Deep Dive Disney(?): Wes Looks at Twisted

Hello all, and welcome to Wes’s apology for having nothing better than Return of Jafar to cover for the 30th Anniversary of Disney’s Aladdin. You may recall me saying something about Return of Jafar not being my first choice in terms of what to cover to mark that particular occasion. Welcome friends, to my actual first choice. This is Twisted! Wait, what the hell is Twisted? Twisted, my friends, is a musical from the comedy theatre company known as Team StarKid, the group behind such parody musicals as A Very Potter Musical, Holy Musical Batman and many others. While some may disagree, in my humble opinion, Twisted is their magnum opus. While primarily a parody of Aladdin, the show takes plenty of opportunities to poke fun at other Disney movies and tropes as well as perspective flipped narratives that paint the villain as a good guy, most notably Wicked. Our story brings us to a version of Agrabah (referred to as The Magic Kingdom to further the Disney Parody while still avoiding the wrath of Disney's lawyers) where Jafar is not the power-hungry schemer we know from the film, but rather a good and honest man who cares deeply for his people. A man of science and a believer in logic and reason, Jafar is a realist in a kingdom full of dreamers, a man with both feet planted firmly on the ground. Unfortunately for Jafar, the people of the kingdom often label him a villain because of his ugly and evil looking appearance and as a result, the royal vizier had a hard time getting his plans to improve the quality of life in the kingdom to pass. Things get even worse when the kingdom’s naïve princess sets a tiger upon a visiting prince from an allied kingdom. Now the kingdom stands on the brink of war and Jafar’s only hope rests in an old legend he once heard from his late wife, a legend of a Tiger Head Cave that contains a magic lamp. Enlisting a douchebag thief named Aladdin to retrieve the lamp, Jafar thinks that he'll soon be a hero, adored by the entire kingdom, but Aladdin has other plans. Aladdin steals the lamp and plans to use it to seduce the princess so he can get his nut out, his eternal nut out. It’s one of the funniest Disney parodies I’ve ever seen, so why don’t we take a closer look at, Twisted.

Main Character:

So let’s talk about this world’s version of Jafar. As I said, this Jafar is a decent human being who loves his fellow man and his kingdom and just wants to help people. As a younger, more optimistic man, Jafar believes that from his position as Royal Vizier he can really influence things for the good. However, as time goes on and more and more of his attempts to do good are either ignored or rejected and Jafar becomes more and more resigned to the inevitable. Even though he is clearly trying to do good, it can be easy to write Jafar off as a cynical asshole due to his attitude towards dreams and wishes, that is until we learn his backstory. As a young man just starting out as an assistant to the previous royal vizier, Jafar was a wide-eyed optimist with big plans for reform in the kingdom and believed in following the golden rule, due unto others as you would have done unto you. However, once Jafar meets the royal vizier and gets a real taste of how corrupt the people running the kingdom really are, Jafar starts to lose hope. That is until Jafar meets his soon-to-be wife, Sherazade. During his time with his beloved, Jafar begins to believe in dreams, only to have it snatched away from him once The Sultan decides to claim Sherazade for his harem. After losing his beloved to the sultan, and soon after, to heaven, Jafar begins to lose hope until he discovers the key to finding the Tiger Head Cave. Now, Jafar may have a way of finding something that can help his people, eventually circumstances force him to make a choice. Keep pursuing his noble goals and be branded a villain or maintain the status quo and allow his people to suffer. Given that this is a parody, I’m surprised that they were able to get this much pathos out of this character. You really do feel for this guy and his struggles. All he wants to do is help the kingdom, yet he’s constantly blamed for all of its woes. A far cry from the scheming sorcerer we saw in the original Aladdin.

Villain:

Turning a character like Aladdin into a villain was likely no easy task, but helping things is the skillful acting of Jeff Blim who has this look about him that says “I’m probably a serial killer.” Seriously, the dude looks absolutely deranged at all times and has a smile like a Cheshire cat. Whereas in the original film, Aladdin was a good natured young man who was only a thief because his circumstances necessitated it, this Aladdin is a leach on society who steals simply because he’s too lazy to find a job. He lived with his parents until he was 33, thinks nothing of those around him, and when he meets the princess, the only thing on his mind is getting in her pants. Simply put, Aladdin here is an absolute piece of shit. He just wants to steal from others, making life miserable for everyone around him in the process and have sex with an underaged girl. Honestly, this version of the character has more in common with Gaston than Aladdin, though even Gaston at least made a slight effort to pretend to be a decent person. Aladdin is just his regular scumbag self throughout the show and he only succeeds because, with the exception of Jafar, everyone around him is too dumb to see him for what he is. Towards the end, the princess starts to wise-up and refuse Aladdin’s sexual advances, which is when he turns full psycho revealing that he killed his parents because they tried to kick him out of the house. He threatens the princess, but he’s stopped by Jafar and runs away like a coward. His ultimate fate is fitting and also a clever way to connect this play to the original film. Aladdin becomes the merchant from the beginning of the film, a loser hocking secondhand goods and spreading a version of his story that paints him as a great hero until he’s, ironically, murdered over a loaf of bread. Put a pin in that. We'll be swinging back to it in a later section.

Side Characters:

Let’s start by talking about the Sultan. Many years ago, the Sultan took his finger and he pushed in his penis. It has not come out since. Believe it or not, this is a critical plot point. I am not even remotely close to kidding. I wish I was, but I am not.

We have the captain of guard, who I assume is meant to be Razoul. Whoever he is, he’s a really funny character and I cannot get enough of his dead pan delivery as he constantly reminds Jafar how everything is his fault.

The Genie, or at least some version of him, is in this story, but I would prefer to save any discussion of that character for a later section.

Then, there’s Prince Achmed. You remember Prince Achmed, right? Of course you don’t. No one remembers Achmed, that’s the whole point of this character being in the play. Achmed was that jackass prince from the beginning of Aladdin who Aladdin called “A Horse with Two Rear Ends.” I’m not sure if Aladdin meat that the prince had a big horsey ass or a horse ass for a face, but whatever. Achmed was also the guy who got mauled by Raja when Jasmine expressed no interest in marrying him. However, in real life, setting a tiger on a visiting foreign prince is an act of war, not a throwaway gag that is never mentioned again. In this version, Achmed is the ruler of the kingdom of Pixar, known for supplying the magic kingdom with their greatest exports including toys, trash compacting robots and other such incredibles. Like many of the characters in this show, Achmed is hilarious and the “Tiger Fucker” running joke is beyond hilarious.

And finally, that brings us to Jasmine. Mind you, this character is technically not called Jasmine in this version. Instead, she’s only ever referred to as “The Princess,” probably for legal reasons. Though for the sake of this article, I don’t anyone will mine if I refer to her as Jasmine. So, how to best describe this character. Imagine for moment if Jasmine had the intelligence of Ariel. I know, my Ariel hate borders on mean-spirited sometimes, but I don’t care, she pisses me off. This version of Jasmine is a moron, a straight up parody of what most people think the Disney princesses are. She’s vapid, impossible to satisfy, deeply naïve and hilariously oblivious to her own reality, protesting sweatshops while directly benefitting from slave labor. Admittedly, she’s not actively evil or anything, just not especially bright, which is how she falls for Aladdin’s bullshit so easily. However, to her credit, she does smarten up as time goes on. I guess even an idiot can only fall for Aladdin’s paper thin rouse for so long. She eventually stands up to Aladdin and tells him to fuck off. It’s around this point where we get the big twist. Sherazade was with child when she died, and the sultan couldn’t conceive since he had an inverted penis. See, I told you that was a critical plot point. That means, Jasmine is Jafar’s biological daughter. Throughout the play, we get hints that Jafar cares deeply for the princess and here’s where we find out why he felt such a strong connection to her, he’s her father. Jafar realizes in this moment that he is not the one to influence change in the kingdom. Try as he might, he’s not a dreamer, but Jasmine is. She believes anything is possible, and that’s what’s needed to influence real change.

Songs:

There are a lot of songs in this bad boy, so much so that we’d be here forever if we discussed each and every one of them in detail. I’ll do my best to hit the highlights, but if I miss one or two, forgive me.

Dream a Little Harder is our opener and it’s clearly meant to invoke a song like Belle from Beauty & The Beast, only much more mean-spirited. Jafar walks through town trying to keep a positive attitude but everyone just keeps telling him to eat shit and die. I love it.

I Steal Everything is Aladdin’s first number, and it’s meant to be equivalent to One Jump Ahead, only this song is is meant to demonstrate Aladdin’s lazy and villainous mindset. It also has a lot of laughs throughout, my favorite being a bit where Aladdin repeats the classic line “You’re Only In Trouble if you Get Caught,” but this time it’s in reference to a girl he knocked up.

Everything and More is Jasmine’s I Want song and it’s basically a parody of every I Want song that’s ever come before. The princess here is shown to have zero self-awareness and the most ridiculous and unrealistic life goals. It’s pretty funny, but not one of the strongest songs in the show.

Probably my favorite song in the show is Follow the Golden Rule. It takes place during a flashback to Jafar’s first day working in the palace and demonstrates his optimistic mindset and his belief in compromise and cooperation. In the song, he stops a merchant from chopping off the hand of a thief because it will be of more value to have the thief work for the merchant so he can afford apples of his own. However, things take a sinister turn when Jafar meets the royal vizier and the song becomes Follow the Gold and Rule. In the mind of the corrupt, the only rule that matters is, he who has the gold, makes the rules. I love this turn and I love the contrast between the two versions of the song. It’s bright and optimistic one moment and dark and sinister the next. Brilliant!

A Thousand and One Nights is a truly beautiful love song between Jafar and Sherazade. I really like the sentiment here. They don’t want a happily ever after, they want a story that goes on forever because all the time in the world is not enough for them. Very sweet.

If I Believed is a great song from Jafar and it’s sung right before he goes after the Tiger Head Cave. Jafar never believed the legend, but now, feeling he has no other choice, Jafar has decided to abandon logic and reason just this once and take a chance on believing in magic. No One Remembers Achmed is pure hilarity from Achmed and his army. Not much else to say here except, “Tiger Fucker! Tiger Fucker! Tiger Fucker!”

Take Off Your Clothes is hilarious. It’s a direct parody of A Whole New World, but also calls attention to all the things in Disney movies that were unintentionally sexual, including the alarming amount of phallic imagery in The Little Mermaid. What makes it work is the parts where Jasmine points out that a lot of these moments have been misinterpreted over the years. The whole thing is ridiculous and I love it.

While Follow the Golden Rule is my favorite song, my favorite sequence in the show comes in its title song, Twisted. At this point, Jafar has stolen the lamp and faces a difficult choice. He’s committed treason and cannot return to the palace. No matter what he does next, he will be a villain in someone’s eyes. The road ahead of him is no longer straight and narrow, but twisted. As Jafar wrestles with his demons, he’s confronted by other Disney Villains each of them sharing how their own stories were twisted over time. Ursula was the rightful ruler of Atlantica, but Triton usurped the throne, branded her a monster and exiled her to a cave. Scar only wanted to make peace between the lions and hyenas. Gaston truly loved Belle and only wanted to save her from a castle full of demonic furniture. Maleficent only wanted to be invited to the party and feel included. Captain Hook only wanted to teach Peter responsibility so he wouldn’t end up like him. Cruella… okay Cruella wanting to murder and skin a bunch of cute little puppies to make a coat is still pretty fucked up no matter which way you slice it. This song is a blast. It’s awesome to see all the villains in one place and the song itself is a lot of fun. My favorite part is probably Gaston, something that should come as no surprise to long time readers. It helps that the actor playing him is just so delightfully extra. This sequence also gives us my all-time favorite description of The Beast, “A Buffalo Monster… In a Cape.”

Finally, there’s The Power In Me, the final duet between Jafar and Jasmine. While this is first and foremost a comedy, this song is beautiful and nearly moved me to tears. Where in the hell does this comedy musical get off making me feel things? I love how Jafar is now trusting Jasmine with the future of the kingdom and they both acknowledge that they draw their strength from one another.

Memorable Scenes:

Probably the funniest scene in the show is when Jafar summons the Genie, referred to as The Djinn here, probably for the same reason Jasmine isn’t Jasmine. Keep in mind, in this version, we’ve made reference to the Genie here and there, but we haven’t actually seen him until now. When we finally do see him, he’s… hilariously underwhelming and overwhelmingly hilarious. The idea of a character who speaks only in movie quotes that really appeals to me. See, to the viewer, a character like The Genie is hilarious because we understand most of the pop culture references he's making. However, to someone like Jafar, who obviously wouldn’t understand those pop culture references, he’s probably just annoying. I love Jafar slowly losing his patience with the Genie as he struggles to comprehend all his references until he finally snaps and tells him to back him the fuck up or shut the fuck up.

Story:

As I said, Twisted is first and foremost a comedy, and a damn hilarious one at that. I haven’t even scratched the surface when it comes to all the jokes in this play. This show will have you rolling on the floor laughing for a solid two hours, which is exactly what I’ve come to expect from Team Starkid. However, this does not mean there is no deeper meaning in this show. There’s a lot of talk of how one is perceived in this story. Jafar is a good and honest man who wishes to help people, but also allows it get to him that everyone perceives him as a villain and a failure. His greatest desire is to finally be viewed as a hero to his people. That’s all well and good, but even if your intent is noble, how you're perceived should not be a motivator for doing the right thing. Doing the right thing should be the motivator for doing the right thing. I think by the time all is said and done, Jafar gets that. Jafar’s actions saved the kingdom from ruin, and that’s something to be proud of. Sure, Aladdin may spread his twisted version of reality, but Jafar no longer cares about his legacy. Let him spread his lies and let the people believe what they will, Jafar did what he set out to do, and that was enough. And in the end, Jafar gets the only reward that matters, getting to spend an eternity reunited with his beloved Sherazade. Sure he’s stuck in a shitty shitty living space, but he’s happy, and that’s what matters.

Final Thoughts: Twisted is hilarious. One of the funniest comedic musicals I've ever seen in my life and it's a nice send up to Aladdin as well as Disney as a whole. It's free to watch on YouTube if you want to check it out for yourself, trust me, you won't regret it. And thus ends my two-part celebration of the 30th anniversary of Disney's Aladdin. While Twisted may have parodied the classic film, it wouldn't have done so had Aladdin not made such an impact. But for now, we move forward. Keep an eye out for some articles I have planned for the Christmas season, but until then, I must say goodbye until another Arabian Night.