(Source: Animated News)
The furor over the live-action movie The Da Vinci Code has re-ignited the familiar canards of "when does a movie go too far?" Rather than letting itself get drawn into the debate, Entertainment Weekly issued a list of "The 25 Most Controversial Movies Ever." At the bottom, right below Bob Guccione's production of Caligula, is Disney's 1992 animated film Aladdin. Why is Aladdin considered controversial to EW readers when Midnight Cowboy (the only X-rated film to win Best Picture) didn't even make the cut?
Initially, the controversy seemed a tempest in a tea . . . lamp. A single lyric in the opening song, describing the film's Arabian setting as a land "where they cut off your ear if they don't like your face," angered The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. The group immediately called for a boycott, claiming Aladdin was an insult to all Muslims. Disney immediately changed the lyric in subsequent releases of the film. However, this didn't appease Muslim offense-sensitives who continued to call for boycotts.
The reaction to the ADC's boycott was a universal yawn. On a recent IMDb Daily Poll, 59.8% of 2001 voters said that Aladdin was the *least* controversial of the movies listed (the nearest contender, The Da Vinci Code, received 10.6%). So why does the ADC and Entertainment Weekly target Disney when there are bigger targets out there?
As the world's most recognized children's entertainer, the Walt Disney Company is a lightning rod for those who are ready to take offense. And, to be fair, many Disney products demonstrate a remarkable level of ethnocentricity. For instance, the heroes in many of their animated films speak with American accents, even when they're supposed to be Arabian, British, Greek, Indian, etc. The villains, of course, speak in the accent of their country of origin. Disney films also tend to further American misconceptions of foreign countries, using these clichéd elements to further Yankee ignorance.
There are many objectionable elements in Aladdin, one of them being the way Disney producers brazenly exploited star Robin Williams (billing him as the star after only paying him union rate). However, to ignore all these other concerns and to concentrate on a single lyric seems strange. And for Entertainment Weekly to draw attention to Aladdin in this way (is it really only slightly less controversial than an-orgy-and-toga epic funded by an adult magazine publisher?) is more than a little absurd.
