I have forked out $24 on a ticket to the 2019 live action remake of AIaddin. It’s not just entertainment for me. It’s about Arab representation. I was nine years old when Disney released its 1992 animated film Aladdin. The film itself is considered a classic and went on to become the highest grossing film of 1992 outdoing Batman Returns and the sequel to Home Alone. This is despite being heavily criticised for its negative stereotypes of hook-nosed sword wielding Arabs.
The Arabian Nights, and by extension the story of Aladdin, has long held a place in the European imagination of the exotic Orient. The stories became part of the Western literary canon at a time when they were rejected in the Middle East as unliterary entertainment.
At the centre of that literariness is the genre of Aja’ib or marvels and magic. Unlike medieval Europe which persecuted and prosecuted witchcraft over centuries, some forms of magic or sihr in Islam’s Middle Ages were widely accepted and practiced. Many Islamic texts were written on the topic. The unique role of magic within Islam as well as its history, and the literary artform of storytelling are absent from both Disney’s 1992 and 2019 adaptations.
There is much to be said about authenticity in film making, especially when we are talking about culture and religion. There have been no fewer than eleven Hollywood renditions of Aladdin since the early 1900’s, and countless smaller productions including animation and theatre, some of which offer us less than flattering portrayals of Arabs.
Aladdin from Broadway (1917) by Vitograph studios gives us the American white hero in Arab garb who rescues Faimah, a slave girl, from Arabs and marries her in a Christian wedding. That same year Fox released Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp which perhaps to its credit authentically portrays Arabs praying in the Baghdad souks, unlike the 2019 remake and 1992 animation.
Few adaptations, it seems, have succeeded in etching out the Islamic sensibilities that exist in Aladdin’s world.
For instance, there is a key moment in the Francis Burton translation when Aladdin is trapped in the cave where he says, “There is no strength or power but in the great and high God.” And it is only because he rubbed his hands in prayer that the magic ring serendipitously yields the jinn (genie)—a demon like figure which has a morally ambiguous character in Islamic mythology.
In the original text Aladdin; or, the Wonderful Lamp there are references to the Mosque and the Prophet Muhammad. When Aladdin comes home with the lamp, his mother tells him to get rid of it as the Prophet warned them against such things. Aladdin on the other hand sees it as mighty Allah interceding to ease their poverty.
Aladdin’s mother plays such a prominent role in the original text yet is completely absent from the Disney films. It is Aladdin’s mother who seeks out Jasmine’s hand for her son, as is still custom in some Islamic traditions. Furthermore, Jasmine’s name in the text is Badr al Budur— ‘moon of moons’ in Arabic. Whereas Aladdin is derived from the original Arabic name Alaa al Din, which means excellence or elevation in religion.
The narrator of The Nights Shahrazad, whose consummate storytelling is emblematic of the rich oral traditions of Arab and Islamic culture also finds no place in the remake. It is her storytelling that gives life to the tale of Aladdin and as Fedwa Malti-Douglas points out in Shahrazad Feminist Shahrazad “becomes the prototypical woman whose existence permits Arab women to speak”. The voices of Arab women in the films are omitted from the literary imagination at the heart of Aladdin’s tale. Much like the casting failed to give Arab women a voice.
It’s worth pointing out that some efforts were made to incorporate Islam and Arabic in the latest adaptation. For example, Jasmine’s father, the Sultan, in some scenes wears the taqqiyah, a kind of skullcap worn by Muslim men. The occasional ‘yalla’ (Arabic for ‘let’s go’ or ‘come on’) can be heard a few times throughout the film. Aladdin himself however never utters any Arabic words in the film. Him and Jasmine sound as American as apple pie.
And even though one scene shows the pages of an ancient book which contain the Arabic words Kahf Al Aja’ib (Cave of Wonders), and in another, Jasmine picks up an oud, a Middle Eastern instrument—such references seem to come off as oriental motifs rather than paying genuine cultural homage, mere additions that circumscribe ‘The Middle East’ for simple viewing.
At the centre of the story of Aladdin and the Nights more generally is the narrative moral tale. In Aladdin it is a morality against extravagance, or what may be termed and found in adab—Islamic cultural mannerisms. And perhaps to the point of this article, the story is about representation and the Arab adage—habl al kithb assir, which translates to ‘the rope of lies is short’.
There is only so much you can pull on a short rope before it gives way. It is the origin of such ideals and morals, the medieval role of magic, faith-based sentiments—Arabic and Islamic in thought, that should resonate with an audience rather than tired notions of the Middle East or cultural referents that feign authenticity.
Daniel Sleiman is an Arab Australian writer based in Canberra. You can follow him on Instagram @danny.sleiman or Twitter @Daniel_Sleiman
