I used to think that it was because it was just a movie filled with so much magic and the idea of riding on a magic carpet ride was absolutely amazing, with that said though in the past couple of days I've realized the true meaning behind my fascination with Aladdin, I see a lot of myself in Princess Jasmine, not that I think I am a princess but I was sort of raised like she was...
I was raised by my grandmother, a woman that because of her age she had different views of the world, she was very protective and during my childhood was during the time where more crimes were being committed, especially those involving kidnapping, murder and rape, now during the time she was a teenager, and the time she raised my father the crime rate was not as high as it was when I was growing up, therefore she kept me and my cousin at arm's length, we could not leave the house without either her or my aunt, we could not watch TV, except for a very few shows that she would allow, and more than anything we were not allowed to go to any of our friends' house without them knowing exactly who their parents were and after they had made sure that they knew their parents for a while or they were going to be with us there.
Then once I grew older and went to live with my father I was placed on a different bubble, now I was in a new country, one were people use and sell drugs like there is nothing, especially teenagers, I was in high school and my father even though he knew a lot about certain things he was never aware of the specific kind of drugs people can get addicted to, so what was I told: Stay away, never go anywhere where you smell marijuana, never go anywhere you see someone sniffing something because that could be cocaine or heroine, other than that nothing else existed...
Then when it came to music and different shows that I would watch, it was all about what my father listened to, I did not have to asked who singed the song, all I did was listened to it and because I listened to it so many times I liked it, most times I never even paid attention to the lyrics, and so I grew up knowing and loving what he loves and if I ever tried to like something that he did not like then I would get this look like I was listening to the worst kind of music in the world so it became that I just went with his flow. This last part was true for almost anything I ever wanted to do, it had to have an approval by someone not just me and if it was not approved then I was not allowed to try it... Now this was great for when it came to not doing drugs and not drinking or smoking, things like that but for others I think I missed out...
Jasmine was kind of "protected" in the same way, she lived in a palace and she was not allowed to leave said palace, she could not go out and look at the world, she wanted to experience all of it but because she was a princess she was told she couldn't and then all she ever had was her garden and fountain and her loyal friend Rajah, with whom she spent most of her time. She had all these rules as to what she could and could not do then she had to get married, had to pick a husband, and she had to wait for the princes to come and propose to her, she could not go out and meet them.
So what did she do one day? She escapes in hopes of seeing the world on her own and learning about it, more than what books can tell you because nothing beats experience, so in her first encounter she ends up getting into trouble because she grabs an apple and gives her to a little boy, she was never taught that in the outside world things were not just given like in her palace, in the real world there was an exchange of money for goods or services, and she gets into trouble. Then Aladdin comes into the picture, the free spirited guy, the one that is street smart and does whatever he wants because well he does not live in a palace, but he wants to, he wants to live there because there is security there, there is no need to steal to survive, or work hard in order to get a small piece of bread at the end of the day.
Aladdin rescues Jasmine from getting her hands cut because she stole the apple and they manage to escape, neither knowing who the other one is, two people from opposite worlds and they fall in love... of course right? that's how every Disney movie plays out, but see for me this is the perfect love story, Jasmine who is a princess that knows nothing about the world falls for Aladdin, a street rat as they call him that knows probably a little too much, and so when he becomes a prince and he takes her for a magic carpet ride he promises to show her the world, that world she has not seen because she has been confined to a palace all her life and that's why she loves him so much, because there in front of her is a person that can show her all that she had been missing out, someone she can learn from and that can help her grow as a person, because with him she could actually experience things she has not experience before. And in turn he was someone she could teach about her world, a world he was going to eventually be introduced, and that he falsely thought was better than his.
And see that's why that movie is my favorite one, because as I grew older I realized how much I did not know about the world even though I always thought I did, with my ex-husband I learned that the only drugs people get addicted to are not just cocaine and heroine, but there is also meth, and prescription drugs and over the counter drugs that people use to get high, and there are different ways they take the drugs and I learned that a drug addict is only dangerous not when they are high but when that high starts to go away and they are unable to find anything to get to that point again, all of this is something my father did not know either and even now he does not really pay attention to it, or has the desire to learn more about something that is so controversial and that now a days every parent should know so that they can truly explain it to their kids rather than say it is a forbidden thing which usually ends up making them want to do it even more...
With music, my little sister was the one that would introduce me to new kinds of music, she had more freedom as to what she listened to, in between her friends at school and going back and forth with her mother and my father's attempt to actually build a bond with her so he would be introduced to her music too, that's all I ever really was exposed to, so yeah now a days I have learned a lot more about it than I used to, still don't really pay attention to who sings the song or who wrote it, but I focus more on taking it all in and actually taking in the melody as well as the lyrics and see what I actually like and what I am in the mood for...
And as far as having a prince, well... what can I say, as a little girl and even now as an adult when I daydream and romanticize about things that will never happen but that make me smile, I realize I don't really want a prince, I want a diamond in the rough, someone that knows a lot about the world, especially about things I don't know about, because then we could learn from each other and grow together, find a balance, like Aladdin and Jasmine did.
Ohh a girl can only dream... right?? :)
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