Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp

When I first started reading the story, I thought that it was fairly in line with the Disney version. I think it is interesting how Disney made Aladdin seem much more active than in the original story. In the original story, Aladdin is very idle and will not get a job and in Disney he is very cunning and has lots of street smarts. I was surprised by how old-fashioned and sexist the story really became, starting when Aladdin asked for the Princess's hand in exchange for giving the Sultan jewels. This is literally saying that the Princess's value was equal to or less than to sparkly objects. I thought it was also horrible when Aladdin meets the Princess and says that she is his wife, giving the Princess no choice in the matter. I know the story is supposed to take place a long time ago, I think it is just pretty crazy that Disney would take a story that portrayed women with such little value and turn it into a major movie that children and adults around the world would watch. In Disney's version, the Princess has a much bigger role and has her own rebellion against her father but is still depicted in a sexual way. In Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, the Princess does not have a name and is not a huge character in the movie besides for being the desire of Aladdin. She has no personality or anything that allows the  audience to connect with her. In the story, it is the Princess's fault for giving away the lamp, portraying women as clueless and incapable of doing anything but looking pretty and making men fall in love with them. I think I was disheartened by how similar Disney's version is to this as it shows how flawed Disney's Aladdin really really is as the story line is very discriminatory to many groups of people.

 I think it was pretty horrible how apparent the use of slaves are in the story. Having slaves is seen as a thing of power and wealth in the story, and I was just surprised how often slaves were used and brought up in the story. I think it is very upsetting how connected slaves are to power. When Aladdin becomes a prince he is very expressive on the many slaves and servants he will have. Having the Princess, slaves, and servants are just words on a checklist that Aladdin believes he must "check off" as having in order to be a prince.

When reading the articles about this story, it is very interesting about the fact that Aladdin may not even be in fact a Middle Eastern story. The original story was in French and I think that if this story was in fact not written by someone knowledgeable about the Middle East and its culture, this would make a lot of sense. The story, while based in the Middle East have very other little connection to the Middle East. The story says very little about the cultures of a Middle Eastern kingdom and I believe that if the story had been picked up and placed in England no one would be able to tell. The lack of knowledge that the author had about Middle Eastern culture could also be a reason for why Disney is now receiving backlash about Disney's Aladdin. The story and movie are both very good but Disney did not add many cultural aspects to the movie, they rather just made generalizations about the culture and played it off as a revolutionary story. I wonder if Disney even knew that this story was written by someone who was in fact French and if this would have changed the way they adapted the story.