There’s one thing that has always bothered me about the Decendants movie franchise as a whole. No its not the fact that these villians seem to reproduce aesexually, someone needs to explain the birds and the bees to the Disney writers. But we’re not here to talk about descendants lack of knowledge about the human reproductive system, we’re going to talk about their casting choices. Let me start off by saying I love Booboo Stewart as Jay jafar’s son on descendants but that doesn’t change that Booboo Stewart is not Middle Eastern at all.
*** I myself am not of Middle Eastern descent I’m just a Porter Rican dude with a bone to pick, but hear me out.
Now when I first watched descendants I didn’t know much about Booboo Stewart besides the fact that he starred in some of the Twilight movies so I didn’t pay much mind to him being jafar’s son for all I knew he could have been of that particular descent. Now let’s be real when I did finish the movie I decided to do some research if you will on the hot guy playing Jafar’s son. Now imagine my disappointment when I discovered the he was not of middle eastern descent. He has Japanese, Chinese, and Korean ancestry on his mother’s side and Russian, Scottish, and Blackfoot ancestry on his father’s side.
Some of you reading this might be thinking but why does that matter just enjoy the movie. But to me it does matter because representation is something that is important, the media should reflect the audience consuming it.
We’re two movies in now and I quite honestly don’t want to lose Booboo Stewart as one of the main cast because I genuinely like him so I came up with some ideas on how to rectify this tiny mistake. My personal headcanon is that Jay is not the actual son of Jafar and his real father is Shen-Yu the villian in the Mulan movie. What if in the third instalment we discover that the evil Maleficent switch the children of Jafar and Shen Yu not because it benefited her in anyway but because she was bored and wanted something evil to do while she was stuck on the Isle of the Lost. (Also let’s face it everyone wants more of the amazing Kristin Chenoweth)
This fixes the miss casting by appropriately casting Jarar’s son without having to replace booboo’s establish character.
This could be a good story arc for Jay’s character struggling with his identity is he jafar’s son or is he Shan-Yu’s son and does that define him. This new character (lets call him Shane for now)could resent Jay for living the life that he deserved and getting chosen to leave the Isle and go to Auradon.
In the third movie we can have Uma looking for reinforcements a new crew of evil to attack Auradon and recruits the sneaky hunter son of Milan’s greatest villain. Uma knows about the switch because Mal had confided in her as children and she’s going to use this information to manipulate and cause strife between the core four.
Jay is devastated by Mal’s betrayal he thought he had finally found his family and it turns out that one of them had been lying to him this whole time.
Jay leaves the core four for part of the movie to try and redeem Shane. Neither of them chose to be the sons of villainous men but Jay’s determine to better Shane’s life and his own. This also could be a great opportunity to include Lonnie and more of the movie. (She leaves with Jay to find Shane). being conflicted about her feelings about Jay with this newfound information. can she really be developing feelings for the son of her parents’ worst enemy? this all leads to her possibly developing feelings for Shane because I’m the biggest Jaylos shipper there is and this works perfectly for everyone.
The story would be a subplot to the main plot where Mal reunites with her father or whatever the hell they’re going to do with that whole storyline.
Being the overachiever that I am I already have a possible backstory for this new character and a possible actor to portray this him in the new Descendants movie so let me break it down for you.
Shane gew up living above his dad’s restaurant near the woods on the Isle of the Lost. He would be often asked / forced to hunt for animals to be served as main courses downstairs. Due to this Shane is an incredible Hunter and is skilled with a bow and arrow. he has superior tracking skills and is known on the Isle as the Hunter. He’s acquainted with sea three having done some odd jobs for them he’s particularly fond of Uma though she couldn’t care less.
The actor I have chosen to portray Shan Yu is Into the Badlands actor 19 year old Amaris Knight. Despite playing several Hispanic/Latino roles, he has no Hispanic/Latino background. His father is of Pakistani and Indian descent, and his mother, who is white, is of English, Irish, and German ancestry. He also has a similar physical build to Booboo Stewart and they’re roughly the same height Booboo being an inch taller.
Okay I’m done rambling and I completely understand that the likelihood of any of this happening is very low. I just felt like I had to get this off my chest and now that I have I feel better because honestly my pick for the actor is great, my story makes sense, and I feel good about myself. Disney where you at come hire ya boy, Kenny im looking at you! Lol
Thank you for reading and if you like this Theory / headcanon / how to fix descendants feel free to like and reblog.
