The Bechdel Cast - Aladdin with Shereen Lani Younes

Episode Date: July 19, 2018

Jamie, Caitlin, and special guest Shereen Lani Younes show you a whole new world by dissecting the representation of women in Disney's Aladdin.(This episode contains spoilers) For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @shereenwhy Twitter! While you're there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELP Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project.

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from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, They're just dreams. Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. On the Bechdelcast, the questions asked if movies have women in them. Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effing vast. Start changing it with the Bechdelcast. Hello and welcome to the Bechdelcast. My name is Caitlin Durante. My name's Jamie Loftus.

And we talk about how women are represented in film in the podcast you're listening to which is the bechdel cast we use the bechdel test ever heard of it no what is it it's a test episode 90 jamie learns what the bechdel test is that reminds me of um this show that used to be on Disney Channel called Dog with a Blog. And the first episode I ever watched was like season two, episode 35. And it was like, the people learn the dog has a blog. It's like deep into season two that anyone becomes aware that the blog everyone in town's been reading has been written by a dog. It's a really good show. Wow. I think that there's like

an r-rated version of that that i think would be really compelling anyways well what is the bechdel test i don't know what i don't know what it is does the dog in this show identify as any particular gender yes of course you can't get a television show unless you're a male identifying dog okay so in that case the conversation we just had about the dog with a blog does not pass the bechdel test because we were talking about a male identifying figure right um so the bechdel test requires that a movie let's say that you're watching has to have two female identifying characters they have to speak to each other and that conversation that they have cannot be about a man let's try it okay hey caitlin hey jamie bucket hats are back jamie i would have to disagree

we did that's the that passed the vectal test it doesn't pass the rules of fashion but it does pass. Yes. So anyway, we are here, as we always are, with a guest. She is a filmmaker and she is the co-host of the ethnically ambiguous podcast on How Stuff Works. Shereen Lonnie Younes. That's me. Hi. Hi. So you brought us Aladdin. I brought you Aladdin.

Disney's 1992 aladdin yes it's a sentimental treasure for of mine i watched it again yesterday it was just magical yeah i hadn't seen it in a couple years but it still bangs for me i still i mean there's like i mean there's infinity things to unpack about oh yeah what a fun movie it's a great movie it was my introduction to robin williams catapulted my obsession with him the songs are fun and the lyrics are kind of weird sometimes but as a kid you didn't know that but as an adult right there's a lot of weird well there's like and this has nothing to do with our discussion on gender and this is the point where people uh listening or are going to our itunes page and being like they don't talk about it enough so but seriously there's so much like self-referential disney shit in this movie

that is like kind of unusual for disney movies like there there's a reference to the little mermaid there's a there's goofy at the end. It almost feels like a DreamWorks movie vibe where they're so they don't give a fuck. They're just like, oh, yeah, this is a new Shrek movie, but also Boss Baby. And you're like, yeah, sure, whatever. I can't think of a ton of other specific examples aside from there's a moment in Zootopia where they do some self-referential stuff but I feel like that's not that uncommon for Disney I feel like they put little like easter eggs in easter eggs but I mean I feel like the ones in this movie and just like reference culture in general especially I don't hate it at all it's just like kind of unusual for this

that's true yeah anyways so Shireen what is your history with this movie, your relationship? I know you love it. Did you grow up with it? I did. So I'm Arab. I'm Syrian. And as a kid, you had one thing to relate to. And it was Aladdin, if you were Middle Eastern. I grew up with an older, I have two sisters and my older sister, she's a year and a half older than me. And so we would grow up watching the same movies. And she would always relate to like the princesses and stuff and like she was Ariel and she was Jasmine and Belle and I was always the animal sidekick I was Raja or Flounder or I loved it I was like I can't wait to be an animal like peak younger sibling but as a Middle Eastern kid you watch Aladdin i don't know you automatically like it just because it's like i'm represented at least a little bit even though it's all by like it's by a white

company by with white voice actors and but they'll say like praise allah or like even aladdin at one point says like my esteemed effendi and effendi means like friend and like as an arab kid you know what that means like you you like or like you or, like, you'll see Arabic on the screen and you'll be like, I know how to read that. And so, watching Aladdin as a Middle Eastern girl, it felt like I was like, oh, I'm seen now. That's why I was especially pissed when they were casting the live action movie of Aladdin. I felt like this was, like, a chance for, like, a Middle Eastern actress to, like, get her chance. Yeah. And they cast a half Indian, half white girl. So. like this was like a chance for like a middle eastern actress to like get her chance yeah and they cast a half indian half white girl so i haven't i haven't been keeping up with the casting

for that movie is there aladdin's egyptian which is which is acceptable to me but i just think like and then the argument was like acroba is made up it's not a real place in the middle east like yeah i understand that but also when else will Middle Eastern actress get her chance if not for fucking Aladdin? Right, right. You know, so. And it's Middle Eastern culture that's being referenced the whole time. The whole time. The whole time.

That's not really a valid argument at all. Yeah. And even like how the bread looks like in the cartoon and everything. It's very like, like, that's how it looks like in Syria when my grandpa would come back from the market. Like, it's like these like yummy loaves of bread or like the bazaar would be like something I would relate to and obviously it's like an ancient time and like Syria wasn't like that ancient when I was when I would visit there but there are little references that you can relate to and like um there are similarities that are just like you can't ignore and it felt

cool as a kid knowing that was my movie. And it was a great movie. And it was, like, that's another thing. And then there was also a Super Nintendo video game of Aladdin that we were obsessed with. And it was, like, it walked you through the whole thing. And you would, like, eat apples. And that was, like, your life support on the side,

like, how many apples you had. And, like, so many of the genie the genie level was like really hard and getting out of the cave of wonders is really fun and the whole thing me and my sisters were just nerds that loved Aladdin and loved the video game and it defined a lot of our childhood for sure yeah yeah yeah it's I mean it's so unfortunate that like that was your one choice as like an Arab girl growing up like this is like my one chance to see myself represented on screen oh it's wild um it also resonated with white kids because i also loved this movie growing up because it's a great movie everyone loves it not yeah not for the same reasons as you but i

was just like oh my god the genie is fine he's magic and i love you know so um yeah i also grew up with this movie i think i don't know if i it in the theater. I was six when it came out. But we had this on VHS. I watched it all the time. I watched it last night for the first time in a while, but I still had so many things memorized. Like it just comes back to you. Yeah. Songs, even the little like words in the middle of a song that are just like random.

Like it's just everything comes back to you just because you've seen it. Like it's ingrained in your memory. There's like certain songs that I can, not only did I not realize that I had fully memorized, but I can also hear like my little brother at five singing it like with me when I hear something. Yeah, because my brother used to sing Friend Like Me very loud. And I remember pushing him into a wall once and his tooth got loose because he was singing Friend Like Me too loud. That's a really lovely memory. Yeah, what a beautiful memory.

Shout out to Ben. The genie was like my hero character. I loved him so much. And I loved Robin Williams after I saw that movie. And I always think about like actors now, like comedians that decide to do children's movies. Like the kids that are growing up with them probably are getting introduced to them for the first time the same way i was introduced to robin williams and so

i really love that robin williams did that and he was just so funny and i love the genie and my second favorite character was the carpet because i'm a fucking weirdo dude the carpet rules the carpet is so cute has a big personality yeah even the carpets of a boy they call it a heat aladdin genders the carpet right away. Right away. And it's like, how could you know? How could you know? How could you know?

It's an it at best. Yeah. The carpet is a genderless icon. I agree. Jamie, what's your history with Aladdin? Exactly the same. Yeah. It's just I watched it 500 times and then I pushed my brother into a wall.

Yeah. That was the one difference we had. We never pushed our sibling into a wall. Maybe over different reasons. We don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll unpack it later in the episode. I'm not judging.

I'm not judging. Shall I do the recap? Yeah. So, okay, we open on Jafar. He's ominous. We do need to unpack why Jafar is your crush, but we will get into that. Oh, my gosh.

So there's this bad, sinister-looking man named Jafar, and he is trying will get into that um so there's this bad sinister looking man named jafar and he is trying to get into the cave of wonders to get this magic lamp and he's not able to do it because like the guy he recruited is not good enough right unworthy uh so then we meet aladdin and he and his pet monkey slash best friend abu abu also means father of in arabic which always confused me as a kid like do you know how like in european countries like johnson is like the son of john yeah in the middle east like a nickname you'll call someone by is like father of the oldest child they have so like my father is abu remi which is like my sister's name is remi or like uh abu whatever is like their nickname so as a kid the fact that the monkey was named like dad always fucking that's so weird

always confused me i never understood it anyway sorry well abu is all of our fathers so what does that make sense to me uh so he and abu they are poor. They have to steal their food, and they're always in trouble with the law. Then we meet Jasmine, and she is the princess. Her father is the sultan, and he is trying to marry her off because laws. Because laws. The law says that she has to be married to a prince by her next birthday, which is in three days. We also don't know how old she is. They never specify.

I feel like intentionally. I think so, too. They're like, she looks 16, but if anyone asks, she's 25. Also, the Sultan's adorable. The Sultan is such a bumbling idiot. His little feet are tiny. He is shuffling around. I want to see one of those.

I don't know if there's a formal word for it, but those things where it's like a cartoon without it. I guess we do see him in his underwear. I feel like his legs would be a wild shape, but they're regular. Yeah, he's wearing boxers, heart-shaped boxers. I retract that statement. I was like, I wish we knew what the Sultan looked like without his clothes on. But the movie actually does do that for us. It fulfilled our wish.

That's my first wish. Genie, I want to see the Sultan naked. And then it's also around here that we learn that Jafar is the Sultan's... That he's not hot, but he is the Sultan's royal advisor. He's Rasputin of the Sultan. Anyways, sorry. So then Jafar learns that Aladdin is the person he needs to enter the Cave of Wonders to retrieve this lamp for him.

So he basically tricks him. Chosen one narrative. Yeah. What's up? So he tricks Aladdin into going and getting this lamp. And in so doing, Aladdin meets the magic carpet. He gets the lamp. Jafar betrays him, but Jafar does not get the lamp.

Jafar is also in disguise. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Because Abu steals the lamp back. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. He's a little pickpocket. So they're now trapped in the Cave of Wonders, but they have the lamp.

So we meet the genie. Woo! Big number. Right. It rules. It's really fun. It's so that we meet the genie. Big number. Right. It rules. Friend like me. It's so fun. It's so fun.

I watched it twice. It's so good. So fun. So good. So now the genie is Aladdin's master. No, Aladdin is the genie's master. Yes. He's granted three wishes for his first wish.

He's like, oh oh i forgot the part where aladdin and jasmine meet so jasmine runs away uh because she's like i'm not gonna marry anyone i i don't want my choices made for me i'm gonna run away from home right so she meets aladdin in the marketplace and they fall basically instantly in love but uh aladdin gets taken away and like under arrest and then jasmine who's like i'm gonna run away forever returns to her palace literally that night after saying i'll never go back there yeah that's how my only trying to run away from home scheme went when i was 13 to i literally walked to my aunt's house and she drove me home three hours

later right okay so then for um aladdin's he's like, wow, I really love this princess. But the genie's like, I can't make anyone fall in love with anyone else. So Aladdin's like, what if you make me a prince? That way I have a chance. What if I lie to her instead? What if I gaslight this woman into falling in love with me? So genie turns him into a prince and he comes parading into her life being like, oh, my God. I'm Prince Ali.

Another great number. Yes. Love Prince Ali. Any song with Genie is a fucking blast. It's so good. It's so good. It's so good. So then he, you know, eventually kind of wins her over because at first she's just like, I don't want you.

You're one of these other stuffy suitors. No thanks. just like i don't want you you're one of these other stuffy suitors no thanks but then he reminds her of the boy that she met in the marketplace aka aladdin because that is who he is and she has eyes she has eyes yeah but he's like no that wasn't me but you're pretty great so let's hang out and she's like okay fine meanwhile jafar gets wind that prince ali is just aladdin with the lamp so he tries to kill him and then yeah i i forgot that like of the few like moments that i did not remember about this movie at all i forgot that they knock him out and throw him off a cliff yeah like to his death like he has a weight on his feet and he's like pretty much dead yeah i was like oh my god was that truly necessary to show us all of that but

it was wild and that's when aladdin uses his second wish to basically have the genie save him from dying right and he had promised the genie that he was like you know what for my third wish i promised to set you free so that you're not my slave anymore uh and the genie's like okay great i hope that happens and then there's a moment where aladdin's like actually they want to make me sultan so like i can't i'm gonna like i would love to free you from slavery but i actually need you to help me lie to a woman for the rest of her life and yours yes it's like oh cool cool cool cool cool but then jafar steals the lamp and then he uses it to like take over agrabah honestly jafar uses the lamp pretty wide like he leverages the lamp and a way of like oh

yeah aladdin you fucking idiot you're wishy you were thinking small yeah you made your monkey into an elephant and then fucking jafar took over the entire kingdom. In like two seconds. Yeah, he had an agenda. He had a schedule to maintain. He's busy. And then, of course, Aladdin's like, no, I'm not going to let this happen. So he goes and defeats Jafar. After Jafar tries to kill Aladdin with a series of visual puns.

Get to the point. Yeah, it's actually... Nice. I'm just getting warmed up. Breathe fire. And he turns into a gigantic phallus and then a buff genie and then he's defeated. Right, because Aladdin,

he convinces Jafar to become a genie which will enable him to have all the power in the world. He will then also become enslaved because that's what being a genie which will enable him to have all the power in the world he will then also become enslaved because that's what being a genie is so jafar falls for it yeah i think i missed it on jafar's part also the video game was so fun because the final boss was like multiple levels like first it was jafar then it was him as a snake and then it was him as a genie and it was so fucking fun oh that's so cool it was so fun any nude sultan no no darn he's not a boss

so yeah uh jafar gets defeated and then aladdin learns the lesson to just be who you are and then he frees the genie jasmine still loves aladdin because she's like you know what i always liked you when you were poor. So this is fine. And then Jasmine influences policy and Sultan changes the law. Yeah. So that she can get married because that's her one function in this story. Kissy, kissy, kiss. Bye-bye.

Slurp and goodnight. Yes. So that is the movie. Let's take a quick break and then we'll be back to have our discussion. Woo! Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017 was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate.

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Let's talk about the gender politics of Aladdin. Oh, also Jafar. Okay. Please explain to me what about Jafar makes you have a crush on him or had a crush. This is true. This is like a really where it's like that is a crush I had so early in my life before I fully understood what a crush even was that I cannot tell you why I have a crush on Jafar. I just know I always have. And I thought that first of all, I will say Aladdin has no nipples. No, none.

What is that about? Jafar, we have to assume, has nipples. So that's a point for him. I don't, I really don't know. I just thought like Jafar was like really tall. I was like, he's so much taller than Aladdin. So cool. I liked that he he's so much taller than Aladdin. So cool. I liked that he had, like, his cool evil apartment.

I liked his outfit. I liked his laugh. Liked his voice. You know, I just think that there were redeeming things about Jafar that warranted a crush. But my cartoon crushes, it was Jafar, and it was Peter Pan, and it was john smith so i'm kind of all over the board john smith i know boring motherfucker are you serious he's a he's a chiseled boring motherfucker i don't know i've i've since grown up and no longer coco one was far hotter than dumbass john smith coco one was hot though was great. Yeah, a grown woman knows

that Cuckold is the choice. I have, like, PTSD just remembering the necklace, like, just breaking. Ugh. Ugh, goddamn. Never be the same. Sorry, this is about Aladdin.

Yeah. So, if you boiled on this story, we've already hinted at this, but it's basically a story about a man who, the second he gets access to just a little bit of power power he uses it to gaslight a woman into thinking that he's a prince and into falling in love with him right yeah you would

argue that she's already interested in him but as aladdin so he yeah should we just like get into jasmine yeah because there's a there's like the one female character you mean that's gonna be the bulk of our discussion today yeah there were parts of jasmine's character that i didn't like i didn't remember her being as headstrong as she is like there's a lot of like really good lines from her i like that about her i said i remember as a kid growing up being like she's kind of a badass like she tricked her far even though she had to kiss him at the end but like yeah she still like was like smart and then she has a line like in the very beginning she's like i have no friends except for you my pet tiger who's i guess a girl um so it was like this lonely but somehow still smart badass person

that i was like you're not too bad so i kind of liked as a kid that she wasn't like represented too flimsy and i also appreciate as a kid that she wasn't like represented too flimsy. And I also appreciate as a kid, I remember very distinctly that they, I liked that they made the Sultan like a softie. Yeah.

They didn't make him this typical like angry Arab man. That's, yeah. And then like other, I mean, even like pitted against

other Disney princess fathers. Like I was thinking about the Sultan versus King Triton. Right. Was awful and violent and wrecked all his daughter's stuff. And it was scary. And the Sultan, and I guess Belle's dad, too.

They also had similar character design when I think about it. Little tiny feet. Yeah, little tiny men. Plump little men who were like, I love you, but I'm still sexist yeah i love you but also get married now and this is another example of a disney princess without a mother yes dead mom only has a dad a classic trope yes the sultan makes one reference to her mom he says after jasmine's like i don't want to get married in less than three days and he's like her mother wasn't nearly so picky which i think is a little little little dig in

himself yeah exactly because uh you look at jasmine next to the sultan you don't see a lot of sultan in her gotta think she's got a hot mommy yeah but yeah her sole purpose is to i mean now that i think about it a lot of disney movies that's the main purpose of all the female characters whether it's pocahontas little mermaid or like whatever it's just like be obedient to your father yeah right it's kind of unfortunate now that i just hash it in my head well and like all the princess narratives are very formulaic in that way where especially like during like the disney renaissance era you see like princesses unlike sleeping beauty who's knocked out for the whole movie and cinderella

who's like la la la i don't know maybe someone will come and fix everything you know like these princesses have more identity and they're more headstrong but by by the end of the movie, it's like there is some sort of major compromise where they can still be themselves as long as daddy's happy, as long as they get married, as long as, like, there's always, like, this caveat of, I don't know, like, a Disney trying to, like, keep their conservative values

and try to push forward a little bit but ultimately sell backpacks in every state lunch boxes backpacks right as we were saying like if you isolate jasmine as a character like the things that she says the stances that she takes her intelligence and like being able to figure things out and like read the people around her like i am not a prize to be won exactly she she doesn't want to be forced into marriage so much so that she runs away from home so she like arguably has a little bit of agency but then she does return back to the palace less than 24 hours later so um you know there's that but like if you just isolate her you're like oh yeah like this is an admirable character this

is someone that like little girls can look up to but her purpose in the story is still just to be aladdin's love interest so she doesn't really have a function outside of that. Right. And the narrative does screw her over several different times. Especially by the end where she's literally like the classic lead female character benched during the climax of the movie in some horrifying way. We've got Mary Jane in a web. We've got Jasmine in an hourglass. We've got the woman in Pacificific rim launched out of the scene it's like happens all the time in a series of visually obnoxious ways but oh then meg and hercules in the underworld yes crushed by a column they like killed her and then they're like okay hercules

is actually gonna break you it happens all the time and i I think even in The Little Mermaid, Eric is the one who like stabs Ursula. There's also some big similarities between Ursula and Jafar that I was noticing where they both go into disguise to trick someone. Oh, right. They both get huge at the end of the movie. End of similarities. Well, they're also both coded gay the way that many many disney villains are yeah but before before we get there uh so the one thing jasmine is allowed by the story to do before she's benched until the movie's basically over and

then all she has to do is get married, influence policy, and then get married. But she tricks Jafar. Okay, I wasn't totally clear on this. Does she see Aladdin? Is she just trying to distract Jafar? Yes. Okay. So she does that.

She's really smart. We've seen her trick people before and distract and blah, blah, blah. But the story makes her do it with her sexuality right and also also he calls her pussycat yeah he calls her pussycat which it's just like my skin crawl i'm like you just you don't want to kiss a woman jafar let's just like and what a growth and i forgot that they actually kissed yeah and if you hear the background when she's like to seduce him, she just keeps saying these ridiculous things like,

the gap between your teeth and you're so tall. Your eyebrows are so, and your beard is so twisted. It's disturbing. But I liked her because she was smart. Even when she first sees Aladdin, he says, like, do you trust me? And she already knows it's him with the whole apple thing on the magic carpet. She already figured it out. It's not something like Miley Cyrus.

It's obviously him and she knows it. She figures it out right away. Aladdin knows Hannah Montana. Yeah, exactly. And even at the beginning where she is like, she leaves the palace and goes to, I was worried. I was like oh i feel like aladdin kind of rescues her but in the end it sort of ends up being this team effort where he's you know he swoops down he falls in love at first sight he's like oh she's hot although

i have theories about aladdin that i'll get into he like looks at her he's like oh she's hot better rescue her from this cop uh very anti-cop movie, which is interesting. Wait, I thought you were talking about the moment in the marketplace where she does not know how commerce works. Right, yeah. So she's like, here, let me give you this apple, little kid. I have to pay? Right. And the vendor's like, excuse me, please pay for that.

And then he threatens to chop off her arm. To kill her. Right. And then Aladdin has to swoop in and save her. Right. her arm to kill her right and then um aladdin has to swoop in and save her right but then he like when he says like oh this is my sister she doesn't know jasmine does start to like play along right into it and he does say she's crazy and then she has to play along with being crazy because women be crazy obviously so crazy right so they're like oh seems believable yeah but but then she saves him like with 10

minutes later when when uh when the guard comes after him and she's like unhand him yeah by order of the princess so true so i don't know i like i like aladdin and jasmine's relationships more than i like most same yeah yeah like it seems relatively balanced balanced in comparison other than the fact that the movie is called aladdin right well he is the protagonist she is the love interest he he's pushing the narrative forward so he's she's just kind of like she does make some choices but for the most part things are just sort of happening to her their romantic relationship is depicted a little bit better than what we're used to seeing especially in disney movies where he does value her for her looks which he does say like when he's describing but it's the third thing he says he does say she's smart and she's fun and beautiful and

she's like yes um and then also whenever they're sort of like he brings her to his like studio apartment or whatever and lives near the reservoir and they realize that they're starting to like connect and like each other because they share a similar experience so they both feel trapped yeah so it's not just that he finds her attractive and i will also say that this is one of the few movies where she's like made to be less hot and he still finds her attractive because she's wearing this like kind of big like robe and her insane body type which we will talk about yeah is kind of covered up so he like he gets a glimpse of her like face and her hair and he's like oh who's that yeah but that's something like as a kid i her body was very like belly dancer

like very just like stereotypical like middle eastern sexuality whatever and that kind of made me i never wanted to be jasmine for halloween because i just i well first of all was not allowed to wear those things and second of all was just like i'm not that's kind of just just too sexy for an eight-year-old to wear not age appropriate yeah i think she is like sexualized more than extremely sexualized yeah and i think it's because it's a middle i mean like maybe i'm biased like i think they exploited some of the culture a little bit too much like even the first like verse of the arabian night song they say it's barbaric but hey it's home like it's like you're and then like cutting off a hand for stealing an apple it's just like the culture is either's barbaric but hey it's home like it's like you're and then like cutting off

a hand for stealing an apple it's just like the culture is either very barbaric or very sexualized or very just over the top exploitative sometimes just to serve the narrative for sure and i see it more now than i did back then for sure there's a lot of things like that like the only characters with accents are villains yes like there's all kinds of stuff where it's very exploitative and like not necessarily painting arabic culture in a positive light yeah oh i thought another comparison that i was like oh it is so different the way it's depicted in aladdin is the one jump ahead sequence is not entirely dissimilar from bell walking through her village at the beginning of Beauty and the

Beast where it's like okay this is where we are this is what it's like here and both sequences are like depicting like a lower class community but the way they do it in Aladdin is way more violent way more like it's just it's it's very different yeah I'm glad you brought that up because it's completely true yeah even the side, whether it's like some like matronly person like coming on to Aladdin, like they're all very just unattractive people in the marketplace or in the bazaar or in the whatever. They're just not flattering depictions of the Arab culture. Also, the things like sword swallowing, fire eating, all that stuff is like usually made to seem like a joke or like a gag for kids to be like oh my god what what yeah and all the women even in like the parade for ali prince ali or whatever they were all belly dancer looking like all the hot the hot girls are all just like in very just like

like hourglass figures and and racy outfits or whatever and i like can respect that belly dancing is a part of arabic culture and Middle Eastern culture for sure. But as for a children's movie, it just would have been nice to have a woman dressed in something else. Right. Yeah. And it's either that or then Jasmine covered up in a potato sack. It's just like there's two. Yeah.

I don't know. I'm sorry to keep comparing it to Beauty and the Beast, but there's another analog there of like the three belly dancers who they're in. Oh, Gaston's like little women people? Yeah, and the three, and they are significantly more covered, but they're the same three characters basically, but I'm pretty sure that the women in Beauty and the Beast had names.

Yeah. Oh, really? The women in I believe that they do, and in Aladdin, those characters don't get names, but they show up multiple times. They're in Prince Ali. They're in One Jump Ahead. Oh, those are the same women? The same.

Unless the characters are drawn that. But I'm pretty sure it's the same characters. I think that's probably true. Because they're, like, in the same area. But, yeah, I don't know. It's weird. Is the implication during One Jump Ahead that like Aladdin has like possibly hooked up with a lot of ladies in town

because I was thinking that this time where it's like every time he runs into a lady in the marketplace they're like hey it's like maybe he I mean I read it as being like oh he's well liked and everyone knows him because he just is always around and like he's homeless but like maybe it is like

he's a player maybe i mean i'm like kind of here i i don't buy that aladdin when he meets jasmine is like this virginal oh no i was like aladdin like fuck i think aladdin fucks the nipple is wonder of agrabah fucks the chosen one has to be it has to be a fucking stud yeah so my theory is aladdin the way he carries himself is certainly he has the confidence of someone that has had sex and and the way that he whisks jasmine into his studio apartment i'm like oh you've done this before where he's like and the view you know like when you go home with someone and it's like okay this is like stop tap dancing it's actually really funny and it's like, okay, this is like stop tap dancing.

It's actually really funny. It's like he's done this before. I love how we keep calling it a studio apartment. I love it so much. It is though. You're totally right. He did have it. Yeah, he had a whole routine.

And, oh, there's a moment which we come across a lot, which is very annoying, where a woman does a thing that he did not expect a woman could do. And they have to pick their jaws up off the floor it's when he's taking her to his studio apartment the jumpy thing yeah he like pole vaults over like a gap between two buildings and then he's like you're gonna he's like you're gonna need this board to walk across and then as he's like laying down the board she also pole vaults over it and he's like a woman that can do a thing but also she's like i'm a fast looter yeah right you were homeschooled this is your first time out of the palace like can you really learn the past yeah right um that scene in general though like i was more impressed by it than i thought it was going to be where it's like like

aladdin he does his whole like bachelor bit or whatever but he doesn't like come on too strong it's clear he's trying to get to know her a little bit he's asking her questions she like is clearly expressing interest in him in a way i think we don't see a lot in disney movies usually it's she's like i hate you and he's like so there's hope that's every other but it's like it was cool to see a couple who clearly are into each other and the fact that when he meets her like you were saying caitlin like he doesn't know that like and i think that once he finds out she's a princess he values her more than he did when he met her, which sucks. But it's clear that, like, base level, they like each other. They vibe.

There's chemistry. They're, like, about to kiss. Yeah. They had known each other for about 30 minutes, and they're like, better kiss already. Right. I could see that he values her more after he finds out that she is royalty. But he also feels, like, a lot of shame.

He's like, oh, he must have sounded so stupid. Like, I don't know. I feel like and Jasmine doesn't value status in a man. So she's like, I actually like this guy who is borderline homeless and, you know, doesn't have any wealth, doesn't have any status. He's not stuffy like the other suitors. He can't afford nipples. This is not unlike a movie like Titanic, say, where Rose falls in love with a poor boy named Jack Dawson. Well, that's the thing, though. So the protagonist can be a poor person as long as he's a boy.

And his value does not equate with his status at all. But the woman, I feel like, it's never reversed. Other than, like, Asmerella that i just thought of but like it's i feel like to value the woman character she has to at least to be rich or like at least have something else going for her other than being just like a poor person because like right when you i mean there's there's one part where where you think aladdin has fleas and when i was like thinking of them like being together in a studio apartment i was just like he probably smells bad and like she's still into him because he's like alive and he's nice right and then I mean and even like going off that the way that like poor women are drawn in

that world is totally different where like yeah they're the only two female characters like in the agribus marketplace are either like bigger older women wearing like potato sacks or belly dancers and that's it yeah yeah another quick titanic reference though um yeah jafar needs the use of the mystic blue diamond that the sultan has yes to be able to figure out who the diamond in the rough is, who can enter the Cave of Wonders, I would like to think that it's the same blue diamond from

Titanic, the heart of the ocean. Does Aladdin take place in the Titanic verse? It sure does. I would like to really quick discuss the Cave of Wonders as a vagina metaphor. Because it is okay. The Cave of Wonders, I think, is a vagina metaphor. I used to have nightmares about the Cave of Wonders all the time.

Fear of own sexuality? Maybe. Okay. Question. Do you think in the quest for the clit, would the lamp or the jewel that Abu takes, which? Thoughts. Oh, God. I'd like to open the floor.

Sure. Well, I have not given this any thought up till now. Well, whenever Abu touches the giant jewel, that's what causes. Gets mad. Yeah. So I would say it can't be that, but I also don't think it's the lamp. Honestly, I never thought to. Well, okay. I see the comparison. It's a gigantic cat cats where jafar won't jafar won't go near it oh my god that's very true he doesn't

even try to go inside he keeps finding straight men to go in cats uh do have eight nipples though this is cat facts with caitlin um i feel like i feel like it's the it's the ruby it's that right okay yeah i was leaning towards the ruby the lamp i don't know what that would qualify as i don't okay here's what i think it is i don't think they come across the clitoris at all because straight men don't find it because they don't find it and if they do they have no idea what to do with it so like the jewel touching it has very bad consequences which is not what happens in real life that's true yeah the touching it may like has like lava and everything erupting maybe it's like a period unless unless also that's a metaphor

for an orgasm oh no no the vagina was very upset. Yes, true. And trapped them permanently. And finally... Oh, is that not what happens every time you orgasm? Okay. And I love... Like, I would like to propose... Let's just, like, body hack ourselves and figure out how to get our vaginas to flood with lava

when unhappy. I think that that's great. You mean menstruating? That is so much fun. Whoa. And then last cave of wonder question, promise. By those rules, like when, because we're led to believe that the guy at the very beginning, Gazim, dies.

Right. But wouldn't he just still be there if Aladdin was still in there? Isn't Gazim in there somewhere i think the carpet kind of saved aladdin because like it like when aladdin was falling the carpet kind of like like lifted him up so i think gazim didn't have a happy fall gazim i always got the impression that he got like trapped in the sand like he got crushed by like he suffocated because right suffocated because he was just like in the sand. Don't enrage the gigantic vagina. You will die. And on that note, let's take a quick break.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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We even interview iconic Latinas like Puerto Rican actress Ana Ortiz. I felt in control of my own physical body and my own self. I was on birth control. I had sort of had my first sexual experience. If you're in your señora era or know someone who is, then this is the show for you. We're your hosts, Diosa and Mala, and you might recognize us from our flagship podcast, Locatora Radio. We're so excited for you to hear our brand new podcast, Señora Sex Ed. Listen to Señora Sex Ed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I felt too seen. Dragged.

I'm N.K., and this is Basket Case. So I basically had what back in the day they would call a nervous breakdown. I was crying, and I was inconsolable. It was just very big, sudden swaps of different meds. What is wrong with me? Oh, look at you giving me therapy, girl. Finally, a show for the mentally ill girlies. On Basket Case, I talk to people about what happens when what we call mental health

is shaped by the conditions of the world we live in. Because if you haven't noticed, we are experiencing some kind of conditions that are pretty hard to live with. But if you struggle to cope, the society that created the conditions in the first place But if you struggle to cope, the society that created the conditions in the first place will tell you there's something wrong with you. And it will call you a basket case. Listen to Basket Case every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we are back from the Cave of Wonders where we did go during our break. We tricked the genie. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. I mean, just a little bit more on Jasmine and sort of her characterization. She's constantly saying things like, I'm not going to stand around while you make choices for me.

I'm not a prize to be won. Because there's a scene where like the sultan and prince ali and jafar are all like hanging out prince ali's like just let her meet me like she's gonna freaking love me i'm so cool but he also knows that he already like i held that against him too but it's like he already knows that she will like him because she's they've met yeah that's i don't know that's true but I don't know. I think he could have handled it better. Sure.

Because now that he's a prince, he's all cocky and he's not behaving well. And then Jasmine's like, I am not a prize to be won. He does win her over in the next scene. So not really sure about that. Because he kind of breaks into her balcony that balcony yeah he invades her personal space and he's like she does tell him to kill himself she does she's like go jump off that balcony but i was trying to like make sense of this because i was like well you know he's still kind of acting like he's entitled to her she should be like instantly falling in love with

prince ali but i think it's because she senses that he is this boy from the marketplace that she already likes him so i don't know i don't know if i would have figured all that out as a kid i can't remember well because after the whole magic carpet ride he admits that he is the same person but he but he he dresses as a commoner. Doubles down. Yeah. He doubles down on the lie. Right.

And then Jasmine's like, well, I did that too. Yeah, exactly. I guess. It makes sense. I don't know. And then Jasmine, at most points where she needs to be confronting a man who's trying to lie to or disenfranchise her in some way. She usually does, which is cool. And I don't think we see a lot of princesses do that either, where even though she does go back to the palace right away, she goes back to confront Jafar.

Right. Right away. Yeah. And be like, hey, what the fuck are you doing? And he's like, sorry, I had him killed. And then she later confronts Aladdin when she she's like why are you lying right later i guess she doesn't confront her dad but her dad sees that she's upset and does listen to her and this also affects jasmine's first policy change which is that jafar can't be a dictator

which is cool even though he later ignores. Very, very fashy character, Jafar. Right. And then in the climactic sequence, which we've already touched on, where Jasmine pretends to love Jafar in order to distract him, Jafar quickly figures out what's going on. So he traps Jasmine in this giant hourglass, which means that, one, she cannot participate in the climax of the story which we see over and over again which we already talked about a little bit and it means that she has to be saved by the male hero so it's all these tropes that we see in so many classic hero tales chosen one you know adventure stories which is too bad because it's like Jasmine does more and like advocates for herself more than most characters we'd like seen up to that point. In Disney movies, yeah.

Right. And then, of course, because it's a Disney movie, they sell her up the river by the end because stories. Because hero stories. Because she's a female that needs to be saved. Yes. To Aladdin's credit, he does to jasmine for lying to her throughout the whole movie unlike movies like she's all that where freddie princeton is like you know how i lied to you and manipulated you this entire movie i'm not even gonna bother to

apologize or mention it yeah yeah so at least he apologizes but it's one of those things where it's like one apology from a man undoes all the bad behavior i love that he means it but he means it yeah he does but like i'm giving that was sarcasm i mean mean, like. But, like, that wasn't interesting. I was thinking when she saw that during the sequence where Aladdin kind of, like, gets a makeover, too. But he gets, like, the most empowered makeover of all time. Like, one that would never be afforded to a female character. Right. It's not to make him more hot or appealing. It's not even to change his personality, which is a big part of it.

It's like he still has Aladdin's personality. He's just like wearing nicer clothes and lying about his identity. Yeah. Yeah. So in movies where women have to be made over, it's almost always to make them more attractive, usually to the opposite sex for very heteronormative reasons. In like Aladdin, he's getting a makeover to assume a position of more power, to assume a leadership position where he can have access to more power. Yeah.

And have access to her. And access to her, yeah. So Aladdin's makeover is to make him more dominant, whereas most female characters are made over to be more submissive, basically. Pretty much, yeah. Got it. Okay. Yeah, very cool. We cracked it. Pretty much, yeah. Got it. Okay. Yeah, very cool. We cracked it.

We cracked it. We hacked it. We hacked storytelling. We've done it. Can we talk about the queer coding of Jafar? Please. And Disney movies in general, and a lot of movies where there's like kind of a classic villain.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Ursula. Ursula. Ursula. Hades. Radigan. A lot of people argue Maleficent. Tons of them.

So basically, if you're not familiar with the concept of queer coding, it's basically assigning harmful stereotypical tropes to characters. Oftentimes they are villains to vilify them further. And it's a very harmful thing in general and especially when young children are seeing it because they're like you know their subconscious brains see these characteristics in these villains so they think oh those characteristics must be bad if a person in real life displays them so it just kind of perpetuates homophobia and it equates stereotypically queer traits to being bad or negative in some way and lots of disney movies do this to their villains and they

i mean it existed prior to that yes yes but like yeah it's like especially harmful to see it in children's movies over and over. Especially because there are no queer characters in those Disney movies that are good. The heroes or at all. Yeah, at all. Right. So, yeah, it's just a really bad thing that keeps happening because you could argue that like the crab and moana is sort of coded queer like some other oh like the um wreck it ralph pretty recent movie the villain in that movie is coded queer so it yeah they they have not stopped doing this even though surely they know

it's problematic but they just keep at it well i think maybe they tried to make jafar when he when he was like i'll have her fall in love with me i'll have jasmine's fall in love with me that was like i feel like it was disney's attempt to be like see like he's yeah but then before that happens actually before he's made sultan when he's thinking of marrying jasmine anyway just to become sultan his next idea is oh then i'll throw both her dad and her off a cliff right yeah so it's like it's not yeah he's like okay i guess i'll marry a woman but only so i can immediately kill her yeah he's like oh i guess i'll marry this shrew he calls jasmine and then later in the movie whenever he's like yeah we're gonna get married and jasmine's like and he's like speechless i see a fine quality

and a wife right like wow jafar feminist icon he's a villain yeah it's it's harmful for children i feel like it's it just like pumps you up with all the wrong ideas about queerness at a very very young age the one thing that at least seems like a semi-positive is that there are like portions of the queer community that have like reclaimed these characters and there's like festivals around them and like they've been re-embraced in in retrospect but it's okay to have queer villains if you also have queer characters. Yeah, queer heroes. That's completely absent from basically all of children's entertainment. It sucks for the queer community, even if they have reclaimed these villains and celebrate them, it still sucks that that's pretty much the only representation of... First of all, they're not even explicitly queer.

They're just coded that way. And then they're also villains. And it just sucks that that's the only representation of first of all they're not even explicitly queer they're just like coded that way and then they're also villains and it just sucks that that's like the only representation representation that the queer community has in at least children's movies i mean i identify as queer and i think i mean now that i think about it i think maybe that's why i like the animal movies so much and that sounds like a weird thing to relate that to, but like I related more to Raja than I did the princesses. Or like, I related more to the movie Dumbo than I did to any other princess.

Because like, I think whatever I think seeing an animal, for whatever reason, made me feel more comforted than seeing a woman or a boy character. And I don't know if that's true for everyone else. I mean, for me, as like a queer kid, I appreciated the animal characters

because they were just like, they weren't explicitly a boy or a girl most of the time. Like Flounder had like a boyish voice or whatever, but it was a little fishy. Yeah, pretty genderless. Or Carpet even. Like it was more just like these characters that didn't necessarily make me feel

that i was any less of a girl or any more you know what i mean like yeah genderless icon that's what i'm saying with that carpet yeah so i mean that's also sad though to think that like that's what i related to versus like actual like character characters but also sorry to like sorry to straight cis plain queer coding oh no no no no no it's not what i was trying to get at oh yeah no but i i fully recognize that when i like do that i'm like yeah i'm a i'm a straight cis lady i think i don't even know anymore we'll explore that later i do appreciate recognizing queer coding for sure and stuff but there's also part of me that thinks like well even

knowing like oh their voices or their the way they speak sometimes like even thinking I mean like I know that I'm fully aware that they intended it to be queer coding because like that's just like they're trying to make those queer traits seem unattractive

or unflattering but at the same time it's like is it on us also for thinking that way i don't know i kind of get in my head about it too much does that make sense yeah no totally of like well it's it takes two to tango kind of a thing it's like or if they're sending out these messages we have to be like receiving them in a particular way or i think i think i know what you're saying yeah but i mean i do i do blame disney a lot for just in general because i mean they're they're they're so conservative and and and you don't see it until you're an adult yeah and as a kid it just subliminally you just like accept it all and like watching aladdin or being the beast or on any of those movies as an adult

is so different like hudrick of notre dame is dark as fuck oh my god it is so dark so dark the whole fucking like asmerelda be like like that what's his face the villain desiring her and like it's so dark but as a kid it goes over your head so i think disney sometimes i don't know their agenda is a little wacky i I don't know. Yeah, it's all over the fucking place. Yeah, and then that's another movie where, like, I cannot think of, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I can't think of a movie with, like, a white princess where she has to, like, kiss the villain. Because that happens in Hunchback of Notre Dame and Aladdin. Yeah. And it's just like, I don't know. No, that's totally, it's so true.

And it's really unfortunate because women of color are more often sexualized than white women. Absolutely. Just across the board, whether it's in live action stuff or cartoons. And it's just unfortunate that it's even in children cartoons. Like even like the dark skinned lead female will be sexualized and that just like plays into a child's idea of what those women are like and what those women are like dress like and what those women will do to with them or whatever so it's like it's so damaging it's so yeah and then like her body type too.

We talked about this a little bit in the episode we did on Frozen, but her body type of like this tiny, tiny, tiny waist that like does not adhere to anything that you would see in the natural world. And like- It reminded me of Ariel's body type a lot too. Yeah, she, they are animated and like drawn the same way in that they, like, are the most scantily clad. And they have these just tiny, tiny frames and adhere to this, like, very unrealistic Western beauty standard. I mean, her head is wider than her waist.

Like, it's insane. Let's please Photoshop ourselves. So it's just so harmful for little girls to see this and think, oh, that's, I guess, the ideal that I have to strive to. And everyone thinks she's beautiful and, like, whatever. And, like, her beauty is so coveted. And we see this again and again in so many Disney movies where it's this same body type we don't get any differentiation really in like the female leads of these Disney

movies and in just media in general video games live action movies like everything that's like this very you know the the most desirable women has the same you know body type and it's this very unrealistic very virginal i mean jasmine's another like the movie goes out of its way to be like she's literally never left her house don't worry she's pure like that kind of thing yeah so very harmful yes oh early on like we said like jasmine is a pretty cool character if you just isolate her she's smart she's capable she does make some active choices in the story but then you'll have a scene where the sultan is like yeah i'm trying to marry you off and it is because of this law that i have

control over changing but i'm not going to do that i'm instead just going to make sure you get married in three days or less and also like i need to make sure you're taking care of because you can't take care of yourself right like i'm not going to be around forever i just want to make sure you're taking care of provided for because of course right i mean i guess you can like consider the era that this movie takes place in in this you know fictional fictional world but like let's just subscribe to the patriarchy in this world that doesn't exist that's cool too so yeah jasmine just like overall she does have a little bit more agency a little bit more personality than we are used to seeing in disney princess characters but the narrative

still makes sure that she doesn't really get to do anything, doesn't really get to take any action to influence the direction of the story, doesn't really get to exist in the story outside of just being the romantic interest, and it really kind of screws her over again and again. Yeah. And unless I am missing something, an all-white cast to this movie. The voices, yes. All-white voice cast. Voice actors are all-white.

And some of them, sometimes. All-white written and directed. Just, yeah. Yes. There is that scene in the very beginning before we get into Agrabah where Robin Williams does this voice too where he's like trying to sell you like a bong that makes julienne fries or whatever um and he's doing an accent so it's like this white guy doing like a vaguely Arabic sounding accent and it's like yeah it's just the problems keep piling up yeah it's offensive yeah I didn't realize that that was Robin Williams until this viewing.

Oh, really? Yeah, I didn't realize. I think I probably knew and then I forgot, probably. And then I had to listen to it really carefully. And I was like, oh, yeah. You're like, oh, yes, you can. That wasn't necessary, but it is a choice that they made. Yeah.

Like so many things in this movie um toward the end of the movie it's like after they've defeated uh sorry after aladdin has defeated jafar and he's like debating whether or not to free the genie and the genie's like it's fine it's just uh you know an eternity of servitude but this is love so make sure you do that and then he says you're not going to find another girl like her in a million years believe me i've looked and that's basically saying she's not like the other girls so um you know stick with this one and then against all odds aladdin's like no genie you're not my slave anymore what a hero i am yeah it, he's the, like, should he truly get credit for doing that? It doesn't seem like something that should occur.

And then Janie looks like Goofy. That's a Disney world. Slavery is solved. Does anyone have any other thoughts about Aladdin? I did find it strange that there was a monkey in the Middle East because I've never seen a monkey in the Middle East. Because I've never seen a monkey in the Middle East. I mean, then again, a tiger either.

I mean, like, I don't know. It's ancient times. I don't know what I'm talking about. Everything is possible. it is, I find it interesting that she has no friends, that Jasmine has no friends, and just, like, her female pet tiger. And she's still, like, very competent about the world other than like not knowing that apple needs money i guess but like yeah right you think she'd be a

little more like if she has never stepped outside the palace walls like she's only interacted with her father and like the guards and jafar and stuff right yeah that's something that i don't know if there's like a technical term for what exactly that is. But I feel like that comes up sometimes with female characters. Oh, yeah. It's like a yes queen kind of feminine. Like women can do anything. It's like, but they need to learn. It's like a naivete that's like very, she's naive, but it's not unattractive.

And it's like, I want to show you the world. Like I want to like introduce you to everything. And like, yeah. It's almost like, is it kind show you the world. Like, I want to, like, introduce you to everything. And, like, yeah. It's almost like, is it kind of like the Born Sexy Yesterday trope? It's a variant of that. I think it's also, like, it plays into the fact that, like, she's a virgin. He's going to show her how to have sex. Like, it's kind of like.

Yeah, because, again, he fucks. Yeah, exactly. It's like there's a trope where it's like you're a pure, untouched, unknowing person. And there is a certain sexiness about someone teaching you for the first time or like showing you the way for the first time. So I just found that a little interesting on this viewing. And also along the lines of like her lack of female friends or interactions with any women. Like Disney movies do this all the time where if there are other female characters who are around whatever like princess it is they're either evil stepmothers evil step sisters animals or some other villainous set dressing yeah props basically um and there's almost never anyone that she can actually like talk to and interact with in a meaningful way until like frozen and

then you know you can listen to our episode on that for that whole discussion but um yeah there's just it's so rare to see women interacting in a disney movie hey that brings us to whether or not this movie passes the beckle test guess what no it doesn't even come close no there's no opportunity the closest it comes is that as we talked about the like group of three like belly dancer dressed women are in a couple songs one jump ahead and they show up again in the prince ali song and in one of them they're like singing near each other and the other one they are sort of looking at each other while they're singing but in both songs they are singing about aladdin and i was i was gonna say don't have names i was gonna say the closest thing is when jasmine is talking to raja in the beginning but i don't

know if that counts because raja does not respond she does not verbally respond in human language so but she is named so there's a few close calls yeah but no no it's not fast nope not at all so with that let us rate the movie on our nipple scale uh zero to five nipples based on its portrayal of women i'm gonna go with one and a half for aladdin i do like, as we've said, if you isolate Jasmine as a character and the intelligence she displays, the stances she has on things, she does have some degree of agency. And, you know, she's always saying, like, I'm not going to let people decide my future for me. I'm not a prize to be won. So in that regard, she is maybe a proto-feminist icon. But because the narrative doesn't care about her really except to make sure that she is the romantic interest of Aladdin,

she doesn't really get to do all that much or make that many active choices or exist in story outside of her relationship to Aladdin. So the movie gets a lot of nipples taken away for that. It is nice to see a woman of color be a Disney princess. This is one of the earlier ones, if not the first. Yeah. The first one. So it is like, you know, Shireen, for you, when you're seeing this as a kid and you saw yourself represented to some degree in Jasmine or Raja. So it is nice for that. But because the movie doesn't really handle like

Arabic culture very responsibly, it doesn't do that great of a job. Yeah, so one and a half nipples. Jasmine is cool, but she doesn't get to display her coolness all that much and my nipples i'll give one and a half nipples to raja i'll go i want to go too because i want to give a lot of nipples for the first time in his life uh but i'll i'll also do one and a half for for basically all the reasons that you said and i'll also tack on losing points for overly sexualizing a non-white female character. A trend that they will continue to do with Pocahontas and Esmeralda and like into infinity. As long as these same five male directors are still directing every single Disney movie. Shouts out to Ron Clements, John Musker, Ted Elliott, and Terry Rossio.

Look out. But yeah, I mean, other than that, I think you summarized it very well. And I'm going to give a nipple and a half so close to Aladdin. I think I will give, I really do like Jasmine's character. I think her personality is great. I like that they made her strong and stuff, but I agree with everything you said as well.

And just, it doesn't handle the culture well. It sexualizes women of color and would have been nice to just have another female character at all that had speaking lives right yeah um so yeah i think i'll give i'm gonna give one nipple to jasmine great yeah cool yeah because there's jasmine's only female character but as far as the male characters we've got aladdin abu is gendered male, the genie, the sultan, Jafar, Iago, all of Jafar's guards. It's just countless male characters and just the one lady.

I do have to say, I love Aladdin. And it's a fucking blast of a time. And even watching it as an adult, it's still so fun. And I love Robin Williams. I miss Robin Williams. And I'm still sad for robin williams and i will never be the same i'm so sorry there's there's a sentimentalness to aladdin that i cannot ignore for me sure same and it reminds me of watching with my sister it reminds me of playing

the video game it reminds me of like just being a kid and not realizing it was problematic yet definitely like the ignorance is a bliss thing is so true as a kid because you're happy and little things make you laugh, whether it's Jeannie doing something stupid or whatever, and it just reminds you of when times were simple. Definitely. Yeah, you can still love movies that we as adults realize are problematic, but as long as we talk about them on a podcast. There's so few that aren't. Well, Shireen, thank you so much for being here thank you so much for having me this was so fun yay do you have anything you'd like to plug where can people follow you online you can follow me on twitter uh at shereen y shereen s-h-e-r-e-e-n-w-h-y and then on instagram i'm shiro

hero i don't know if any of you guys are going to be in New York on July 29th but I have a short film screening at the MoMA. I'm really excited about it. There's going to be a Q&A after the screening so if you guys want to see a cool movie and it's in collaboration

with an exhibition called The Future of Films Female so if you guys want to see some uh cool short films uh it's me and seven other filmmakers featured that night so it will be fun to have you guys there and congratulations thanks i'm super stoked and just kind of honored that i'm even included in the lineup because it's like people that i really like um but other than that i have a poetry book on amazon if you guys want to read it it's called dime piece and yeah just follow me on the interwebs and keep up and listen to ethnically ambiguous on how stuff works yeah your co-host being of course

anna hosnier which was on our she's all that episode another great fucking movie episode solid yay uh you can follow us the bechtel cast on social media you can go to our website www.bechtelcast.com we have merch on sale there we have our episodes on there we have everything you could ever want. And you can also sign up for our Patreon by going to patreon.com slash Bechdelcast. That gets you

two bonus episodes every single month and it's only $5 a month. What a steal. Whoa. Whoa. And otherwise, what do you say

we all go on a magic carpet ride? Sounds good. Holy word. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Daphne Caruana Galizia

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