Recently, I had the experience of reading A Whole New World by Liz Braswell. A Whole New World is the first in Disney Press’ new Twisted Tales series. Each will, I hear, be based on a premise that twists the famous movie away from Happily Ever After and fairytales towards gritty Young Adult reboots. It sounds like a joke but they’re deadly serious about it.
Throughout this review I will be referring to this book as a “fic”, because if the reputation of fanfiction has twisted its definition to poorly written, purple-prose heavy desperate grabs for attention using pre-existing media whilst failing to grasp the message and appeal of said media, then this is absolutely fanfiction.
In this gritty Aladdin AU fic, Jafar gets the lamp and Aladdin is trapped in the Cave of Wonders without it. It assumes a high amount of familiarity with the 1992 animated classic, so I will too. After all, fanfiction is always written by fans for fans. This assumed familiarity results in a common trapping of fanfics: descriptions that are vague, difficult to follow, and emphasised on empty meaning. You can read an entire paragraph, pause, and realise it didn’t actually mean anything.
As the story progresses, so does the grittiness: the Sultan dies; Jasmine escapes, living among thieves, trying to rally them to help her reclaim her throne; politics is mentioned repeatedly but I do not think the fic writers know what that word means. It has the potential for something exciting and intriguing but focuses instead on bizarre specifics in great detail, such as how heterosexual and married the Genie is. Not to mention how tragic and tormented the Genie is. It’s all very out of character, which is the worst thing an AU fic can be.
Ultimately, it’s trying way too hard, and here’s the thing: the happily ever after is exactly the same. For all the rough edges and attempted grit, it ultimately subverts nothing. It isn’t even a fun kind of bad, it’s just a lazy fic cashing in on a trend.
Disney has a whole series of these coming out, and even novels from the point-of-view of villains. Between this and Descendants, the TV movie full of emo children of villains, you have to admire how they’re targeting their villain branding to the emo 12 to 14-year-olds of today. If I lived in America, I’d actually go to a Hot Topic to see if these fics are on sale in them.
There’s something to be said about mainstream attention drawn to fandom and how this is impacting on publishing trends, but it’s all still developing, so I’ll avoid it in case I’m wrong. You can always count on Disney to smell out chances to make a lot of money, though.
Over in my too-old corner though, I think I’ll instead indulge in another type of nostalgia. StarKids Productions, the people behind the Harry Potter fan musical of my disaffected youth, staged their own Aladdin fic — Twisted: The Untold Tale of a Royal Vizier. Hmm. I wonder what the word of the day is?
Sues Cummings 