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Back in December, whenEntertainment Weeklydropped the exclusivefirst photosof Disneys live-action movieAladdin, many people were confused.
But Genie, the public decreed, was a problem.
It borrows cultural symbols indiscriminately with the loose wonder folktales allow.
Casting this reboot according to ethnic specificity was therefore a daunting, and somewhat improbable, task.
Aladdin is a strange case since the 1992 movie is itself a white dream, Justin Charitywrotein 2017.
Its difficult to overstate the virtuosity of Robin Williams in this role.
His vocals sling from high to low to fry to accented.
Robin Williams and animation were born for one another, Roger Ebert declared in hisreviewof the 1992 film.
It seemed a predestined impossibility that a live-action Smith could re-create that magic.
Iglehart collected more than one comparison to Cab Calloway and a Tony for Best Featured Actor.
And Iglehart set the tone for the physicality and racial representation of Broadway performances moving forward.
One Disney executive,EWreported, called Smiths character part Fresh Prince, part Hitch.
Hes madly eager to yo, David Edelsteinnotes.
Perhaps some of the disappointment with the character as a whole lies here.
The Genie, once a kaleidoscope, has been transformed, quite literally, into a magical Negro.
He wins the congeniality contest by default, but the role is newly reduced.
He is the companion when he ought be the ringleader, more relief than comic.
Even his eventual freedom is diminished by this reality.
Genie is, plainly, a slave, as Jafar hisses in the final act.
(Youre a prisoner?
Appalled, Aladdin promises to use his third wish to free Genie.
In 2019, Aladdin makes some wheels of power more explicit.
He cautions Aladdin against becoming the guy, even as he retains the title master.
(The Guy, in this case, is also the Man, man.)
But Disneys live-action rendition takes Genies terms of servitude further.
More than anything in the world, he not only craves freedom but to be human.
Here, a genie is not a species apart but a man unmanned by enslavement.
I was relieved whenever Genie disguised himself as human and queasy when the bloated composite returned.
This disturbance is what draws out the tragicomedy of his abject condition.
Without it, lines like I dont care nutin about that wish fall with a misplaced earnestness.
(As the old Genie might sarcastically respond, Hey, its only an eternity of servitude.)
The promise broken becomes not the promise of freedom, but of friendship.
Freedom fighter he is not.
In the end, as in the first film, Aladdin indeed uses his third wish to free Genie.
He cries, a big fat Disney tear falling down his cheek.
He is still blue and seemingly still all-powerful, shooting his body into the sky in celebration.
Hes history (or mythology).
In the latestAladdin, however, Smiths liberation is much more modest.
From magical Negro to ordinary black man.
Its a freedom of a kind, I suppose.
