Stan of Arabia

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American Dad! Episode

"Stan of Arabia"

Episode no.:

12 & 13

Prod. code:

1AJN12 & 1AJN13

Airdate:

November 6 & November 13, 2005

Writer(s):

Director:

Guest star(s):

Headline:

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

1 Plot summary
2 Cultural references
3 Notes
- 3.1 Notes on Saudi Arabia
4 See also

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

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."

Bullock sends Stan to Saudi Arabia as punishment for the disaster he caused at the roast. 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, oh, 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 us a second wife, you know, to help with cooking and cleaning. Her name's impossible to pronounce, so I just call her Thundercat." Francine is clearly pissed 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 pissed 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. 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 in their thirties."

Trapped in the middle of the desert, Steve has a vision of God, in the guise of Angelina Jolie 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 sentences him to stoning. 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 Saudia Arabia is if you're a woman, an act which prompts her to also be arrested by the religious police. Realizing he has been a fool, Stan appears in court to save his wife and son. When that fails, he asks the judge what crime get get a man sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia, to which the judge replies homosexuality, and hence Stan kisses a nearby Saudi man in order to join his family. Hayley also gets arrested when she finds out her lover's terrorist line was just a ploy to make American girls have sex with him, and beats him up.

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. 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!"

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Cultural references

Stan threatens to shoot Francine "one of these days", a reference to "The Honeymooners". Most likely not coincidental, the Family Guy episode that premiered prior to this was "PTV", which also contains a Honeymooners spoof based off of Ralph Kramden's catch phrase.
The title of the episode is a parody of the movie Lawrence of Arabia. The musical cue is also from that movie. Haley's line "Nothing is written" is also from the film.
When Haley, 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. Interestingly, when she remembers running through her lines with Stan, she speaks with a strong British accent; this is out of place as Beauty and the Beast takes place in France.
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, which are often criticised as containing inaccurate (but entertaining) facts.
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.
While it may be a coincidence, Fazim telling the Police of Vice and Virtue that Heyley 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.

[edit] Notes

Roger previously left the house dressed as a female Saudi exchange student in a burka in "All About Steve".
After seeing God in the form of Angelina Jolie, Steve tells the Saudi that God is a woman, a crime that is punishable by stoning to death.

[edit] Notes on Saudi Arabia

Riyadh, capital of Saudi Arabia, has a much more modern look than what was depicted in American Dad!

The show gives Saudi Arabia an old-ages Baghdad look and feel, while in reality major Saudi Arabian cities are modern cities.
On the date of the episode airing, 45 Saudi Riyal is 11.9987 US dollars, so the DVD was neither really expensive, nor a great deal.
The sign on US embassy says that is "hasn't been bombed since", and a more recent explosion removed the rest of it. In reality, the US embassy in Saudi Arabia has never been attacked.
In Burger King, Hayley sits with a Saudi male in the dining section; this can not happen in Saudi Arabia since all females (and accompanying males) must sit in private cubicles in a special family section.
Stan mentions getting satellite T.V. so they won't miss Lost every Wednesday. Satellite television was technically illegal in Saudi Arabia, but the ban has always been ignored.
Many guns were shown in the child's room. In reality, possession of guns is subjected to strict rules in Saudi Arabia.
The two-part episode was the subject of criticism by the Saudi government. The English daily Arab News [1] 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, specially 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.
When Stan has the fantasy of George Bush saving the day before being stoned, Stan sits in George's arms and quotes "Here 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.