Comments on: Movie: Aladdin http://www.pixiepalace.com/2007/11/29/movie-aladdin/ Talking about children\'s books and gender issues in stories and media Thu, 29 Jul 2010 08:57:48 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Eva http://www.pixiepalace.com/2007/11/29/movie-aladdin/comment-page-1/#comment-2978 Eva Fri, 30 Nov 2007 15:48:06 +0000 http://www.pixiepalace.com/2007/11/29/movie-aladdin/#comment-2978 When I first saw this movie my mom made a rather astute comment that, in retrospect, I find highly amusing. She basically pointed out that Jasmine was being completely unfair in her treatment of the whole marriage issue. As a princess getting married for the sake of her country is her duty (not to say that she should have no say at all in who or when she marries). She shouldn't expect to have a childhood of complete luxury and protection and then run off and do whatever she likes. If she was a prince rather than a princess she would have the same duty as well as the added weight of learning to be a ruler and ruling responsibly and kindly. She still couldn't run off to do whatever she happened to feel like. My mom generally has a very strong feminist bent, but in this case I think I agree with her. Jasmine is not trying to compromise or make a responsible choice that she can live with. She's not trying to find more options that she could deal with better than Suitor Creepy McCreepypants. She's just being a winy brat about her lot in life. She wants her cake, and if that means running off with a strange man she hardly knows then she's going to do that! Never mind that it could have lead to all sorts of terrible consequences and Aladdin might have been a bad or dangerous person. When I first saw this movie my mom made a rather astute comment that, in retrospect, I find highly amusing. She basically pointed out that Jasmine was being completely unfair in her treatment of the whole marriage issue. As a princess getting married for the sake of her country is her duty (not to say that she should have no say at all in who or when she marries). She shouldn’t expect to have a childhood of complete luxury and protection and then run off and do whatever she likes. If she was a prince rather than a princess she would have the same duty as well as the added weight of learning to be a ruler and ruling responsibly and kindly. She still couldn’t run off to do whatever she happened to feel like.

My mom generally has a very strong feminist bent, but in this case I think I agree with her. Jasmine is not trying to compromise or make a responsible choice that she can live with. She’s not trying to find more options that she could deal with better than Suitor Creepy McCreepypants. She’s just being a winy brat about her lot in life. She wants her cake, and if that means running off with a strange man she hardly knows then she’s going to do that! Never mind that it could have lead to all sorts of terrible consequences and Aladdin might have been a bad or dangerous person.

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