Aladdin – Bitch Flicks

“Colorblind Casting,” Whitewashing, and the Erasure of PoC Histories

Thus, theatre erases the histories of People of Color in Europe by claiming that they use “colorblind casting” instead of just “casting” when they cast a Person of Color in a role that, historically, could have been a person of color. Meanwhile, TV and film European period pieces erase that history by Whitewashing it, not casting and thereby not providing employment to, or visibility and representation of, actors who are People of Color at all.

Written by Jackson Adler.

According to Wikipedia (please, just go with me), “Colorblind casting” is “the practice of casting a role without considering the actor’s ethnicity.” This definition (and the first that many people will read when they first Google it) is problematic, as that is rarely how “colorblind casting” is carried out. In theatre, “colorblind casting” is most often used for European period pieces, in which at least one Person of Color is cast as a role that the White public has usually thought of as White, regardless of whether people of that actor’s ethnicity were prevalent in the character’s location and social standing. While often used in the theatre, “colorblind casting” is rarely used in TV and film, supposedly because TV and film claim to be more concerned with historical accuracy, despite the fact that People of Color of various groups have had long histories in Europe. Thus, theatre erases the histories of People of Color in Europe by claiming that they use “colorblind casting” instead of just “casting” when they cast a Person of Color in a role that, historically, could have been a person of color. Meanwhile, TV and film European period pieces erase that history by Whitewashing it, not casting and thereby not providing employment to, or visibility and representation of, actors who are People of Color at all.

The film Les Miserables, featuring White people. — The film *Les Miserables*, featuring White people.

An excellent example of both “colorbind casting” and Whitewashing is the musical Les Miserables, which takes place in early 19^th century France. In the film, most all of the cast, from the leading characters to the background characters, were White. In its various London, Broadway, and other stage incarnations, “colorblind casting” has been used. The film was historically inaccurate in its Whiteness, because, particularly in Paris where trade was incredibly prevalent, there were many People of Color of various groups, with Black and Chinese people being particularly large minorities. For the stage productions to claim that they use “colorblind casting,” especially when casting Black and Chinese actors, is ignorant and racist because it is erasure of the history of People of Color in France. Did the dramaturges not even do the bare minimum historical research? Did the newest revivals not even use Google or Wikipedia to look up French history? These creative teams of the stage production are, unknowingly, not employing “colorblind casting”; they are employing “casting.” Meanwhile, the creative team behind the film was just racist, as well as unknowingly historically inaccurate.

A more recent example is in the casting of Vanessa Hudgens as the titular Gigi on Broadway. Vannessa Hudgens is Filipina, as well as Chinese, Spanish, Irish, and Native American. While rare for a girl of Gigi’s social standing in Paris in the year 1900, it would not be impossible for Gigi to have had the same exact ethnic heritage as Vanessa Hudgens, and very possible for Gigi to have had an ethnic heritage similar to Hudgens’. Also, in the original novella, Gigi’s maternal side of the family is Spanish, with her grandmother in particular being described as “dark.” The rest of Gigi’s ethnic background is not described in the novel. Not only is it historically accurate to cast Hudgens as Gigi, but it is supported by the original text off of which the musical is based.

Norm Lewis as Javert in Les Miserables — Norm Lewis as Javert in *Les Miserables*

It should also be noted that even creative teams who claim to be “colorblind” are not. An actor’s appearance, possibly even more than their performance skill level, is always taken into account. It is always “seen.” Few creative teams would cast Cosette and Eponine as 6’1’’ and Marius as 5’4’’, for example, due to stigma against tall women and short men. In fact, when theatrical creative teams use “colorblind” casting, usually Eponine is more likely to be a Woman of Color (take note that she DIES, and in the service of Marius, no less), than is Cosette (the girl Marius marries). It is also rarer to have a Person of Color play the protagonist Valjean than the villain/morally ambiguous Javert. But it’s totally not racist, everyone. The creative team doesn’t see color! …right? (Sigh.)

Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Dido in Belle — Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Dido in *Belle*

It is not only the poor and middle class in Europe who had ethnic diversity, but even European royalty, especially in Spain and Portugal. Queen Charlotte, wife to King George III of England, was visibly biracial/mixed race. Needless to say, Amma Asante’s Belle, starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw, should not be the only film, or one among a few films, to present these stories of upper class People of Color in Europe.

“Colorblind casting” is not entirely the fault of the creative teams behind these projects, however, as it is also largely the fault of White historians Whitewashing and revising history, especially in school textbooks. However, dramaturges and creative teams should be expected to do their research well. The creative team behind the TV miniseries The Bible (not a European story in origin, but a story important to many ethnic Europeans, so please go with me) felt they had to justify its casting of (only a very few) Black actors as Biblical figures in a special that gave its viewers a (very) short history lesson. The creative team did their homework, and applied (some of) it, even knowing that they would still get criticized by White viewers for not having an all White cast (though many, if not most, of the actors they cast were still White, with Joseph even having a Cockney/Estuary dialect). However, in reality there would have been even more People of Color, and it wouldn’t have been historically inaccurate to even have cast no White actors. No one should feel they have to justify depicting Mary Magdalene as Black. Meanwhile, how many Arab or Black actors have played Jesus? While how many White actors with light hair and blue eyes have played Jesus? Hollywood has also Whitewashed the stories and characters of Noah, Moses, and Cleopatra, and shows little sign of stopping this long-time trend.

Even in European folklore, there are People of Color. An example of this is the Black or Arab Arthurian knight Sir Palamedes, who was a rival to Tristan for Isolde’s hand in marriage. However, most film adaptations of Arthurian legends leave out that character, and have an all White cast. Many of the fairy tales in “Into The Woods” have origins outside of Europe, such as Cinderella, elements of the story having origins in Chinese history and Ancient Egyptian history and folklore. The setting of Disney’s Into the Woods was purposefully made to be vague, but even if it were set in a specific time period and place, it would not be historically inaccurate for even The Princes to be played by People of Color. However, while the background characters of the film Into The Woods were ethnically diverse, the main and supporting characters were all White.

Cast members, including those playing The Genie, Aladdin, and Jasmine, in Disney's stage musical Aladdin — Cast members, including those playing The Genie, Aladdin, and Jasmine, in Disney’s stage musical *Aladdin*

The Bible is far from the only example of non-European stories being Whitewashed both in film and onstage. The story of Aladdin has a problematic background, with it being “discovered” in France, but probably taking place in China, and definitely having Arab characters. The creative team behind Disney’s stage musical of Aladdin, originally cast no Arab performers at all, despite the Disney film clearly setting it in the Middle East (albeit with many ethnic stereotypes and depicting Aladdin and Jasmine as light-skinned and more European-looking than other characters). Similar to the situation with Les Miserables, it is not “colorblind” casting to cast someone light skinned and White-passing (in this case, biracial Filipino and Ashkenazi Jewish) as Aladdin, while casting someone who is Black as the comedic and literally tap-dancing Genie. These actors were specifically chosen for these specific roles, and there is nothing “colorblind” about it, nothing about their appearances that was ignored. Meanwhile, even contemporary works such as Avatar: The Last Airbender and Ghost in the Shell are and have been Whitewashed by Hollywood.

People of Color, historical and contemporary, in Europe and outside of it, are still being silenced, as well as colonized and erased, by Europeans, even onstage and on film. There is no excuse that can back it up. Even though historians Whitewash history, there is still a lot of material available to dramaturges and creative teams, whose jobs require them to do that research. Whether racism is intended or not, whether it is through ignorance or not, it is still racism, and still erasure. It is still wrong.

Tropes vs. Princes: Sexism-in-Drag in Modern Disney Princess Films

While #Gamergate has not yet officially rebranded itself as #EpicStreisandEffect, the one heartwarming thing about a mob trying to silence their critics is how bad they are at it. The inflammatory atmosphere created by #Gamergate makes it difficult for balanced discussion of Sarkeesian’s critiques, but one interesting aspect that recently occurred to me is how neatly six of her tropes fit the portrayal of men in recent Disney Princess films (from 1989’s ‘The Little Mermaid’ onwards).

This is a guest post by Brigit McCone.

While #Gamergate has not yet officially rebranded itself as #EpicStreisandEffect, the one heartwarming thing about a mob trying to silence their critics is how bad they are at it. The inflammatory atmosphere created by #Gamergate makes it difficult for balanced discussion of Anita Sarkeesian’s critiques, but one interesting aspect that recently occurred to me is how neatly six of her tropes fit the portrayal of men in recent Disney Princess films (from 1989’s The Little Mermaid onwards).

Since the Disney Princess film is almost as male-dominated as video games (Frozen‘s Jennifer Lee was the first female director of a Disney feature), this appears less a genuine reversal than a clumsy “sexism-in-drag” aimed at empowering young girls. But it offers a golden opportunity for female viewers to interrogate our response: do these tropes empower us when reversed? Do we recognize them as sexist? Would they still be dehumanizing if applied equally to male and female characters?

THE DUDEZEL IN DISTRESS

“TROPES VS. WOMEN” SOURCE: The Damsel in Distress

The “dudezel in distress” is a plot device in which a male character is placed in a perilous situation, from which he cannot escape on his own, and must be rescued by a female character. Traditionally, the “dudezel in distress” is a family member or a love interest.

DISNEY DUDEZELS: Among family members, Maurice in Beauty and The Beast (which had a female screenwriter, incidentally) is a classic example of “Dudezel Dad.” His kidnapping forces Belle to risk her life to rescue him, while his pitiful attempt to rescue her is actively counterproductive – his near-death drives Belle to risk her safety again. Both the Beast and Gaston hold Belle hostage by the threat of locking up Maurice, who is consistently punished for attempts to assert agency or independence. Other female characters whose plot arcs are motivated by rescuing their fathers include Ariel of The Little Mermaid (father petrified as worm-creature) and Mulan (father’s peril motivates daughter to take up arms).

The “love interest” as “dudezel in distress” is yet more troubling: girls are taught through this trope that love is the inevitable result of gratitude, rather than the dudezel’s own choice. Take The Little Mermaid: not only does Ariel rescue Eric from drowning, Eric’s inability to love her is depicted as the direct result of his failure to recognize the girl who rescued him. Similarly, Pocahontas must save her love interest, John Smith; Mulan must repeatedly rescue her love interest Shang; Tiana must rescue gold-digging Naveen from his entrapment as a frog. Disney offers no examples of women rescuing men who choose not to become romantically involved with them; being rescued is shown to obligate the dudezel in every case. As such, this trope cannot be seen as empowerment, but as a harmful lesson for girls that also alienates male audiences.

MEN IN REFRIGERATORS

“TROPES VS. WOMEN” SOURCE: Women in Refrigerators

“Men in Refrigerators” refers to the trope of men suffering a loss of powers, brutal violation or an untimely, gruesome death, most often as a plot point for the female hero to seek revenge or further her heroic journey.

DISNEY FRIDGE-DUDES: The best example of violation in the Disney universe is that of Eric by the witch Ursula in The Little Mermaid. His mind and control over his emotions are utterly violated to motivate Ariel’s final confrontation with Ursula and completion of her heroic journey. The traumatic effects on Eric are never shown; Ariel’s response is centered. This rewrites the original story, where the prince chose the mermaid’s rival freely and she learned to accept his choice: surely a better model. Male characters suffering loss of powers to motivate female heroines include Ariel’s father, Triton, and Jasmine’s father, the Sultan, reduced to worm-creature and jester respectively. Male characters killed to facilitate the heroine’s journey include Tiana’s father, whose death motivates her desire for a restaurant, and thus the whole plot of The Princess and the Frog, and the Beast in Beauty and the Beast, whose traumatic murder allows Belle to realize her feelings for him. Once again, its use of ‘men in refrigerators’ reinforces a utilitarian attitude to male characters in Disney Princess films.

MANIC PIXIE DREAM DUDE

“TROPES VS. WOMEN” SOURCE: Manic Pixie Dream Girl

The Manic Pixie Dream Dude is a bubbly, shallow male character written in order to help the female character learn to loosen up and enjoy life. Typically, the Manic Pixie Dream Dude has no job or defined interests of his own.

DISNEY PIXIE DREAM-DUDES: Disney’s most obvious Manic Pixie Dream Dude is Prince Naveen of The Princess and the Frog. The heroine, Tiana, has clear career ambitions, loyalty and responsibilities which cause her life to lack joy. Manic Pixie Naveen, despite being a prince, has no independent career or goals and adjusts seamlessly to working in Tiana’s restaurant: he exists to facilitate her goals, while exuding fun, madcap spontaneity and irresponsible wildness to help the heroine embrace joy. Similarly, Rapunzel in Tangled has a clear sense of responsibility, moral values, a conflicted relationship with mother-figure Gothel and the goal of reuniting with her parents. Flynn is the perfect foil: he exists to be a fun and wild antidote to Gothel’s influence, but assimilates to Rapunzel’s lifestyle in the end by abandoning his personal goals (or rather, by being revealed as an orphan who lacks all ties and purpose, and who is explicitly told that his dream of wealth and empowerment “sucks”). He also exhibits a tendency to petty crime that TV Tropes identifies as typical of Manic Pixie Dream Girls. In both cases, the empowerment of the female character is portrayed as a wish fulfillment only realizable through disempowerment of the males.

STRAW CHAUVINIST

“TROPES VS. WOMEN” SOURCE: The Straw Feminist

The Straw Chauvinist is an exaggerated caricature of a chauvinist, filled with misrepresentations, oversimplifications and stereotypes.

DISNEY STRAW CHAUVINIST: Gaston, from Beauty and the Beast, is the clearest example of a Straw Chauvinist in Disney film. Acting as the sole representative of masculine sexual assertiveness and self-confidence within the film (unless you count the comedy-relief candlestick), Gaston implicitly associates these features with self-satisfied ignorance, kidnap, blackmail and the persecution of the mentally ill: “No-one plots like Gaston, takes cheap shots like Gaston, likes to persecute harmless crackpots like Gaston.” Everything from the masculine desire for physical enhancement through body-building and protein-ingestion (“I eat five dozen eggs, so I’m roughly the size of a barge”) to the stereotypical male habit of spitting (“I’m especially good at expectorating”) is, through Gaston, made to appear ridiculous, over-the-top and unnecessary. The purpose is to separate the male lead, Beast, from any association with chauvinism that might be provoked by the character’s being huge, hairy and creepily controlling towards women. This clearly parallels the Veronica Mars example that Sarkeesian cites as “straw feminism,” where the independent, intelligent Veronica is separated from any association with “those kind of feminists” through the use of exaggerated, straw feminist caricatures. Is this, then, one of “the most disgusting tropes ever forged in Mt. Doom” or a reasonable way to use the very ridiculousness of feminist caricatures to separate them from actual feminism? Certainly, the worrying aspect of Disney’s “straw chauvinist” trope is not that it “discredits” chauvinism, but that it normalizes the abusive behavior of Beast through his contrast with Gaston; the “straw chauvinist” shifts the emphasis to ridicule of a stereotyped image rather than identification of harmful behaviors.

VAMPERMAN

“TROPES VS. WOMEN” SOURCE: The Evil Demon Seductress TV Trope: The Vamp

The Vamperman, or “evil demon seducer,” is a sexualized man who lures women into his evil web, using his sexuality as a weapon.

DISNEY VAMPERMEN: Strangely for family fare, modern Disney films are full of this trope: Jafar, Scar, Hades, Claude Frollo. Portrayed as manipulative, conniving and controlling men, in each case they exert power over the female leads in a sexualized manner: Princess Jasmine must kiss Jafar to save Aladdin; Scar’s rape threat to Nala was cut from The Lion King film but retained in the stage show; Claude Frollo has an entire “Hellfire” aria about his sexual urges for Esmeralda; Hades literally owns the soul of Megara and uses this to stroke and cuddle her to her visible disgust. Not only do the characters use sex as weapon, they are inappropriately sexualized themselves: tall, aquiline, sardonic and acted by velvet-voiced charisma bombs like Jeremy Irons or James Woods. Dracula’s (the novel’s) description of its female vamps’ “deliberate voluptuousness that was both thrilling and repulsive” seems apt for Disney’s charismatic Vampermen. A streak of theatrical camp is often used to supposedly disarm the predator’s sexual threat, creating the Camper Vamperman variant. Vampermen allow female viewers to objectify the character’s “thrillingly repulsive voluptuousness,” while confirming what Sarkeesian might term “sexist, preconceived notions” that men are manipulative, deceitful, and sexually threatening.

MR. FANSERVICE

“TROPES VS. WOMEN” SOURCE: Women As Background Decoration TV Trope: Ms. Fanservice

Mr. Fanservice, or “men-as-background-decoration” is the practice of presenting hypersexualized men as ornamental decoration.

DECORATIVE DISNEY DUDES: While Ursula, the voluptuous and brazenly confident villain of The Little Mermaid has become a gay icon to the plus-sized lesbian community, who could claim that Triton’s torso is a realistic standard to offer aging males? The men of Disney are repeatedly presented as bizarrely pumped, fit and sexualized, wearing far less clothing than their female counterparts, all while the actual act of bodily self-improvement is ruthlessly mocked through figures like Gaston. How did these other dudes get their rock-hard abs? By unrealistic body image alone, apparently. Perhaps the most glaring example of “men as background decoration” is the character of “The Entire Chinese Army” in Mulan. Not only is “The Army” a background decoration in the sense of being utterly useless at repelling Hun invasions when compared with a single adolescent girl, but said girl’s invasive ogling of their nudity under false pretenses is trivialized as a subject of humor.

“The Entire Chinese Army” is only allowed to serve a purpose when dressed as women, intensifying the emasculation of male viewers.

However, the presentation of these male soldiers-in-drag as laughable highlights the overall problem with “sexism-in-drag”: it reinforces the inferiority of female gender roles while empowering women through their fictional reversal, and it affirms to male viewers that female empowerment can only be achieved by male emasculation. Male-dominated Disney Princess Film encourages a model of “Little Miss Chauvinism” that adds up to little more than a Ms. Male Character trope. Compare Jennifer Lee’s Frozen – not only does it prioritize unselfish love between women, ending the isolation of the Strong Woman, it affirms “everywoman” heroine Anna’s own empowerment as key to her abandonment of rescuer prince fantasies in favor of her unselfish, “everyman” counterpart. In other words, Frozen presents female empowerment as essential to enhanced appreciation of the male, rather than opposed to it.

However, the enduring popularity of other Disney Princess films does demonstrate that young girls are as susceptible to ideologies of empowerment-through-inequality, and to utilitarian attitudes toward men, as boys are toward women. Nor should the responsibility of female screenwriters be ignored in assessing “Little Miss Chauvinism” archetypes. Does Frozen, then, point the way toward a new paradigm, the integrated empowerment of both male and female? Must female empowerment otherwise be confined to a world of fictional escapism by its assumed incompatibility with male empowerment? Is it possible to merge the “pink” and “blue” aisles into a single, empowering cinema for children? As always, keep in mind that it’s entirely possible to be critical of some aspects of media, while finding other aspects valuable or enjoyable.

Brigit McCone adored The Little Mermaid growing up (but weirdly overidentified with Sebastian the reggae crab), writes and directs short films and radio dramas and is the author of The Erotic Adventures of Vivica under her cabaret pseudonym Voluptua von Temptitillatrix. Her hobbies include doodling and satirically endorsing dating sites.

Women and Gender in Musicals Week: Aladdin

This review previously appeared at Bitch Flicks as part of our series on Animated Children’s Films.

This movie is about a princess and a “street rat” who fall in love and must overcome the evil Jafar to get married. This movie is also about generalizing non-Western cultures (mainly Middle Eastern cultures) and perpetuating cartoonish stereotypes of Arabic peoples. As an added bonus, this movie masquerades as a girl power film when in fact, it enforces the traditional gender role of men as active/women as passive.

The first time I saw this children’s movie was over this past summer, when I was the assistant director of a summer production of the musical Disney’s Aladdin. I was the only person involved in the production that had not seen Aladdin when I was a child. Every single one of the children (almost entirely girls, ages 9-12 with one 7 year old) came in with ideas of what the show would look like, because they had all seen the movie and they knew every single song. Because they knew the music, we had more time to work on choreography. For a marketplace scene, I asked the kids to strike a pose to freeze in during dialogue. I was looking for marketplace-y poses: two people talking, maybe gesturing to another person, walking poses, etc. They immediately put their arms up with their palms together so that their arms framed their face and their necks were moved to one side (a pose associated with “Arabia” in pop-culture). They all wanted to do their hair in the “I Dream of Jeannie” hairdo, because it was “so Arabian”. I wondered, where did they get such a stereotypical view of the Middle East? And then I saw the movie and all of those questions were answered.

My director thought that this was a girl power movie. Look! At the end, the Sultan declares that Jasmine can marry whomever she chooses, when she chooses! And she rejects all of those suitors because she’s “not a prize to be won”! Girl power yeah! No. This movie is producing yet another hetero-romantic story where women sit there and men pursue them. She was naïve before Aladdin shows her a “whole new world”—she is the passive learner while he is the active teacher. How does she help with the defeat of Jafar? She kisses him—using her body to be attractive to men—the rest of the time she just kind of stands there while Aladdin fights Jafar. Again, she stands there lookin’ sexy and being passive, he fights actively. Even their body stance around each other assumes a dominant/submissive look—Aladdin’s body is tall and upright, Jasmine is leaning into him or sitting behind him or being held in his arms. He is also physically larger, aside from her hair (her ponytail is thicker than her waist), she is extremely thin and takes up very little space when compared to Aladdin’s broad shoulders and muscular body. And of course, what other characters in this movie are women? Oh that’s right, they are all men. Because women can only be in stories to be the object of men’s affections, not to fill other roles. There are some background women in the dance scenes, but those are the “harem girls” and other sexualized women (because foreign=exotic and sexy!)

Essentially, all of the women are defined by their attractiveness to men. “Ugly” women, then, are used as comic relief. In one of the first scenes, when a woman opens the door and says of Aladdin, “Still I think he’s rather tasty!”, everybody in the audience is supposed to laugh. Aladdin looks at the woman (who is quite large) and jumps in surprise and disgust. Oh, silly fat woman, you can’t have feelings because you’re ugly! We’re supposed to laugh at how ridiculous her thinking Aladdin is “tasty” is—because fat women and ugly women are not supposed to have sexual desires. Only when the sexy women do this is it okay—nobody is laughing at Jasmine’s proclamations of love for Aladdin, because it doesn’t seem ridiculous now. Aladdin is attractive, she is attractive, so they can be in love.

So doing this story where every single role had to be filled by a girl made this an interesting production. Some girls told us they didn’t want to be a male character. Some girls who were cast into men’s roles started acting like men—they lowered their voices and changed their body language to reflect a stereotypical man. Some girls who were cast into men’s roles adopted them to be women’s roles—the girl playing Jafar, for example, had no issue with being a female Jafar. The girl who played Aladdin, the title character, made it clear that she was acting like a man—I, personally, thought that it would have been fine for her to be a female Aladdin (but the lesbian love story was not an idea that they particularly were comfortable with, which is interesting given how comfortable they were with heterosexual love stories).

In fact, I think it would have made the movie better if Aladdin was a girl (and if all the racism was taken out). Suddenly, “A Whole New World” takes on a whole new meaning—but these movies with antiquated gender roles would not have been as widely accepted into culture if the relationship it portrayed was queer.

When watching this movie, it’s hard to not get depressed about the fact that this is what little girls are told to aspire to. Watch something else instead.

This is an anonymous review.

Animated Children’s Films: Aladdin

This is an anonymous guest review.

When watching this movie, it’s hard to not get depressed about the fact that this is what little girls are told to aspire to. Watch something else instead.

This is an anonymous review.