Stan of Arabia

Unreferenced|date=October 2007|section called "Cultural references"Infobox American Dad! episode
Title =Stan of Arabia
Series =American Dad!


Caption =Stan in his Arabian garb
Season =1
Episode =12 & 13
Airdate =November 6 & November 13, 2005
Production =1AJN12 & 1AJN13
Writer =
Director =
Guests =
newspaper_headline = this episode doesn't have one
Episode list =List of American Dad! episodes
Season list = Infobox_American_Dad!_Season_1
Prev =Con Heir
Next =Stannie Get Your Gun

"Stan of Arabia" is a two-part episode of the animated series "American Dad!".

Plot

Bullock's underlings plan a surprise party for him commemorating 25 years of service with the CIA. Stan in charge of planning the party, which means that Francine is actually in charge of planning the party. Although Stan tries ordering Francine to plan the party, she refuses, as she's performing in a community theater production of Beauty and the Beast the day of the party. At the party, Stan kills (or at least seriously injures) Jay Leno for insinuating that Francine wears the pants in their family. Stan's ad-libbed replacement jokes go over like a lead balloon — he jokes about Bullock's intelligence failure regarding his mom's cancer, and Bullock's yellow fever / chubby chasing during his wife's kidnapped absence in Fallujah. Stan then sings about how he wished Francine had been at the party to save himself from himself and how he doesn't want an equal partner, but a wife who will listen to his every demand.

At home, Roger revels in the four-liter jug of wine Francine bought for him. Steve begs Hayley for a ride to the latest Michael Moore semi-documentary on the insurance industry, "Prescription for Disaster". Because only she can drive, effectively he depends on her to leave the house, and Hayley extracts self-humiliation in payment. At the theater, Hayley leaves, being disgusted by the movie not truly being a documentary. Steve tries to stay, but the ushers come and haul him away for being under 17, in an R-rated movie, just before Angelina Jolie's breasts lose their "coverage."

Stan is relieved when Bullock announces he has decided not to fire him as punishment for the disastrous stand-in; however, he sends Stan to Saudi Arabia instead. When they arrive, Stan displays crude ignorance about the culture, while Hayley and Francine love how women are dressed like ninjas and therefore "aren't objectified". At the house, they unpack Roger from their luggage, who reported having defecated during the long wait. Roger looks for the booze, but freaks out to find that Saudi Arabia is a dry country. Francine makes plans to visit the palace when Stan comes home from work. After Stan leaves, Steve and the two women go to meet the neighbors. At first, after discussing how their husbands never put the toilet seat down, Francine thinks that "no matter where you go in the world, marriage is always the same", a notion disabused when the neighbor's husband comes home (in the middle of the day, after a very short workday) and all three wives leap up to draw their husband a bath and make him a snack.

Stan reports to work, where his job is to supervise oil pipeline guards. At first, he's suspicious of them, but after driving a few golf balls into a nearby minefield with them, he opens up. They explain that the reason they wear robes is to be comfortable in the sand and heat, not because their god doesn't believe in pants. Then they ask why Stan is in Saudi Arabia, if he loves America so much. Stan's explanation, which of course blames everything on Francine, befuddles the Arabs. "What do you mean? You "asked" her and she said no? You mean, you "told" her and she obeyed." "Uh, no." One of the Arabs explains, in another musical number, how it's not just the rules of golf that are different in Saudi Arabia. The song is cut short, as the Police of Vice & Virtue arrive and shoot the Arab dead, for his third offense of public singing and dancing. Stan is only briefly fazed by the shooting. He comes home and joyously tells Francine and Hayley that women aren't allowed to leave the house unaccompanied by men, and the only reason they could go to the neighbors earlier was that they were with Steve, who's considered a man, in the Islamic world.

Stan notes that there's no singing, dancing, cursing, no bars, no movie theaters, and "women can't drive or ride bicycles". The "best rule" is that the man has final say on everything, so Stan doesn't have to go see the palace just because Francine wants to go. Francine tries to assert her freedom within the house, at least. She says no when Stan orders her to prepare a feast for his new friends. But Stan solves that problem by getting a second wife, whom he calls Thundercat because "her real name in unpronounceable". Francine is clearly annoyed at Stan, but she is powerless to fight back.

Hayley is escorted to her date with the neighbor's boy. Although at first she thinks he's an exotic gentleman, she soon finds that he is obsessed with American culture in a dorky, shallow, and out-of-date way. She pretends to go to the bathroom to escape, then runs out of the restaurant, soon pursued by the religious police.

Steve takes Roger (dressed as a Saudi woman) to the bazaar, so Roger can find booze and Steve can find the Michael Moore documentary on bootleg DVD. Roger yaps and yaps about not finding booze. He finds a dead cow though. Steve is more successful, but the DVD costs "45 foreign money", which he thinks is either really expensive or a great deal. Because Roger's whining about alcohol had become annoying, Steve sells Roger (as a "woman") to a nasty old man with missing teeth and an eyepatch for a wad of cash. He buys a Mercedes-Benz, gold neckchains, gold eyeglasses, hand grenades, and of course a bootleg copy of the Michael Moore movie. He drives across the desert in circles tossing hand grenades and yelling "I am a MAN!" Unfortunately, Steve is distracted by the in-dash DVD player as Angelina Jolie is about to lose her "coverage" and drives into an oil derrick, out in the middle of nowhere.

At home, Stan and his friends are pleased by the feast made by Thundercat out of an adorable goat. They give him a gift of a man-dress, the color of which really brings out his eyes, in case his god ever decides to ban pants. Francine is annoyed at Thundercat usurping her position as wife, and they fist-fight, but Thundercat has the better of her, smashing Francine's head with the dishwasher door. Out in the living room, Bullock calls to bring Stan home, admitting to having overreacted to Stan's jokes, which were accurate after all. Stan tells Bullock he actually likes it in Saudi Arabia, and renounces his American citizenship, while burning the family's US Passports. Hayley finds a soul mate in a would-be terrorist who agrees with her political opinions that America is an imperialist nation. Roger, still dressed as a woman, is sold off by Steve to a powerful Saudi ruler with multiple wives, but he delays having sex with him by telling him stories of American TV shows from the '90s, in a parody of 1001 Arabian Nights. He is most interested in the tale of Beverly Hills 90210, "the show where all the teenagers are white and in their thirties."

Trapped in the middle of the desert, Steve has a vision of God, in the guise of Angelina Jolie, who ends up showing her boobs, a vision which made Steve's hair turn white and returns the Saudi city to start up a new religion. His message is at first applauded by the Saudis, but when he declares that God is a woman, they turn on him and sentence him to stoning (though they still admit he had some pretty good ideas). Francine expresses her anger at Stan and status of women in Saudi Arabia in general with a song-and-dance number where she sings about how awful Saudi Arabia is if you're a woman, an act which prompts her to also be caught and given the penalty of death by the religious police. Realizing he has been a fool, Stan appears in court to save his wife. When that fails (chiefly because his lawyer is Jewish), he asks the judge what crime gets a man sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia, to which the judge replies homosexuality, and hence Stan "passionately" kisses one of the police in order to join his family. Meanwhile, Hayley's Arab boyfriend sends her a note not to go to the US Embassy. Fearing he will bomb the embassy, she goes to the embassy to stop him and discovers he was, in reality, a Sharmwa King vendor. Finding out her lover's terrorist line was just a ploy to make American girls have sex with him, Hayley beats him up and puts him in a coma, ending up sentenced to death, even though she committed the crime at the Embassy, which would technically be on "American" soil (but because of her lack of passport she is arrested).

Just as the family is about to be stoned, George W. Bush personally shows up to rescue the family, and bring freedom, Christianity and democracy to Saudi Arabia, but it turns out it was just Stan's fantasy. In the end, Roger convinces his Saudi husband to arrange for his family to be released, but he still has to have sex with his powerful husband in exchange (after seeing him take off his pants, however, Roger does not seem to object). Finally, the family returns to America, having learned that it's not the worst place on Earth after all. Stan kisses the ground the moment he steps off the plane, while Roger explains "what happens in Saudi Arabia "stays" in Saudi Arabia!"

Notes

* Roger previously left the house dressed as a female Saudi exchange student in a burqa in "All About Steve".
* In New Zealand and Australia, this episode was the season one finale.
* It includes three musical numbers; one with Stan complaining that he wants a wife, not a partner "(I Want A Wife (Not A Partner))", the second with Francine listing the things she hates about Saudi Arabia "(It's The Worst Place In The World)", and the last being in the form of a chorus finale, with the entire family realising that America isn't as bad as everyone makes out to be "(It's (NOT) The Worst Place In The World)". The last two numbers are similar in musical structure and melody.

Cultural references

* Whilst walking through the airport Stan remarks "Quick cover your mouths, that's how they enter your body and lay their eggs" this is a reference to the Facehuggers in the Alien movies.
* Stan threatens to shoot Francine "one of these days", a reference to "The Honeymooners".
* The title of the episode is a parody of the movie "Lawrence of Arabia". The musical cue is also from that movie. Hayley's line "Nothing is written" is also from the film.
* When Hayley, Steve and Roger are walking through the market streets they pass by a stall owned by Jawas selling droids (most notably R2D2 and an R5 unit) - a reference to the film Star Wars A New Hope.
* In the theater piece Francine is in, she plays Mrs. Potts of "Beauty and the Beast".
* Assistant-director Bullock's line "I like big Asian butts and I cannot lie" is from the song Baby Got Back by Sir Mix-A-Lot, with the word "Asian" added.
* The movie pokes fun at Michael Moore's documentaries.
* Stan's second wife is called Thundercat.
* Hayley's date asks her "What ever happened with Ross and Rachel?", the characters of Friends whose relationship was a recurring plot element.
* The way Roger stalls his Saudi husband by telling him tale after tale is similar to the story of the 1001 Arabian Nights.
* During Francine's song, the Saudi Arabians (and Stan) wonder what a clitoris is. This is a reference to clitoridectomy, although it is not generally practiced in Saudi Arabia, but rather Egypt and other African countries.
* While it may be a coincidence, Fazim telling the Police of Vice and Virtue that Hayley is his sister is similar to how Aladdin and the Princess meet in "Aladdin."
* Roger's final line "what happens in Saudi Arabia, stays in Saudi Arabia" is a play on the famous rule by Las Vegas tourists "what happens in Las Vegas, stays in Las Vegas".
* Stan wants to get a satellite dish so he can watch "Lost".
* When Stan has the fantasy of George Bush saving the day before being stoned, Stan sits in George's arms and quotes "Hear that Mr. President? Teacher says that every time a bell rings an oppressive autocracy gets its freedom" which is a play on the quote Zuzu says in It's a Wonderful Life.
* Steve mentions that his childhood died the day Kobe Bryant was charged with sexual assualt.
* When Steve sees Angelina Jolie's breasts, the THX music plays.
* When Steve drives around in the desert, Rock The Casbah by The Clash plays.
*In the beginning of the episode Roger while drinking wine states that Ernest and Julio Gallo make a "handsome couple." When in fact they are brothers.
*When Stan kills Jay Leno by breaking his neck, then apologizes asking Jay to wake up repeatedly is a throwback to John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men", When Lenny Kills the puppy and Curly's wife.
*While in Saudi Arabia Francine tells Stan in the car "roll 'em up" This is a reference to the film National Lampoons' Vacation.

Notes on Saudi Arabia

The two-part episode was the subject of criticism by the Saudi government. The English daily [http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7&section=0&article=74718&d=15&m=12&y=2005 "Arab News"] published an article that accused the series of engaging in Arab-bashing, although some western expatriates who worked in Saudi Arabia claim that many of things shown in the two episodes are accurate, especially in terms of the status of human rights, the existence of the religious police, and the strict laws against alcohol and homosexuality. As a result, the two-part episode was banned in Saudi Arabia, although the TV series itself does air there.

At Francine's trial, the judge finds her guilty after her lawyer introduces himself as Erv Rosenblat (a Jewish name). This is a commentary on the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the official ban on Jewish people from living the kingdom. For more information on this topic see History of the Jews in Saudi Arabia.

ee also

* Human rights in Saudi Arabia