Top Five Disney Princes

Today, I’m staying home for all the sanitation workers out there.

Is it sexist that I’m compiling a Top Five of princes before I get to princesses? I’d say no – I’m starting with the princes because it’s easier for me to just pick five. I’m not sure when I’ll get around to doing a similar post for the Disney princesses, but I know I’m going to be debating long and hard to winnow down my list to my absolute favorites.

Phillip (Sleeping Beauty) – Going old-school for the first name on this list. If I were basing this on my initial memories of this movie, I wouldn’t have included Phillip, but rewatching the film in recent years made me remember how cool he is. After a couple mostly-blank-slates in Snow White and Cinderella, Phillip is fun and energetic and dashing. It’s easy to see why he and Aurora get so caught up in one another (“love at first sight” tropes notwithstanding,) and I still get a kick out of his declaration, “Now, father, you’re living in the past. This is the 14^th century!”

Best Musical Bit: Gotta go with the classic, “Once Upon a Dream.” I like the ending, with Aurora and Phillip singing together. “If I know you, / I know what you’ll do. / You’ll love me at once / The way I did once / Upon a dream.” Lovely.

The Beast (Beauty and the Beast) – More so in the live-action version, even though I did always enjoy him in the original. The Beast is someone who’s had a long time to feel sorry for himself, punished for his past cruelty but reflecting on how hard it is for him rather than recognizing that he needs to change his ways. It’s not until Belle comes along, someone who doesn’t capitulate to his growling and his tantrums, that he starts to uncover the man he could be.

Best Musical Bit: Again, we’re talking live action, because “Evermore” is worth the damn price of admission. “Wasting in my lonely tower, / Waiting by an open door, / I’ll fool myself she’ll walk right in. / And as the long, long nights begin, / I’ll think of all that might have been / Waiting here forevermore.” Oh, the angst! The way it’s shot, with the Beast clamboring about the castle, is so windswept and dramatic, and the emotion in his voice is really affecting.

Aladdin (Aladdin) –Aladdin is the first Disney movie I have really clear memories of seeing in the theater, and Aladdin will probably always be my favorite. A scrappy and resourceful thief with a good heart, Aladdin brims with potential that he doesn’t fully trust he has. I love watching him come into his own and realize he doesn’t have to be someone he’s not to get the sort of life that he wants. (Also, Mena Massoud was totally the best part of the live-action movie.)

Best Musical Bit: I’m gonna go with the reprise of “One Jump Ahead,” short but very sweet. “If only they’d look closer, / Would they see a poor boy? / No siree. / They’d find out / There’s so much more to me…” You really feel that yearning, and it comes through even more for borrowing the melody of the previous song, which displays such cockiness and charm.

Li Shang (Mulan) – Gotta love Shang. Not technically a prince, but Mulan isn’t a princess either – both get honorary status just ‘cause they’re that cool. A dedicated captain with daddy issues, Shang is brave and principled, and his experiences with Mulan help expand his notions beyond doing what is expected/ordering into doing what is right. Sad we won't see him in the live-action movie.

Best Musical Bit: Obviously “I’ll Make a Man Out of You,” come on now. I especially love those vocals at the start of the last verse. “Time is racing toward us till the Huns arrive. / Heed my every order and you might survive.” A kickass song set to an awesome montage. It’s just *chef’s kiss*!

Kristoff (Frozen) – I get such a kick out curmudgeonly Kristoff being slightly stunned at Anna’s sunshiny naivete. He can be a bit of a grouch, but he has a good heart, and for all that he’s irritated by Anna early on, he still keeps helping her. And when the chips are really down, he’s all in. I don’t think Frozen 2 serves him quite as well, but he delights me as a character in both the movie and the musical.

Best Musical Bit: I do love me some Jonathan Groff, but the first Frozen completely drops the ball on Kristoff singing, and while Groff sings the heck out of “Lost in the Woods” in Frozen 2, it’s a little too cheesy for my tastes. So I’m going Broadway version, with “What Do You Know About Love?” Kristoff’s parts in bold: “Some people know their hearts / The minute true love starts.” – “Some people read a lot of books.” – “Some people simply know / When true love says, ‘Hello!’” – “Some folks are taken in by curly locks and princely looks!” Great contrast between the low softness of the first line and the rising intensity of the second, and it’s a nice demonstration of his cynicism where instant-love is concerned.

Relationship Spotlight: Jasmine & Aladdin (Aladdin)

Mena Massoud was in the news recently, talking about how being the star of a billion-dollar live-action Disney remake hasn’t translated into increased opportunities for him in his career, and while 1) it made me sigh and shake my fist yet again at Hollywood, it also 2) reminded me how much I enjoyed him in Aladdin. As I said in my review of the remake, he and Naomi Scott as Aladdin and Jasmine are the best reasons for the movie’s existence. Anyway, all this got me thinking about Aladdin, Jasmine, and Aladdin/Jasmine again, and I decided to write about them (note: I’ll be drawing from both the original animated film and the live-action version for this post.)

That marketplace meetcute tells us so much about both Aladdin and Jasmine as characters. It showcases Aladdin’s penchant for risking his own neck for the sake of helping out this young woman in trouble, and he uses his fast-talking street smarts to get her out of a jam. Meanwhile, although Jasmine is naïve about how the world operates outside the palace, she’s a quick study and immediately plays along with the ruse Aladdin concocts to extricate her from the situation. It doesn’t wind up working (not their fault, though – Abu,) and they have to run for their lives, where again we see both Aladdin’s care of Jasmine and her ability to keep up with him. I know I’ve mentioned it before, but I love the scene where Aladdin pole-vaults from one rooftop to another and then, while he’s laying down a board for Jasmine to walk across, she makes the jump herself.

From there, we move to Aladdin’s pad, where he and Jasmine bond over how immutable they feel their lives are. I really like this, that even though they move in entirely different circles, they have the same feeling of being trapped in their circumstances. They don’t quite realize they’re on the same wavelength, because Jasmine is pretending to be an urchin at the time, and while she chafes under palace life, Aladdin fantasizes about how great it must be. And yet, both of them feel stuck. Jasmine is royal and privileged, yes, but she also feels like her whole life is mapped out for her and struggles with the parade of suitors her father keeps bringing to her, insistent on her getting married. Before sneaking out, she’s never even been outside the palace walls. In contrast, just everyday survival is a grind for Aladdin, between stealing enough to eat and evading the palace guards. In the remake, he talks about how his place in society feels fixed, that, no matter what he does, there’s no way for him to advance and improve his lot.

That first meeting puts together all the ingredients for Jasmine and Aladdin’s love story, so the movie needs to set up road blocks to keep them from hitting their happily-ever-after too soon. Externally, there’s of course the whole “the princess must marry a prince” thing, which Aladdin tries to get around by having the Genie turn him into Prince Ali. But even more than the law, what keeps them apart so long is Aladdin’s insecurities. When he thinks Jasmine is poor like him, he has no problem being charming, caring, and open with her, and the sparks fly like crazy. But as soon as he steps foot inside the palace and starts pretending to be a prince, he tries to put on this persona of what he thinks a prince is. He tries to play the sultan’s game, to “win” Jasmine by virtue of being wealthy and royal, which is of course everything Jasmine hates. “I am not a prize to be won,” anyone?

Anybody can see that the way to Jasmine’s heart isn’t by, first, pretending to be someone he’s not, and second, lying to her, but Aladdin can’t let himself do that. It’s not out of any attempt to trick her, though. It’s because, despite the easy confidence with which he carries himself through the marketplace, Aladdin doesn’t think he’s good enough when stacked up next to her, and he very nearly loses her because of it. Even when she figures out that he’s the young man she met in the market (‘cause she’s a smart cookie,) Aladdin still can’t bring himself to be honest with her. It’s not until everything is finally out in the open that the path is cleared for them.

Also, it’s a little thing, but when Aladdin is first telling the Genie about Jasmine, I love he doesn’t mention her beauty until the Genie prompts him, instead talking about how smart and fun she is. Good boy, Aladdin!

Aladdin (2019, PG)

Live-action Disney adaptations (or “live-action,” in the case of the upcoming Lion King) are weird.  They’re definitely cynical cash grabs, they never live up to the awesomeness of the original, and from a basic standpoint, they’re just not stellar movies.  And yet, they still get me.  My experience watching the new Aladdin was much like my experience watching the live-action Beauty and the Beast:  I had a number of grumbly/scowly moments in the theater, but I somehow still came away with an overall-warm feeling about it.

Aladdin, a poor “street rat” in Agrabrah, dreams of a better life for himself and his monkey friend Abu.  Little does he know, he’s actually the fabled “diamond in the rough,” the only person who can enter the mystical Cave of Wonders and retrieve the magical Genie’s lamp.  Aladdin releases the Genie by accident and finds himself the proud owner of three wishes.  Having fallen in love with the princess Jasmine, Aladdin hopes his newfound magical friend can make him into the kind of man Jasmine could love, but he has to be careful:  Jafar, the sultan’s evil vizier, has plans for the lamp.

I think I’ll start with the complaints, the biggest of which, for me, is the slapdash treatment of Middle East culture.  The original movie was no prize either (the opening number includes the actual line, “It’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home!”), but it at least has the excuse of being made in 1992 – I’d hope that, 27 years later, we could do a little better.  I can’t help but compare it to Black Panther, another Disney-produced film set in a fictional country that means a lot to a particular marginalized group.  Not that I was ever expecting Aladdin’s Agrahbrah to feel as beautiful and richly-detailed as Wakanda – Guy Ritchie clearly wasn’t embarking on the labor of love that Ryan Coogler was in bringing it to life – but the kingdom feels altogether flat and non-specified.  You don’t see an overarching vision for what Agrahbah looks like or what it’s about, and the hasty allusion to it being a diverse port city feels like little more than an excuse to populate it with all manner of ambiguously-brown extras, much like the Dothraki (and I promise this is the only time I will compare Aladdin to Game of Thrones.)

Other than that, it’s the usual complaints:  it’s a pale version of the original classic film.  There are funny pacing issues in the songs, the singing voices – while ranging from decent-ish to pretty good – aren’t as strong (but who could compete with Lea Salonga?), iconic lines don’t come off as well.  Also, there are points where it looks downright cheap.  That’s so bizarre, because Disney owns everything we love at this point and is basically waist-deep in money at all times, but there are shots where the CGI looks shoddy, where the costumes look like, well, costumes.  I noticed the same thing with Beauty and the Beast, and I can’t figure out how that happens.  And on a personal note, although I like the attempts to make Jasmine a little more “empowered,” giving her a desire to become the next sultan herself rather than just the wife to one, the movie weirdly cuts out a lot of her biggest moments of agency from the original movie.  We don’t see her being a quick study when she meets Aladdin in the market, she needs a pep talk before she can get across the rooftop, and she doesn’t even say, “I am not a prize to be won”!  What gives?

But for that, like I said, I did still find myself enjoying it and have been thinking of it mostly fondly since I saw it earlier this month.  The majority of the songs stick the landing fairly well, with my highlights being the exuberant “Prince Ali,” the action-packed “One Jump Ahead,” and the lush “A Whole New World.”  Even though, like I said, some of the pacing is off, they never feel sluggish, and the actors all acquit themselves well on the singing, occasionally getting through on charisma and emotion when the vocal chops are a bit lacking.  There’s one new song, a solo for Jasmine called “Speechless,” and while I do enjoy it, I wish it sounded like it fit into the rest of the score a bit more – it’s a tag-team effort by Alan Menken along with Pasek and Paul (of Dear Evan Hansen, The Greatest Showman, and so forth,) and it sounds a little conspicuous among the other songs.

As with Beauty and the Beast, there are also places where the story is fleshed out a little and given a bit more dimension – not as much, I’d say, but I still like what they do with it.  In addition to the new Jasmine stuff, I appreciate getting a little more time on Aladdin and Jasmine making a connection, the Prince Ali sequence is longer and has some really fun scenes in it, and I wasn’t expecting the movie to refer so specifically to people being trapped in the social castes in which they’re born (even though that’s obviously a part of the story of the animated film, they never say it, but they do here.)

But for my money, the best reasons for the new version of Aladdin to exist are, quite simply, Mena Massoud as Aladdin and Naomi Scott as Jasmine.  Both of them are really engaging in the roles, bringing the characters to life in a way that feels true to the versions we know and love.  I’m not familiar with Massoud (although IMDb tells me I’ve seen him before, playing – sigh – “Al Qaida #2” on an episode of Nikita,) but he absolutely captures Aladdin’s charm and enterprising spirit coupled with his insecurity.  He plays wonderfully off of Scott (who was in the recent Power Rangers reboot,) whose Jasmine is smart, tough, and passionate, a little guarded but yearning for more than the life she has.  I’m admittedly not quite as sold on Will Smith as the Genie, but when he’s good, he’s really good; some of the banter between him and Aladdin during the Prince Ali sequence is especially fun.

Warnings

Scary moments for kids and some “don’t try this at home.”