Aladdin

Aladdin is a movie released by the Walt Disney Company in 1992 about a regular street rat who falls in love with a princess. After acquiring a magic lamp and the genie inside, he wishes to be a prince and eventually overcomes the evil Jafar to marry Jasmine, the princess. Aladdin is considered by many to be the best Disney movie released; however, many critics claim it portrays Arabs in a negative stereotypical fashion. “Arabian Nights,” the opening song, had to be revised between the release of Aladdin in theaters and the release to home video, due to racist lyrics. Although many complained of other racist stereotypes in figuration and content, the rest of the film was left as originally produced.

Aladdin was very well received and grossed over $500 million dollars world wide. Like many Disney films of its time the music in Aladdin played a large role in the films popularity and won Disney another Academy Award for Best Original Score for Alan Menken’s sound track and Best Original Song for “A Whole New World”. Further popularity resulted from the casting of Robin Williams as Genie. Although Williams only agreed to the role under stipulations limiting the use of his name and character in marketing, Disney clearly manipulated terms to make Genie one of their largest marketing devices. This in turn created one of the first animated films to be affiliated with the voicing of a certain actor or actress.