If Disney’s live-action Beauty and the Beast movie did not meet your expectations, perhaps its remake of Aladdin will?
Disney recently announced the cartoon fantasy film depicting a street kid who turned prince released in 1992 would be turned into a movie directed by British director Guy Ritchie and slated for release in theatres in 2018.
But before fans could even contain their excitement to see Aladdin, Princess Jasmine and Genie in the flesh, they were disappointed to discover the actors that were casted to play the roles.
Although Agrabah, where the location in which the cartoon revolves around is a fictitious Middle Eastern-like setting, fans were enraged to find that Canadian actor, Mena Massoud of Egyptian background would play the leading role, alongside British Indian actress Naomi Scott and Will Smith – none of which have an Arabic origin.
Some fans argued that they feel that the representation of them was taken away with Jasmine being a half Indian-half White woman.
In spite of being based on classic Arabic folktales of ‘One Thousand And One Nights’, would casting Arabs then mislead fans that the cartoon did in fact occur in a Middle Eastern world and whether the characters are Muslims, as Khaled A Beydoun points out in his article in Al Jazeera that the Orient is not Arab.
“But, upon closer inspection, are Jasmine, Aladdin, and the rest of the characters in the film Arab at all?.
“Agrabah is not the Arab or Muslim world, but a spitting cartoon image of the Orient – a centuries’ old production of academics and artists, news media and filmmakers, which casts it and its inhabitants as the mirror opposite of everything modern, liberal, and Western. Agrabah is the Orient, plain and simple, in cartoon form.”
And while the debate is currently heated on social media whether the casts should have authentically been of Arabic descent, a fan aptly wrote on Twitter: “Y’all are complaining that Naomi Scott doesn’t have a brown-coloured skin to play as Princess Jasmine in #Aladdin. Will Smith ain’t Blue.”
CNN reveals Disney was struggling to find leads for the Guy Ritchie directed-project. While Scott played the Pink Ranger in this year’s ‘Power Rangers’, Massoud is a newcomer who has starred in some TV series in the past.
Walt Disney Studios production president Sean Bailey announced the movie’s Agrabah will draw influences for its city from global influences, including the Middle East, India, and even China. And not only will the 1992 animated movie be a major influence, but the screenplay will go back to the folktales.
-mD
