Fresh Prince vibes, and, if I'm being totally honest, "A Whole New World" gave me chills. (I was lucky enough to see the OBC of Aladdin on Broadway, but I was not impressed with Jasmine's vocal performance: it was very nasal to me, and that's one of my Disney princess pet peeves.) Naomi Scott's voice was amazing here.

4. It looks like we're going to get a Bollywood dance numbers, which makes me so incredibly happy.

📷: Disney

But here's where it starts to get tricky for me.

1. There's not a glimpse of Billy Magnussen's Prince Anders in the trailer -- which means (1) he's either really inconsequential and the Internet made a big fuss out of nothing or (2) leads me to wonder if Disney made some changes because of that fuss. I personally didn't have an issue with the casting, but that's another post.

2. I'm still concerned about the female costuming:

Don't get me wrong -- all the costumes look beautiful. I also do not claim to be anything close to an expert on Middle Eastern costuming -- which is complicated by the fact that we don't really know where this story is set. Is it India? Iran? Iraq? Egypt? Who knows.
But the costumes give off a very "exotic" vibe...the bright colors, the veils-that-don't-really-veil, the accentuation of chests and waists...*sigh*

3. The accents. Oh, the accents.

This is a complicated issue to unpack in a blog post, so if you want to read more, feel free to check out Richard Scheinin's 1993 article from The Washington Post, "Angry Over Aladdin." It's a piece that was released shortly after the film was and really highlights the central issues at play. The gist of it? Aladdin plays into Middle Eastern stereotypes by making the bad guys distinctly "foreign" and the "good guys" basically American. After all, all 3 of our main characters -- Aladdin, Jasmine, and Genie -- are obsessed with the notion of being free and Aladdin himself was modeled after Tom Cruise.

Now, Scheinin's article includes a quote from a then Disney-spokesperson, Howard Green:

"...most people are very happy with it. All the characters are Arabs, the good guys and the bad guys, and the accents don't really connote anything, I don't think."

I mean, I honestly wouldn't expect anything else from Disney -- they're not going to admit to being racist or prejudiced, even if it was largely subconscious or unintended or colored by the Gulf War.

But the thing is, it's not just Aladdin, and not just Disney, and the accents can connote something. In an article for The Atlantic, "Why Do Cartoon Villains Speak in Foreign Accents?" Isabel Fattal references a 1998 study by Gidney and Dobrow. As she points out, here's

"The kicker: In many of the cases studied, villains were given foreign accents.[...] Meanwhile, the study found that most of the heroic characters in their research sample were American-sounding; only two heroes had foreign accents. Since television is a prominent source of cultural messaging for children, this correlation of foreign accents with “bad” characters could have concerning implications for the way kids are being taught to engage with diversity in the United States."

Fattal offers more details of course, but the point is, these aren't just harmless kid's movies -- especially when there are noticeable trends and patterns. So, yeah. Things like accents and facial features (and facial hair) were a key part of the criticism of the 1992 Aladdin and I've been curious to see how they would be handled in the live-action adaptation, and all the casting controversies didn't do much to help.

This trailer, I gotta say, doesn't help much either. We don't get a lot of dialogue, and Will Smith's Genie does take up a significant portion of it, but here's what I noticed:

1. Aladdin -- American accent. Or, at least, non-accented English. He's portrayed by Mena Massoud, who was born in Egypt but raised in Canada. (So, yes. His accent isn't technically American, but it's not going to be perceived by American audiences as accented.)
2. Jasmine -- American accent. But -- she's portrayed by English actress Naomi Scott, so it was a conscious decision to have her forego her natural accent in favor of an American one. Perhaps because, as Fattal notes, "the most wicked foreign accent of all was British English[...]From Scar to Aladdin’s Jafar, the study found that British is the foreign accent most commonly used for villains."
3. Jafar -- foreign accent. It's subtle, for sure, and not as heavily "different" as Jonathan Freeman's Jafar was, but in this film, Jafar is played by Marwan Kenzari, a Dutch actor. It will be interesting to see how Jafar's accent plays out in the film, but at least from the trailer, it's clear that it is audibly different from that of the protagonists. Now, maybe it's because Kenzari couldn't nail down an American accent -- I can only imagine how difficult it is to act in different accents and certainly not every actor has been able to do it successfully. But maybe not. Maybe it was a conscious decision to help mark the character as a villain which would certainly be problematic when the female lead doesn't keep her "foreign" accent.

This newest trailer has generally been more positively received than the other ones, and seems to have redirected the conversation -- for now, at least.

To Buy: New Disney Shirts from TeeTurtle

A short post, to ease back into blogging. There is, apparently, some plague remnant stomach bug going around and I caught it. (Which is a big deal, because I never catch those. I always get the colds. Which, fun fact, I got too. Back to back: the virus and a cold.) Basically, this has been me for the past few days:

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YAY ADULTING. 

But, this email from TeeTurtle popped up this morning helped a little bit. Two new Disney couple shirts available! 

I mean, on the one hand, I definitely don't need any more Disney graphic-tees, no matter how cute and nerdy they are.

But on the other hand...it's Rapunzel and Flynn! (I'm definitely "meh" about Aladdin and Jasmine -- love the movie, love that scene, but as characters...meh.) And it's the lantern scene! Which is one of the most gorgeous pieces of animation and also "I See The Light" was the First Dance song at my wedding. 💖 

Check them out and add to your collection here -- along with a bunch of other Disney shirts I definitely covet. 

"Brown-Face" Controversy & Disney's Live-Action Aladdin

Me, anytime I see news about Disney's live-action Aladdin:

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Also me:

via GIPHY

Today's news is brought to you to by the cautiously optimistic news that Disney is not actually engaging in brown-face:

Read the full article at Vanity Fair

I mean...yay? 

I've said it before: I feel like this adaptation is going to be a train-wreck. Maybe it's the law of averages -- you can only have so many acclaimed blockbusters before one just misses the mark but....every time news about this adaptation comes out, it just screams disaster. 

Is this really where we're at, Disney? Have you learned NOTHING?!

*sigh*

I guess you could say that, on the bright side, Disney wasn't putting brown face on "extras"; they claim they were "darkening" the faces of crew members so that they could "blend in." Which...seems like a hasty cover-up for PR reasons, but that's just my thought. 

On the other hand, the actor cast as The Sultan, Navid Negahban, had this to say about the film:

“It’s not whitewashing,” he said. The actor then used a metaphor to explain the importance of diversity. 

“The thing is that the garden should be filled with flowers of different kinds,” he said. “If not, the garden is going to be very boring. So you’re gonna go and see this beautiful garden with colorful flowers, and I just hope that you enjoy the journey.”

“Just go enjoy the journey,” Negahban said, “because you will definitely love the film. It doesn’t matter how old you are, the film has something for you to take away from it.”

Which should bode well for the film, whatever reports are circulating in the media.

But then again...voice actors have a history of defending the films they're cast in: Russell Means controversially defended Pocahontas, saying that focusing on the historical inaccuracies took away from the fact that it was a film that finally admitted the English were egregiously in the wrong.

I feel like I say "we'll have to wait and see" a lot but...

Disney Princesses Singing In Their "Native" Language

This fun video popped up in my Facebook feed tonight:

I don't think it's *entirely* accurate to say that they're singing in their "native languages" -- at least not all of them. Mulan for sure, because the film is clearly set in ancient China, even if it's not historically accurate; Meg in Hercules is pretty accurate as well, since the film explicitly mentions the Greek gods; and there are a few super subtle references to Germany in Snow White (namely the beer steins in dwarves' cottage). But Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid and Frozen -- they're all set in kingdoms once upon a time in a faraway land. Sure, the original "Sleeping Beauty" is of French origin; and Hans Christian Andersen was Danish, but that doesn't mean The Little Mermaid is set in Denmark; and Arendelle is a fictional country inspired by Norway. I'm not even going to touch on the Aladdin one, because that's a hot mess that I've discussed before. 

But a fun video nevertheless. :) 

Happier Aladdin News -- Will Smith Shares Cast Photo

Amidst all the brouhaha over Billy Magnussen's casting, here's a bit of pixie-dusted news for you:

Will Smith has shared the "first cast photo" for the Aladdin remake:

Awww, don't they look happy?! I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about (1) this remake in general or (2) Will Smith as Genie (RIP, Robin Williams), but of course I'll give it a fair chance. 

Is Disney "White-washing" Aladdin?

It always feels slightly awkward to comment on issues of whitewashing, given that I fully recognize my white privilege. But, Magnussen's casting in the live-action adaptation of Aladdin has created quite the storm of publicity for Disney...and I think it's at least worth pointing out. (Because Disney is so entrenched in pop culture.)

Before we start: I've said before that I am not looking forward to this adaptation. I'm not a fan of Guy Ritchie or his directorial style and, as other people have pointed out, I'm not quite sure why Ritchie seems to be going "off-book" when the other Disney live-action adaptations have essentially been the animated movie with real people. (Cinderella was basically the 1950 film, with fleshed out characters and some modern updates to fix some of the more problematic things with gender roles; Beauty and the Beast was essentially the same; and The Jungle Book was actually probably closer to the original Kipling tale, while still retaining the essence of the animated film. And The Lion King seems to be headed in a similar direction -- Jon Favreau even brought back James Earl Jones to voice Mufasa. Which...thank goodness. NO ONE ELSE could voice Mufasa.)

Also before we start: it's important to note that we still don't know who Magnussen is playing or anything about the character of "Prince Anders." At this point, I'm not sure what the justification is for inserting a white character into the story, so everything on the internet is just speculation and twitter-rage. But let's avoid another Mulan situation where everyone jumped to conclusions, assumed the worst, and started hashtag campaigns.

Both Teen Vogue and the Huffington Post have articles on the controversy, and they both include Tweets from the Internet Rage Machine with how upset people are over this. (I wonder if anyone on Twitter is *defending* the casting choice...) But I find some of the Tweets to be unfair, like this one:

The gentrification of Agrabah has begun. Next up, gourmet, artisanal hummus. https://t.co/UbTgBDU2of

— DoraMilaje Jen🏳️‍🌈 (@darlinginmyway) September 6, 2017

I get what they're going for, but...I can't take it seriously.

So I'd recommend reading this piece from The Mary Sue. Because even though my knee-jerk reaction is to defend Disney and view this optimistically, they do make some good points:

"But it doesn’t really matter whether it was Disney, Ritchie, or some uptight studio exec who won’t acknowledge their own bias. What matters is that Aladdin was, before this news broke, going to be a film primarily starring people of color. It was going to be a film that would help the studio make a step in the right direction, and while the vast majority of the leading cast will still be sticking around, it’s disappointing to think that for whatever reason, they just couldn’t be trusted to lead a movie without a white character present."

A valid point -- that maybe Disney thinks a movie, even with Will Smith as the voice of the Genie (I won't touch the fact that Robin Williams will ALWAYS be the Genie for me), can't succeed without a white actor in it. For the record, I think it's still going to be a film "primarily starring people of color"; casting one Caucasian actor doesn't change that, just as casting Martin Freeman in Marvel's Black Panther doesn't change it for that film.

And, given that the original source material for Aladdin in A Thousand and One Nights was Chinese, this claim felt a little hollow to me:
"...couldn’t even let one movie go by without feeling compelled to re-write an old folk-tale-turned-animated-film."
(TBH, I'm not entirely sure I follow what it means: if it's criticizing the deviation from the animated film or from the original story.)

It also seems overly strong to liken Ritchie & Co. to "colonial white imperialists." I don't know why, but that really rubs me the wrong way...maybe it's, as I said above, my tendency to defend Disney or maybe it's the claim that Disney is inserting white people into a non-white history that bothers me, since this is a fictional story and Agrabah isn't a real place.

I understand the criticism, I do. And I might eat crow for this later on, but I think it's a bit premature to vilify Disney without knowing the specifics. FWIW, and this is probably a best case scenario, I hope Magnussen is playing the role of Prince Achmed from the animated film -- the prince who looks disdainfully at the people of Agrabah and who Jasmine (and Rajah) promptly rejects when he tries to impress her with all his wealth and status.
Maybe the Sultan is so desperate to see Jasmine married that he tries to arrange a marriage with her fairy-tale style -- you know, how in the fairy tales the King always says "whoever can complete task X can marry my daughter" and princes come from far and wide to try and win the princess, but in the end, it's the miller's son, or the stable boy who succeeds and rises up. (Which is, essentially, the story of Aladdin.) So maybe Prince Anders is either invited by the Sultan or hears of the stubborn princess and travels from Scandinavia to try his luck. And maybe, just like Prince Achmed, he's arrogant and entitled and elitist and looks down on our hero and the hungry children of Agrabah. And maybe, just like Prince Achmed, Jasmine puts him in his place and rejects him. Maybe there's a subtle commentary on the white savior narrative and this casting/narrative will flip it.

Maybe not. Maybe I've got too much pixie dust and optimism and maybe casting Magnussen will be a huge disaster for the film.

Prince Anders Coming To Agrabah

Um, okay.

Fresh from the Hollywood Reporter -- Billy Magnussen has been cast as an "original character" (re: not in the 1992 animated film), Prince Anders. (And also that Nasim Pedrad will play Jasmine's handmaid...I always did think it odd that the only three people living in such a huge palace were the Sultan, Jasmine, and Jafar.) Which...is an odd bit of casting news. My first thought would be that he's one of the suitors who the Sultan brings in to try and impress Jasmine, but...yeah. Maybe that scene's being expanded/reworked?

IDK. Of all the live-action adaptations of my childhood Disney staples currently in the works, I am the least excited about Guy Ritchie's adaptation of Aladdin. (I am more excited about Tim Burton's Dumbo than this one.) Which is a shame, because this could have been such an opportunity for Disney to retell an iconic tell without, you know, whitewashing it. I know there was a lot of casting controversy (which may or may not be resolved), but maybe not having a white male as a director would have been a good idea? Also, I'm just not a fan of Guy Ritchie's style, so there's that.

Ugh.

Aladdin + Racism

In honor of today's discussion on race, evil, and Aladdin, a interwebz finds:

It's easy to say that Aladdin -- one Disney movie -- didn't affect our perceptions of Middle Eastern cultures, but...it is part of a trend in 90s media. The problem may not be "one Disney movie, aimed at kids" -- but if that movie is part of a pattern of repeated portrayals of Middle Easterners as oppressive, cruel, barbaric, and evil? Perhaps that's why we have things like "a Muslim-travel-ban-that-isn't-about-religion." 

via Buzzfeed: 19 Questions I Have About Aladdin Now That I'm An Adult

You can always count on Buzzfeed to have a random Disney article -- this time, it's "19 Questions I Have About 'Aladdin' Now That I'm An Adult." 

I mean...if you poke too much at any Disney film the plot holes start to show. After all, Disney and Fairy Tale logic can only take you so far. 

But still...Jenna Guillaume raises some good questions...

Disney Artwork -- Isaiah Stevens, Part II

The next installment of "Disney Princesses As..." is brought to you once more by Isaiah Stevens (who brought us "Disney Princesses as Mothers"). This time, Stevens has imagined the disney royals as characters from the film, The Notebook. (I went through a Nicholas Sparks phase in college; most of his books were set in North Carolina and I liked that familiarity. But then they got a little...predictable and I stopped reading.) While I prefer A Walk To Remember (I do adore Mandy Moore), I know The Notebook has a cult following.

You can heck out the full set of works on Cosmopolitan's site or follow him on Instagram, but here are a few of my favorites!

Ariel and Eric in the iconic scene -- this might be my favorite.

Kristoff, Hans, and Anna -- although Anna looks really...mean here.

Jasmine and Aladdin:

Happy (Almost) Weekend!

Some Friday morning LOLZ--after the last week, I think it's in order.

PC: DisneyFoodBlog via Facebook

I know they're out there, and I kinda get it. I mean, I get the beef people have with the company. But the movies? C'mon. If Inside Out doesn't make you feel ALL THE FEELS, then I don't know what will. 

Adam Driver as Aladdin on SNL

Every time I write one of these posts, I feel like I say a variation of the same thing: "I'm amazed at how persistent and relevant Disney still is."

Even though Aladdin came out in 1992 -- almost 34 years ago!! -- SNL can still parody it, and it can still be funny.

Take a look:

They get extra bonus points for the super-awful-cheesy special effects at the end. :)

Lea Salonga + Lin-Manuel Miranda Sing "A Whole New World"

Jasmine was never my favorite Disney princess, but you really can't deny that Lea Salonga can sing -- and sing beautifully.

Wednesday night, Lea Salonga popped up outside the Richard Rodgers theater in NYC where Miranda's Founding Fathers musical Hamilton is playing. (Apparently, it's really, really good.)

Regardless, I guess it's a thing where if you enter the lottery and have to wait around in the cold to see if you get a ticket, Miranda will make sure you're entertained. And last night, those hopeful audience members got to hear Princess Jasmine sing "A Whole New World" and it was shining, shimmering, splendid:

They start singing "A Whole New World" about 2:37 in. 

The best thing to happen at LaGuardia Airport EVER

What's a couple of groups of Broadway performers to do when they're stranded at LaGuardia? 

Start a sing-off, naturally:

I just gotta say -- nothing like this ever happens when I'm stranded at airports. (I would probably fangirl all over the place if it did, so maybe that's a good thing.)