I woke up from a dream that was set in something like my brain\u2019s remix of the old video game, The Prince of Persia. It reminded me that I have long had a fascination for this complex of ideas, aesthetics<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A question I\u2019ve sometimes jokingly revisited is, where is Agrabah exactly? From Aladdin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Arabian nights music. Nirvana\u2019s Love Buzz<\/a> (1989), which is a cover of Shocking Blue\u2019s original from 1969. Metal Slug 2\u2019s soundtrack (Mission 1<\/a>, Mission 2<\/a>, Mission 2 part 2<\/a>,<\/p>\n\n\n\n there was a SEGA beat-em-up called Arabian Fight. It was something like Golden Axe or Streets of Rage but with some Prince of Persia aesthetics. Evil magician kidnapped a princess, you gotta save her. You can choose from 4 characters \u2013 classic, bulky, monk and babe<\/p>\n\n\n\n I wondered if the game might’ve been inspired by Aladdin, and then I wondered if the same might be true of Prince of Persia<\/p>\n\n\n\n but interestingly,<\/p>\n\n\n\n Prince of Persia was released October 1989<\/p>\n\n\n\n Arabian Fight \u2014 February 1991<\/p>\n\n\n\n Aladdin \u2014 November 1991<\/p>\n\n\n\n hm! was something else going on?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Raiders of the Lost Ark?<\/p>\n\n\n\n btw Persians and Arabs are totally different people, though I guess they’re neighbors. Loosely, Persians are modern-day Iranians, I suppose you’d trace their history back to Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes, etc. Arabs otoh I think consider themselves descendants Ishmael, the son of Abraham<\/p>\n\n\n\n how-jordan-mechner-made-a-different-sort-of-interactive-movie-or-the-virtues-of-restraint\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n 2018: Rewatching Aladdin and it’s interesting to identify all the assumptions in it about wealth, marriage, law (the golden rule: he with the gold makes the rules), royalty, social inequality, freedom, etc<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scheherazad<\/p>\n\n\n\n Aladdin: the sultan’s palace in the animated film has a strong resemblance to the taj mahal, which is mughal architecture, muslim influence. it was originally meant to be set in baghdad, then gulf war<\/p>\n\n\n\n the live action film was shot in jordan, the set designer mentioned istanbul, morocco\u2013<\/p>\n\n\n\n there are other details \u2013 eg jasmine having a tiger named rajah, which is quite an indian riff \u2013 a middle eastern wild cat would likelier be a persian leopard or an asiatic cheetah<\/p>\n\n\n\n aladdin’s OG vest strikes me as something with a bit of an ottoman\/turkish influence \u2013 I was about to say “the red cap (fez) definitely”, but turns out the Fez itself has been on quite the journey<\/p>\n\n\n\n ;;;<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pussycat Dolls, Buttons, ethnically ambiguous Nicole Scherzinger (Filipino-Hawaiian-Ukranian, her German last name is from her stepfather who adopted her) .<\/p>\n\n\n\n Shakira and Beyonce\u2019s Beautiful Liar, Beyonce\u2019s Baby Boy<\/p>\n\n\n\n Britney Spears\u2019 Toxic gets its<\/p>\n\n\n\n
how much time you got to dig into this? haha. it begins with a folktale told by a syrian writer, hanna diyab. it was added to a european compilation of 1001 nights by a french author antoine galland. story opens with “city of china”, 1898 illustration has Chinese motifs, but-<\/p>\n\n\n\n