Believe Care Invest: Aladdin

Hey, where’s Marvel Reread Club?? Well, after overwhelming you guys with podcast content last week, I’ve decided to do one podcast a week. MRC will appear this Friday morning and will now be bi-weekly every other Friday from this point on. The next Friday, we will have a new Secrets of Story Podcast, then a new MRC, etc. Hopefully we can maintain both podcasts on a bi-weekly schedule, alternating with each other. In the meantime, let’s do Aladdin!

• A merchant trying to sell us a lamp tells a story: First we see Jafar try to get something from a magical cave, then he says he must find the “diamond in the rough.” Cut to Aladdin who has stolen a piece of bread and leads the guards on a merry chase around the city, singing a song. He gets away with the bread, but decides to give it to some starving kids. He then protects the kids from the whip of a prince going to the palace.

Why Aladdin might be hard to identify with: No real reason, he’s tremendously lovable.

Believe:

• We begin with a song about his culture and the setting.
• He has a distinctive outfit.
• He has a gap between his exterior and interior: When he’s alone, he sings to himself, “Riff-raff, street rat, I don’t buy that, if only they’d look closer, would they see a poor boy? Nosiree. They’d find out there’s so much more to me.”

Care:

• He’s an orphan: The people in the streets say, “I’d blame parents but he hasn’t got ‘em”
• He’s poor: “I steal only what I can’t afford – That’s everything!”
• He’s envious of the prince.
• Needlessly insulted: “You are a worthless street rat. You were born a street rat, you’ll die a street rat, and only your fleas will mourn you.”
• He falls in unrequited love at first sight.

Invest:

• He’s great at running away. After he dives off a building and swings down a series of clotheslines, the guards say, “You won’t get away so easy!” and he says, “You think that was easy??”
• He has a reputation. Women think he’s adorable. “He’s rather tasty!”
• He has a resourceful monkey assistant.
• He’s kind: he gives bread he’s stolen away to poor kids.
• He’s badass: He protects kids from being whipped by grabbing the whip away from the prince.
• He’s good at improv with the princess when he has to save her from having her hand cut off. They “yes and” each other.