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Was 'Aladdin' Boosted By The Memes Mocking Will Smith's Genie? - Forbes

Will Smith poses for photographers at the 'Aladdin' European Gala premiere in London. (Photo by Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP)

Aladdin’s marketing campaign got off to a wobbly start when the first pictures of Will Smith’s Genie were posted in human form, in what resembled low-budget Arabian Nights cosplay, without even a glimpse of the wispy blue giant.

Many fans assumed that Disney had drastically changed the new Genie (who already had the audacity of not being Robin Williams), into an unfamiliar form, completely removed from the original. The nostalgia element seems vital to the success of the new wave of Disney reboots, and Will Smith himself had to assure fans that, yes, the Genie would still be blue and smoky.

But when the first trailer dropped and delivered a genie with the promised hue of blue, the design proved incredibly jarring; it’s likely that the CGI wasn’t as polished as it should have been (though the final version still looked a bit strange).

The familiar face of Will Smith was clumsily plastered onto a puffy blue body, hitting the heights of the uncanny valley and sparking a meme wildfire throughout social media.

The negative reaction to almost every piece of marketing prompted box office analysts to lower their expectations, yet Aladdin proved another massive hit for Disney, Tim Burton’s disastrous Dumbo not a sign of reboot fatigue, but simply a forgettable film. Or, more likely, catering to the wrong kind of nostalgia - the nineties seems to be where the money is.

So, did Aladdin’s marketing do its job? Or did it succeed despite itself? The Will Smith Genie meme proved remarkably mutagenic, with fans really showing their creativity, warping Smith’s Genie into more and more grotesque forms.

Eventually, Sonic the Hedgehog came along and stole the uncanny valley crown, but Sonic’s dreadful redesign was often blended with the Genie, the memory of Aladdin providing material for the new Sonic memes. In a way, the Genie paved the road for the mass meme-mockery of Sonic the Hedgehog, and comparatively, looked vastly superior.

Smith’s strange Genie prompted thousands of meme-creators to dedicate an inordinate amount of time thinking about the film, creating posts that were shared numerous times, sparking conversations and ensuring that Aladdin was never forgotten, even if it was being laughed at.

Corporations recognized the marketing potential of memes long ago, but they can't control the content created by the masses. Perhaps it doesn’t matter if the memes are mean-spirited - a funny, durable meme is free advertising, on an almost immeasurable scale.  

But Smith’s Genie didn’t just look odd; it was also being compared, inevitably, to Robin Williams’ legendary performance, an impossible act to follow. The relentless mockery might just have allowed the audience to absorb the disappointment, digesting the dramatic change before finally enjoying the movie for what it was.

Perhaps the creators of Sonic the Hedgehog shouldn't have been so hasty in correcting Sonic’s design; the nightmarish, mutated hedgehog might just have been the film’s strongest asset.  

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https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2019/05/28/was-aladdin-boosted-by-the-memes-mocking-will-smiths-genie/

2019-05-29 00:12:04Z
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