Re-examining “Friend Like Me”
Fig. 1 - The 2011 stage production of Disney’s Aladdin.
There is considerable scrutiny of the politics of representation in Disney’s animated screen musicals. With appalling depictions of faceless African American workers in “Song of the Roustabouts” in Dumbo (Ben Sharpsteen, 1941), controversy about the representation of indigenous Americans in Pocahontas (Mike Gabriel & Eric Goldberg, 1995), and lightening the skin of Princess Tiana in Ralph Breaks the Internet (Rich Moore & Phil Johnston, 2018), there have been ongoing questions about limited, fetishized, and often racist characterisations of people of colour in the studio’s films. In this short study, I examine “Friend Like Me” from Aladdin (Ron Clements & John Musker, 1992) as a multi-modal musical number that has been reimagined from the original animated film to the 2011 stage production (Fig. 1) and then in the 2019 live action remake. In this discussion, I consider underlying representational issues in an Americanised imagining of the historical Arab peninsula.[1] I signpost how the original animated film uses the Genie’s iconic song “Friend Like Me” to introduce Orientalism and ethnic ambiguity, conjuring a “racial other” that prefaces two significant reinterpretations of the role by James Monroe Iglehart on Broadway and Will Smith in the recent remake.
In Disney’s 1992 animated film, Aladdin enters the Cave of Wonders after being freed by a mysterious old man (the villain, Jafar, in disguise). He tasks Aladdin with retrieving a magic lamp. However, Aladdin gets stuck in the cave with his buddy, Abu the monkey, after Abu tries to steal the forbidden shiny jewels in the Lamp’s cavern. Intrigued by some writing, Aladdin rubs the Lamp and accidentally releases The Genie. The song “Friend Like Me” follows quickly as the Genie reveals that he can grant Aladdin three wishes. This number, a list song, catalogues all the possibilities of the Genie’s “all powerful” magic while setting up the character as an amorphous, bombastic but comedic being, ready to help Aladdin navigate the world until his wishes are complete. While the drawing style may be sparse, the original animated film uses plain backgrounds to focus attention on the characters – Genie and Aladdin. This allows us to focus on the sequence of transformations and tricks that the Genie performs. Therefore, we experience the same sensory overload as Aladdin while the Genie creates soldiers with scimitars, dancing elephants, or “a little more baklava” (Menken & Ashman, 1992).
Fig. 2 - The Genie conjures a hareem.
The spectacle in the cascade of imagery, paired with Williams’ effusive list of possibility borrows from classic Hollywood musicals: dancing down the stairs, mirrored choreographic details, and a massive set piece at the end. These details create the possibility for a stage adaptation, providing vocabulary, including problematic stereotypes, familiar in stage musicals. Through the swirl of different costumes, animals, and cascades of objects, Robin Williams as the Genie uses a range of vocal styles, accents, and imitations (present throughout the film) to pitch his offer to Aladdin. Indeed, Raymond Knapp (2006) highlights how Williams’ performance draws on a vocal style associated with legendary scat singer Cab Calloway and other African American band leaders, hyping the brass players as they playfully interact together. The iconic “wah wah wah” phrase nods to late 1930s/early 1940s swing and Williams’ delivery of the phrase shows his skilled imitation of musicianship honed by artists from quite another context.
Williams, known for his vivid, energetic, and risky comedy, inhabits the Genie, taking full advantage of a character who is genuinely larger than life. While embracing elements of a vaudevillian comic, he also uses these voices to signpost “otherness”. For example, deadening his voice in “Life is your restaurant” before exclaiming in his own voice “AND I’M YOUR MAÎTRE-D’”, which sounds like it was scripted in capitals. These vocal acrobatics add continuity as the images strobe through a number of Oriental stereotypes. For example, a group of scantily clad female dancers are used as props in the same way as the abundance of performing monkeys, elephants, and camels. The women are sexualised and objectified, introducing a section of exoticism: The Genie conjures a fictional hareem, wiggling and giggling for Aladdin’s pleasure. These voiceless women are also shown in direct equivalence to dancing animals, signposting an underlying insidiousness in some of the details in this song (Fig. 2).
"Friend Like Me" - Aladdin Broadway (2011).
If we examine Aladdin (2011) on Broadway (opened 2014), the Genie morphs into an all-knowing master of ceremonies, performing through “the fourth wall” and directly addressing the audience (see left). The role of Genie has a new cultural identity distinct from Williams that recognises Black American musicians in the score[2] and allows for more vocal interpretation than many similar stage roles. Although the stage adaptation clearly amplifies vocal and performance modes originated by African Americans (scat singing, gospel, and soul) that are coded in Williams’ performance, there are also some obvious relics of orientalism in the make-up, including drawn-on, harshly angular eyebrows and liner, elongating the eye. Crucially, these details are not particular to stereotypes of Arab characters and are perhaps more familiar in representations of characters of East Asian origin. For example, there is an uncomfortable resemblance between Iglehart’s headshots for Aladdin and Yul Brynner’s make-up when he played The King in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The King and I (1951). To be clear, Iglehart’s Genie (and those who have interpreted the role after) do not “play” a different race and this character does not have other problematic markers like speaking in broken English, being associated with regressive social orders, or barbarism. However, there is also an apparent cosplay of identity in the make-up that need not be present in such a geographically and historically uniformed rendering of what is meant to be the Arab peninsula.
Fig. 3 - Aladdin (Guy Ritchie, 2019).
Iglehart’s “real-life” performance context depends on special effects and stage trickery, breaking the fourth wall in a karaoke medley of Alan Menken’s other Disney songs, and exploiting a chorus of dancers (including another wannabe hareem). Where Williams transforms, Iglehart produces a show. In the 2019 live action remake, we see an amalgamation of the two. Will Smith’s Genie repeatedly duplicates himself, adding additional “bodies” to the clutter of the cave. Where Williams voice is never duplicated and Iglehart is limited by the realities of being a real person on stage, Smith’s Genie is presented with the benefits of modern editing and effects technologies, performing the song more like a musical video with a narrative than an establishing number in a musical (Fig. 3). The exotic women are removed, and the scimitar wielding villains are bodiless. When the circus of animals appears at the end, they aren’t “region specific”: there are also giraffes and white horses, making the overall spectacle richer and distracting from these details as specific indicators of place.
“Jumpin Jive” - Stormy Weather (Andrew L. Stone, 1943)
Noticeably, the lyrics in this more recent version of “Friend Like Me” are tweaked to foreground Smith as a star in his own right (e.g. “I’m the Genie of the Lamp / I can sing, rap dance / If you give me a chance” (Menken, 2019). Choreographically, there are also acknowledgements of break dancing, a nod to MC Hammer’s iconic “U Can’t Touch This” (1990), and a deliberate throwback to the Black star dancers of the classic musical, The Nicholas Brothers. In the last phrase of the song “You ain’t / Never / Had A / Friend / Like / Me”, Smith’s Genie and Aladdin (Mena Massoud) jump down a slope doing the splits, which is a direct nod to the end of “Jumpin’ Jive” in the iconic finale to Stormy Weather (Andrew L. Stone, 1943) (Stormy Weather remains one of the most successful film musicals to star entirely Black performers.) Here, Smith makes the song resonate with his own cultural and musical context while maintaining hazy geographic markers (e.g. the “restaurant” is set in a Bedouin tent and Aladdin is shown a range of “Oriental” fabrics when offered new clothes) (see right).
As I have highlighted, each adaptation builds on performance details of the one before it, showing how Disney is able to adapt its property to new audiences and artists. However, there is an unfortunate by-product of this cumulative effect. We see a transition from Williams’ mimicry of Black singers, his uncomfortable accents (Mexican, Spanish, and an undefinable “other” voice for a market seller), and the overall use of Orientalism in the film’s visuals to casting Black actors in pre-existing “otherness.” While some may argue that the Genie opens doors for Black actors in Aladdin on stage, this casting choice presents these artists through a Magical Negro stereotype prevalent in American cinema, and they are narratively subordinate (if more exciting) to all the other characters. The bombast and spectacle achieved by the actors involved (and presumably, intended by the creative individuals involved) downplays the racial hierarchies at work, leaving a Black actor serving non-Black characters on stage, however fantastical he may be.
The choice to consciously solidify the Genie as a Black character in the stage version and the 2019 remake introduces new cultural problems to Aladdin even while this choice provides character-driven vehicles for the actors in the part. There is no question that James Monroe Iglehart brings new energy and excitement to the Genie or that Will Smith dominates the 2019 remake and that both bring humour and new embodied representation to this racial outsider. However, within the joy and charisma they each provide, we must see a legacy of othering as part of the Genie’s musical environment that lies firmly in the language of the 1992 animation.
**Article published: October 16, 2020**
Notes
[1] Please see Bullock and Zhou (2017) for an in-depth analysis of Orientalism, representation, and geographic politics relevant to the entire 1992 animation.
[2] For example, the arrangement pay homage to Peabo Bryson’s smooth interpretation of “Beauty and the Beast” in a Menken medley spliced into “Friend Like Me”.
References
Bullock, Katherine, and Steven Zhou, “Entertainment or blackface? Decoding Orientalism in a post-9/11 era: Audience views on Aladdin,” Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies 39, no. 5 (2017): 446-469.
Knapp, Raymond, The American Musical and the Performance of Personal Identity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006).
Biography
Hannah Robbins is Assistant Professor in Popular Music and the Director of Black Studies at the University of Nottingham, UK. Their research focuses on the life and career of Cole Porter and the representation of Black and queer creatives in musical theatre history. They have published research on censorship and exoticism on screen, queer fandom, and racial representation in stage and screen musicals. They are currently preparing their first monograph on the 1948 hit musical Kiss Me, Kate (under contract with Oxford University Press) and have forthcoming publications on the film appearances of Lena Horne and on intersectionality in musical theatre scholarship.