Disney Prince Review: Aladdin, Aladdin

"A boy who like this lamp was more than he seemed. A diamond in the rough."

Aladdin as a character I think is a lot like the movie, overshadowed by the amazing performance of the Genie played by the late legendary Robin Williams. This is odd because Aladdin has more screen time than almost any Disney prince at least up to this point. For the first time, a prince takes center stage in the main line as opposed to even Beast who shares the story with Belle. When I look at this movie as a whole I see what could only be defined as an 80's movie; you have your outcast who likes the rich girl, her father who only wants what's best, the crazy best friend, and the elitist bad guy all wrapped up in the classic liar reveal story. To really appreciate Aladdin as a character and the themes of the movie, we actually will get to discuss him in his sequel films and animated series as the Aladdin trilogy does at least put in the effort to actually tell a story ultimately ending with his marriage to Jasmine.

Aladdin and the Street Rat's New Clothes

As a character, Aladdin is someone who sees big things for himself or rather hopes for big things. He doesn't have much but he and Abu live well enough dodging guards and stealing food. Going by the film he himself is very well known as the guards, washer women, prostitutes, and various other people at least know of him. A defining trait he has is that he is not only quick on his feet but he is also generous, giving the bread he nearly died getting to orphan kids and he also doesn't like bullies, defending children from Prince Achmed. He doesn't like people just writing him off a street rat and like Shrek feels people judge him before they know him. During his first conversations with Jasmine, he talks about how nice it must be to live in the palace and not feel trapped, a bit theme of the movie. When he meets Genie he wishes to be a prince and creates Prince Ali Ababwa.

Prince Ali is in a lot of ways similar to the character of Stefan Urquel from Family Matters in that he feels like a vague imitation of what Aladdin perceives royalty as. He acts very high and mighty, brimming with confidence and likes to talk about himself. Aladdin finds the idea of being himself now, a completely terrible idea because he wants to win Jasmine's heart and to do that he needs to convince everyone he's a prince. His night with Jasmine is almost ruined until he starts acting like himself  but refusing to admit that he isn't really a prince. When the Sultan mentions that he will one day be Sultan, Aladdin realizes that he cannot keep the facade up for long as he has no idea how to be a ruler so he takes back his promise to free Genie with his last wish. This the lowest point for Aladdin as he lashes out at Carpet and Abu, he has pushed away his friends and betrayed the one person who can help him. While Aladdin makes amends at the end, his realization is that he can no longer pretend to be someone he isn't and frees Genie from the lamp and Genie says he will always be a prince to him.

Return of Jafar, Aladdin the Humanitarian?

Aladdin doesn't have much of a story here despite being one of three primary characters along Jafar and Iago. Aladdin seems to spend his time stealing from criminals to give to the people of Agrabah (though if he doesn't do anything about the criminals, they are just going to get robbed again). When he see Iago again he is at first skeptical about trusting him but decides to give him a chance and hides him from Jasmine and the Sultan until later on, which ultimately blows up in his face later as Jasmine chews him out for lying about it. At the same time we find out that the Sultan wants Aladdin to be his Royal Vizier, the adviser to the sultan and Aladdin doesn't seem totally set on the idea and at the end of the film says that isn't what he wants to do and says he would like to travel.

Aladdin here comes off as someone who is trying to take initiative in his personal life, not remaining stagnant despite dating Jasmine. Where he was the story this time, it seems that he wants to serve as a sort of Genie to Iago, getting people to see something more in him. He himself admits that whenever he tries to do something good it blows up in his face, we can see that in a lot of ways he is still afraid of messing up or Jasmine being mad at him.

King of Thieves: Aladdin the family man?

Aladdin is finally getting married but he doesn't really as excited as he should be as we actually find him in his old home rummaging through some stuff, this implies that Aladdin goes back and forth between the palace and there.. He isn't 100% ready, he knows that he wants to marry Jasmine but he's never had a family nor does he know how to really be a part of one and when he finds out that his father is alive, he feels he needs to find him before he can start a new chapter of his life. Cassim does come off a lot like Aladdin as he talks about wanting more and even looking at the palace of the Sultan wanting more. Aladdin tries hard to get Cassim to be a part of his life but ultimately he has to accept that it can't happen but meeting and saving his father have given him whatever closure he needed to feel ready to marry Jasmine and more importantly be part of a family.

The argument in the movie is a bit weird and I had heard that this was not the intended plot. Instead of his father and the Forty Thieves, Aladdin would facing off against Mozenrath from the tv series and they would find out that they were brothers apparently. That would be an interesting idea as it shows more interesting parallels to Aladdin and his enemies as well as family. Aladdin's mother was also supposed to be in the first film and if you go by the implication of Aladdin wanting to make his mother proud and add that to Cassim feeling ashamed and Mozenrath wanting more power to achieve his goals. Aladdin plays off the parallel in the idea that not only would Aladdin stay with his mother but he has learned to empathize with others because of his situation where Cassim and Mozenrath are more selfish in theory. 

As a character, Aladdin is pretty interesting and he honestly feels like his story is a haphazard attempt at creating a character who, like the Beast had some growing up to do before he himself could reach his happily ever after. Aladdin's biggest fault is that he doesn't want to be himself because despite saying there is more to him, he is aware that society doesn't care who he is on the inside. He wants more out of life, he wants to be rich, he wants to marry the girl of his dreams and he can't do that as Aladdin. When he becomes Prince Ali, he's very much determined to stay that way and wants to create the illusion that he is a prince, someone worthy of Jasmine and of worth to society. The number "Prince Ali" goes out of it's way to make him unrecognizable, he's kept high up, bombarded with a variety of claims about what he's done and what he has, Genie even going so far as to give him big muscles for a moment. When the truth begins to reveal itself, or when faced with being himself he panics, even when Jasmine demands the truth he opts for a middle ground of saying when they first met he was disguised as street rat. By the end of the first film, Aladdin has come to terms that he can't pretend to be something he isn't and he defeats Jafar, another character who wants to be something he isn't and also feels trapped in his life.

In later films we see another trait of Aladdin in his three films and that is his avoidance of responsibility and this is something I find interesting. Multiple times Aladdin is offered new responsibility like the position of Sultan, Vizier, and later husband and all three of these in one form or another brought up his insecurities. When you look at the films and even the tv series we do get to see something that might explain this: Aladdin has no male role model and the universe of Aladdin only seems to have two father figures: the Sultan and Cassim. Throughout the films and the series we don't see traditional families; we see mothers, children, and men but no fathers and while that isn't a new thing for Disney as a whole we've never had a character as self aware as Aladdin of his limitations. When it comes to his relationship with the Sultan we do see that Aladdin does want his approval and support, he goes out of his way to apologize for bringing Iago, in the tv series he takes any job the Sultan gives him with greatest of seriousness.

His relationship to Jasmine I think is something that honestly never gets proper treatment as all three films have them spend little time with each other. It should be noted though that they do have great chemistry when on screen and the tv series did put in the work of showing how they do try to work pas their own differences due to status like Aladdin not feeling classy enough and Jasmine understanding him more. They do understand each other on a basic level and they do like each other with Aladdin calling her his real family and Jasmine calling him her real true friend. There was an episode where when Jasmine was turning into a snake monster and they couldn't find a cure, the dynamic the two of them have is designed to be more ideally romantic which is something Disney loves to do. His relationship with Genie and Jafar are also noteworthy as Aladdin sympathizes with Genie's desire to be free and be his own master and Jafar who is also similar to Aladdin but more dark and beaten down.

Aladdin is unique in a lot of ways that I think Disney has been trying to get back to in it's recent films or rather he's a character taht they've been tinkering with for a while. He isn't just Flynn or Kristoff, he's Milo Thatch, Jim Hawkins, and even Shang to an extent.

The Great Lie of Society

When I think of a good counterpart for Aladdin, while a part of me thinks of Will Smith from Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (and I have been so removed from OUAT), there is something fitting about Jay Gatsby. Gatsby falls in love with a girl of a higher social status, goes away and comes back reinvented as a wealthy man about town. Even more fitting is that the two of them both hide their history and the truth about their wealth and lets not forget that Aladdin almost died in the ocean, paralleling Gatsby's own body falling in the pool when he died which also followed a bit of travel with the girl of his dreams. Both of them do try to showoff their wealth and status at their loves and they both miss the point as Aladdin brags about his wealth to Jasmine and Gatsby in the film constantly bombards Daisy with clothes. They're both people who are motivated by a desire for love and get a bit lost and in over their heads.

Next time, if you think I've been reaching before, you'll see me try to dig up something interesting about a moment of not history as we venture to........... Pocahontas.