Why is the Arabic in "Aladdin" American? Is the cross-cultural adaptation really flawless?
In 2019, the American Disney live-action animated film "Aladdin" was released, which is the second time that Disney Studios has created a film based on the Arabic folk tale "Aladdin and the Magic Lamp".
In 1992, Disney used the story of "Aladdin and the Magic Lamp" as a blueprint, creatively adding dramatic elements such as "flying" and "thief becoming a prince".
It has become an important representative work of Disney's revival period, and Aladdin and Princess Caili have also become one of the most representative princes and princesses in Disney World and even the entire fairy tale world.
Although the adaptation of the live-action animated film continued the previous story structure and character design, adding fantastical visual effects and cheerful singing and dancing scenes, it did not achieve the expected praise. On the contrary, it has received a lot of criticism in terms of values and narrative form.
The reason for this is that the adaptation of the live-action animated film "Aladdin" did not follow the progress of the times compared with 27 years ago, but adopted a vague and eclectic attitude in the context of the development and integration of world cultures, trying to achieve a certain balance in the values and narrative of cross-cultural communication, but destroying the beauty of the mean.
Looking at the value orientation from the perspective of "medium", the movie "Aladdin" did not grasp the "degree", resulting in an imbalance of values. Although Aladdin is the protagonist of medieval Arabic folk tales, this character was not originally Arab, nor Persian, but Chinese.
The time of the creation of the story is equivalent to the Tang Dynasty in China, and the China in the story is the China imagined by the creators of word of mouth.
This story, which has been passed down for thousands of years, was made into a movie by Disney Animation Productions. The setting shifts from China to the fictional Arab city of Agrabah.
Although the setting and visual effects of the story show a strong Arab flavor, the culture and values it carries are neither Chinese nor Arabic, but appropriated from the United States and discounted.
The protagonist of the movie "Aladdin" is a famous thief in the city, and the villain in the movie, Jia Fang, believes in the belief that "the thief of the hook is punished, and the thief of the country is the prince", the two characters are similar in nature, in the face of wealth and power, Aladdin and Jia Fang are not greedy to the degree, but the difference is that Aladdin woke up in time after Jia Fang stole the magic lamp.
The confrontation between the two characters in the film, the positive and the villain, focuses on the external dramatic contradictions, one is the low-level thief who complains to Princess Jasmine, and the other is the thief who tries to marry the princess to become the prime minister of the Sultan.
The impetus for the confrontation between good and evil in the film does not come from a strong inner force, but from the drive of material and love, in other words, in essence, Aladdin and Jia Fang do not have a fundamental position to confront.
Aristotle divided the "mean" into nine types: courage between cowardice and recklessness, generosity between miserliness and extravagance, ambition between indifference and greed, humility and pride, honesty between silence and stunts, humor between violence and burlesque, and friendship between strife and sycophancy.
He believes that the distinction between right and wrong, good and evil, has a strict boundary and a clear attitude, and has nothing in common with the kind of eclecticism that is ambiguous and impartial between right and wrong, good and evil.
The movie portrays Aladdin and Jia Fang as practitioners of "those who steal the hook are punished, and those who steal the country are princes", blurring the fierce ideological collision brought about by the change of social structure, the irreconcilable confrontation between classes, and the contest between good and evil between human nature.
Perhaps due to the positioning of the family movie, the values carried by the movie are thin and shallow, pale and weak. This seems to conform to the first level of "China" and compromises the contradictions, but it violates the second level and fails to grasp the balance between good and evil in the complex historical background and social reality.
In order to conform to the context of the times, the live-action movie "Aladdin" portrays the heroine Princess Caili as an independent woman who is independent, self-reliant, politically ambitious and ambitious, and hopes to become an independent woman in the Sudan.
Expanding, the live-action movie "Aladdin" tries to portray Princess Jasmine as a knowledgeable, brave and open-minded heir to the throne, she takes saving the toiling people living in dire straits as her life goal, but there is no actual action, just in the boudoir with Aladdin, who came to tryst, you and me, powerless to resist her father's fate of using her as a marriage tool, and is arranged to go on blind dates with princes around the world again and again.
The movie "Aladdin" imposes an independent and brave setting on the characters in a one-sided and thin way, but there is no effective action as support, which cannot resonate emotionally with the audience, and it is even more difficult for people to feel the harmony of life.
In artistic creation, especially a cross-cultural adaptation of a work of art like Aladdin, it is more necessary to weigh the appropriate scale from values to artistic techniques.
We can neither blur the compromise, avoid the important and light, nor bluff, and do the outside strong. If you want to get a good sense of proportion, you must follow the methods and rules of creation, create with a rigorous creative attitude, solid artistic skills, and sincere creative emotions, and find the balance point of creation in repeated ideas and trade-offs, so as to achieve the true beauty of the mean.
