8 Movies That Were Changed AFTER They Were Released

2. Disney Had To Change Some "Racist" Song Lyrics (Aladdin)

aladdin disney
Disney

At face value, Disney's 1992 animated classic seems like one of the least offensive movies ever made, with its family-friendly story, light-hearted humour and whimsical characters.

But believe it or not, it actually did cause some offence, with a vocal group of Arab-Americans taking issue with certain lyrics in one of the movie's songs - Arabian Nights - and labelling them as racist. As a result, Disney was forced to alter said lyrics, months after the film had been released in cinemas.

Originally, the lyrics went as follows:

"Oh, I come from a land, from a faraway place, where the caravan camels roam. Where they cut off your ear if they don’t like your face, it’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home."

But after Disney met with members of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee - and sought the approval of lyricist Howard Ashman and composer Alan Menken - the line "where they cut off your ear if they don’t like your face" was changed to "where it’s flat and immense and the heat is intense".

These new lyrics are what you'll hear if you boot up the film today, but anyone who saw Aladdin in cinemas in 1992 may still remember the original version.

Arab groups also pushed for the word "barbaric" to be removed as well, but Disney stood firm on that front, insisting that the term referred to the unforgiving terrain and not the people.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!