I never liked those posts that reduce the Disney princesses to “girl who overacts about something and dramatically flings herself down and bawls” (super popular in the early 10’s and somehow that’s how a shocking majority view the classics now) but after an Aladdin (1992) rewatch, it’s especially egregious that they ever included Jasmine in that.
This part. This is the part I’m talking about
This is not a woman falling to pieces because her father won’t let her marry a man she just met.
This is a woman born to a life she has very little say in. She has never had a genuine friend (besides a tiger). She is facing a marriage to a man she doesn’t know and doesn’t like but duty (and the law) demands it. So she took a risk, ran away, ran to a world she doesn’t know or understand and when she landed in trouble (serious, serious trouble) a stranger came to her aid. She finally (finally!) made a real connection with someone but they didn’t get much time together before the guards showed up and she had to reveal who she was.
This moment when she’s crying her heart out? It comes after she’s been told that the first person she ever connected with, the first person to be genuinely interested in her for who she is and not what she is, the first real friend she has ever made, was executed… because of her.
She believes a good, innocent person has lost their life because of her actions, and what’s more, it brings home the reality for her that she cannot have a normal life or normal relationships, because see the consequences one little attempt wrought?
