I know it’s been a while since I’ve seen Aladdin, but that’s
definitely not the story I remember. I remember the song “A Whole New World”
and the big blue genie, and now all I can see is a big blue Will Smith.
It’s always been the uncle isn’t it... well, “uncle” I guess…
first Scar, now this guy!? I can’t blame Aladdin and his mother though because
they were poor and he treated them well.
First, I don’t understand why Aladdin didn’t properly “take
care” of the magician soon after he got out of the cave; shouldn’t he have
known that the guy probably isn’t dead yet? Why didn’t he just ask the ring to
do something about it? Also, why didn’t the magician “take care” of Aladdin
after he got the girl? He probably knew that he was missing his ring, the one
Aladdin had, and that Aladdin could easily find him. Extremely irresponsible
moves by both parties here.
Another crazy aspect was when Aladdin basically stole the
princess after she was married for two nights in a row… I’m sure she saw his
face and recognized him… how come she was totally okay with ditching the Vizier’s
son and marrying the creep that she spent the worst nights of her life with?
(probably because he had all those jewels).
Also why didn’t Aladdin just ask the genie for money? He
knew his family was poor, but all he did was ask the genie for silver plates
and he kept selling them for money. If I was Aladdin I would be loaded within
an hour of discovering the genie could do anything I wanted.
The end was pretty rushed as well with the brother of the
magician coming in and acting like the old lady, I guess Aladdin just became
smarter all of a sudden and killed him instantly.
Anyways, probably the most predominant message that stood
out to me from this reading was the treatment of women. Take a look at Aladdin’s
mother. Her sole purpose in life is to carry out Aladdin’s bidding; she’s the
one who has the guts to stand in front of the Sultan literally every day until
he recognizes her. Aladdin also does not listen to her when she tells him to
get rid of the lamp, but I really can’t argue with that decision, I would’ve
kept the lamp rather than listened to my mother in that instance (sorry mom).
And when the mother came home to a banquet of food and asked her son where the
food came from he said “Ask not, but eat,” like wow. Rude. Lets take a look at
the princess now. When Aladdin sees her, he’s like I need to marry her. We can
understand this as love at first sight, or extreme shallowness because Aladdin
basically just sees that she’s really pretty and thinks to himself I want that.
The princess was also basically sold to Aladdin for money, which shows women as
buyable objects and not on the same playing field as men which is wrong.
I’m honestly not sure why Disney would choose this for a
children’s film. Maybe he saw himself in Aladdin in the way that Aladdin sprung
up from being a nobody to marrying the Sultan’s daughter. Maybe he saw himself
in Aladdin when he saved the princess from both of the magicians. Maybe he
enjoyed the happy ending where Aladdin ended up with the girl.
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