The Disney corporation has nearly exhausted their list of classic films to adapt into remakes again and again, but despite their attempts and unending budget, they are still not known for their ability to effectively retell their own stories. That particular market has been cornered by StarKid Productions, a theater company founded at the University of Michigan in 2009; they have become known for their musicals that are often either R-rated adaptations, comedy-horror, or both at the same time. Twisted: The Untold Story of a Royal Vizier succeeds where Disney’s live-action remakes do not: it adapts Aladdin in a way that is equal parts social commentary, parody, satire, and slapstick. Disney is notorious for trying to produce “general-audience, nonthreatening, noncontroversial material,” but this means that their values have changed very little since the founding of the company (Best and Lowney 443). Much of their material has not aged very well, whether depicting inappropriate age gaps and power dynamics, or presenting gender stereotypes that children can easily internalize, and StarKid finds a way to draw attention to these problems alongside their clear appreciation for classic films and theater. Using their signature irreverent comedy, Starkid Productions’ Twisted cleverly satirizes the elements of the original Aladdin that fall short; they still honor the original material, but also calls into question Disney’s morally dubious implications about how people should choose to act.
It is no secret that the heroes in Disney movies are almost always conventionally attractive, and the villains stereotypically “ugly”; whether their viewers are conscious of this formula or not, it creates unconscious biases that Twisted never hesitates to address and dismantle along the way. Typical Disney villains include aging, decrepit characters, in some cases literally described as old and ugly by the heroes, and the attractive characters are always the ones who succeed in the end. A study conducted at Appalachian State University explored children’s reactions to this recurring theme in Disney films, exploring whether they truly believe that “attractive people attain more positivity in their lives” (Bazzini 2697). The results showed that many children do view attractive characters as inherently good people, whether the films present this or not. Twisted’s satirization and denouncement of this concept appears less than thirty seconds into the production: it is the exact message of its opening number. “Dream A Little Harder” is essentially a five-minute string of insults directed towards their protagonist Ja’Far, more well-known as the villain from Disney’s Aladdin. An optimistic narrator declares that “when you’re good and you’re attractive, no need to be proactive / good things will just happen to you,” and the townspeople are more than happy to accept this (Lang et al. 5). Despite the fact that, in this version of Aladdin, Ja’Far’s overarching goal is to help the kingdom through its socioeconomic issues using reasoning and logic, everyone shuns him because “no man who’s just could ever trust a face that triggers such disgust” (6). StarKid takes Disney’s harmful— and, as Bazzini’s study showed, pervasive— stereotypes that attractive people are inherently good and unattractive people are inherently evil, and creates a comical, scathing introduction to their retelling that immediately shows the audience that this is not the Aladdin they are used to. Instead of depicting the heroes as beautiful and the villains as ugly, Twisted uses their retelling to explicitly state that this is both harmful and illogical. Whether or not the original Disney films promoted this stereotype on purpose, StarKid forces the audience to think about their preconceived biases— all the while enjoying the incredibly R-rated methods by which Twisted sends its messages.
Appearance-based merit is not the only Disney message that has not aged very well; classic children’s films often present situations where women have to accept support from much older men in order to be truly happy. Twisted toes the line between comedy and social commentary as they explore the gender roles that Disney films have historically promoted: the presumed leading man Aladdin becomes the villain, and his romantic gestures are presented as glaring sexual harassment. In the original Aladdin film, the titular character is eighteen, and Jasmine, a fan-favorite Disney princess, is sixteen. This is already a significant maturity gap, especially by modern standards, and is not addressed in the script. In Twisted, they highlight the inherent problem by making Aladdin not only immature, but a fully-grown thirty-three-year-old man who is still pursuing a teenage girl. Ja’Far is one of many characters in this adaptation who recognizes the supposed hero Aladdin’s behavior as revolting. Jasmine— referred to by StarKid exclusively as “The Princess”— is repeatedly warned about the dangers of her situation, through both scripted dialogue and audience participation. In lieu of “A Whole New World,” Twisted’s magic-carpet ballad is an innuendo-ridden musical number titled “Take Off Your Clothes” (62). Alejandra Martinez’s theatrical essay “The Story Of A Betrayal” discusses how poorly some Disney messaging has aged, declaring that the princes that were once heroes have to be held to much higher standards now; “feminism, [Prince Charming] claims, has complicated his situation” (Martinez 87). It is far more difficult to view childhood heroes as heroes through a modern lens. Twisted’s presentation of Aladdin as a true danger to The Princess is comical, but never played for comedy. They find a way to emphasize the implicitly concerning connotations of Disney’s storylines, while also ensuring the audience that they are not presenting these connotations as acceptable. “I thought you were mature for your age,” StarKid’s Aladdin says, “but you’re just like all the other sixteen-year-old princesses I’ve dated” (Lang et al. 81). The dialogue is comedic, but the truth of the matter is not. By today’s standards, Disney’s presentations of romantic relationships are both sexist and very outdated; instead of trying to rewrite the problems themselves, Twisted spells out why the original is in need of a genuine retelling.
A hypothetical problem with Twisted, though, is that Disney stories do not necessarily need to be retold. They are already spinoffs of old folk tales and fairy tales, and today, many people make the valid argument that writers should tell new stories with modern messages instead of desperately trying to rework an old one. People are protective over the nostalgic value of the original stories, and would consider it more worthwhile to leave them alone. Twisted, however, is a Disney retelling that does not deprive the audience of their nostalgia. Despite its R-rated smackdown of most of the messaging that Aladdin stands for, it is full of references that every single Aladdin fan would recognize and appreciate, and that only a true fan would be thoughtful enough to include. It satirizes the story in a way that is perfect for people who grew up on it; its audience got older, and the story aged alongside them. It provides insight while at the same time being truly fun to watch. It may seem unnecessary to force modern views onto a story that was already successful decades ago, but the stereotypes from those original stories have gone largely unnoticed as they have permeated society. There is still value in the original, of course, but Twisted points out what the audience might have missed when they were younger, expanding on very real social issues and stereotypes through a story that people are already familiar with.
Despite its adults-only take on Disney classics, Twisted is still shamelessly nostalgic; it honors Aladdin while also clearly displaying where it falls short. It subverts our expectations of a Disney remake, because it does actually present the same outdated values— its comedy just tells us that they are outdated, and that we may need to address how we look at our favorite childhood films. We should be able to recognize the problems that are inherent in old children’s movies, because otherwise, children will continue to grow up on media that tells them that virtue and beauty are equal, or that women are submissive and in need of being saved. We do not have to abandon our favorite stories, Twisted says, but we should re-evaluate them with a new perspective so that we can create empowering media for the future.