It's pretty apparent to most people past puberty that Disney movies dabble in more than magic
and innocence.
Take Aladdin, which acts like it's a cute story of a street savvy kid and a princess
but which is actually a very weird and uncomfortable movie when you look a little deeper.
Here are some of the things you only notice when watching Aladdin as an adult.
Gruesome ends
There are a lot of deaths in Disney films, but watching as an adult, you start to realize
just how brutal a lot of these movies are.
For its part, Aladdin kills a lot of people in some pretty gruesome ways.
During the song "One Jump Ahead" alone, a man is impaled on spikes and Abu rips a sword
out of a guy's throat, likely killing him.
Then there's this guy from the beginning:
"A thousand apologies, O patient one."
"You have it then?"
"I had to slit a few throats, but I got it."
...who, of course, dies horribly just a few minutes later.
They're just cartoon characters, sure… unless you're a four-year-old kid who thinks everything
is alive.
And then you do this to them?
"Nooooo!"
But… but we loved you, Mufasa.
Brothel friends
During the opening song, Aladdin winds up in a room with three scantily dressed women,
all of whom seem pretty familiar with him.
As an adult, it seems pretty clear that he's probably in a brothel, and it's a little suspicious
that the women seem to know Aladdin so well.
It gets even worse, though — when Aladdin has been prince-ified by the genie and is
arriving at the palace, he shows off for his lady friends as he travels to meet his future
wife.
Kinda makes you see "A Whole New World" in a very different way.
Rat catchers
At the beginning of the movie, the guards send dozens of men after one street rat for
stealing a loaf of bread.
As a kid, this seems like a fun way to start off the movie and introduce Aladdin, but as
an adult, it's pretty obvious overkill.
Don't they have better things to do?
There's gotta be worse crimes going on in Agrabah than a hungry kid stealing food.
"All this for a loaf of bread?"
Yeah, no kidding.
Maximum effort
When Jasmine leaves the palace, she gets into disguise so that the townsfolk won't notice
who she is — except it's the worst disguise ever.
Jasmine decides that her "disguise" is going to be… putting on a hooded robe, and that's
it — leaving her regular outfit and crown on underneath.
Even Lois Lane could have figured out that disguise.
She could have at least taken off her crown.
That's just lazy.
Bad monkey
When you're a kid, Abu seems like a cute sidekick who provides some much needed humor in the
film's darker moments.
However, when you're an adult, you pretty quickly come to realize that Abu is actually
the worst.
Abu is the one who's reluctant to give his bread to starving children.
He's the one who steals a bunch of apples and jewels even after Jasmine is already this
close to getting her hand cut off.
He's the one who takes that big ruby in the Cave of Wonders.
You know, the one that's obviously a trap.
And then, on top of all that, he decides to cover Aladdin's eyes as they try to fly away.
Yeah, that adorable monkey loses his appeal for adult viewers pretty quickly.
Supersonic carpet
You gotta love the magic carpet, but how fast can that thing really fly?
In "A Whole New World," the magic carpet takes Aladdin and Jasmine everywhere from Egypt
to Greece to Mulan, all in one night, traveling slow enough that they can still sing a love
song without getting the breath sucked out of their lungs.
But to reach all those places, the carpet would have had to fly ridiculously fast.
So instead of this...
"But when I'm way up here, it's crystal clear."
...they would have looked more like this:
And we get it!
It's magic in a kid's movie.
But there have to be some ground rules.
Even the Genie has rules.
Well...sort of.
Genie inconsistency
When it comes to wishes, the movie can't seem to figure out what the Genie can and can't
do.
Aladdin tricks the Genie into getting him out of the cave without making a wish.
"Hah.
You did that on your own."
"Ugh!
Well, I feel sheepish.
But when Jafar's men throw Aladdin off the cliff and he's literally drowning to death,
the Genie's suddenly a stickler for the rules:
"Oh, you can't cheat on this one.
I can't help you unless you make a wish!"
Which… lasts about two seconds until he saves Aladdin anyway.
What's going on, Genie?
Jafar is a creep
Okay, so you probably noticed this as a kid, but it's even more apparent as an adult just
how creepy Jafar is as the film's villain.
He shows basically no interest in Jasmine throughout the film other than marrying her
so he can take over the throne, and then once he takes over the kingdom, he basically makes
Jasmine into his sex slave, all to embarrass her and her father.
Even worse?
Jasmine is supposedly only 15 years old in the movie.
Jafar is meant to be a villain, but watching all this as an adult just makes you realize
how disturbing he really is.
It's almost hard to believe that the Sultan trusts him so much...
"One thing I pride myself on, Jafar, I'm an excellent judge of character!"
"Oh, excellent judge, yeah, sure...
NOT!"
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