Disney's "Aladdin" Subconsciously Dictated the Type Of Men I Date

The year was 1992 and it was the first time I had a crush on an animated character. His name was Aladdin, derived from One Thousand and One Nights Middle Eastern folk tales. And although Disney didn’t explicitly state it, I was pretty sure he was Muslim and therefore someone my Pakistani mother would approve of me marrying.

Yes, Aladdin was my first Muslim crush. Honestly, I’m not even sure if he was officially Muslim, but given that the film takes place in the Arab world and the Sultan says the phrase “by Allah!” in the movie (his version of “Oh my God!”) I’m going to continue to make this assumption for the sake of my life story; even though I know ‘Allah’ isn’t a person or being – it’s just the Arabic word for ‘God’ that yes, even Arab Christians use.

Nonetheless, up until Aladdin, I had only crushed on guys I knew my mother would never allow me to be with. All of my crushes were either classmates in my predominantly white elementary school in Fresno, CA, or people I saw on TV– like Zack Morris on Saved By the Bell and Uncle Jesse on Full House. With the release of this Disney movie there was, for the first time, a pop culture icon I could crush on who was mother-approved! Big eyes, a nice smile, and most importantly, perfect hair – what more could a girl ask for? Oh, what’s that? Aladdin is Muslim? Well let’s just go sign the marriage papers now, shall we?!?

As an adult, I now know this is flawed thinking — and no, I’m not talking about the fact you can’t marry a cartoon character, because honestly anything is possible in the 21st century and a wedding between a human and a fictional person seems like a great social media event for live-tweeting. The flaw, rather, lies in the fact that I was so quick to fall in love, simply because Aladdin checked one box: the “good-looking Muslim.”

Who cares if he was homeless and without a job, I was in love, and love is all that matters, right? I had never met anyone like him. All the six-year-old boys I encountered at Islamic Sunday School paled in comparison to this dreamy, adventurous Disney caricature.

Thus began, my love affair with Aladdin. I would watch the movie religiously. I knew all the words. I sang along to all the songs. I was envious of Jasmine – I wanted to be her, not only because she was the apple of Aladdin’s eye, but because she got away with wearing a midriff-baring top, another thing my mother would never allow.

What I didn’t realize then is that because I was obsessed with Aladdin, a charming, smooth-talking guy who is seemingly underrated and hopes to make a better life for himself, I was conditioning myself to be OK with everything Aladdin represented, and in turn conditioning myself to be attracted to guys who were similar in nature.

Yes, Aladdin is the harrowing protagonist and he is the hero as it relates to defeating Jafar. But when you look at the film objectively (i.e. you remove your childhood crush goggles), you can see how Aladdin – like all of us – is a flawed human being. Namely...he lies, and he’s OK with it — until he gets caught.

The thing about lying is, if you have a certain moral code, you’ll feel guilty every time you speak a falsity – whether or not you ever get caught. The thing about Aladdin is, the film did not showcase any element of guilt whenever the title character spoke anything less than the truth.
Which can only mean one thing: Aladdin didn’t give a f*** that he was lying. As long as the lie helped him with his goal (i.e. getting the princess), he was OK with it. In fact, he only showed guilt and expressed any sort of apology AFTER he was caught.

Clearly, Aladdin was selfish AF.

You know who else lied frequently and had no remorse until after being caught? All three of my ex-boyfriends (two of whom also have Aladdin-like perfect hair.) Coincidence? I think not.

I was in my early 20s – a perfectly marriageable age in the South Asian/Muslim world – when I started dating the guy I would affectionately call ‘H’. I thought he was my soul mate. Aside from being aesthetically pleasing (tall, slim, well-dressed hipster), he and I were on similar career paths and he met the one requirement my Pakistani mother had: he was Muslim. Because he presented himself as this “perfect” Muslim (praying, fasting, not drinking/swearing), I looked up to him — though you could just argue that I looked up to him because he was 6’1”. I placed him on a pedestal. I was in love.

So naturally, I didn’t question anything he said or did. I took everything at face value. He didn’t have to utter the phrase, “Do you trust me?” I just effortlessly did...even when his stories didn’t add up.

When we first met, he told me he had graduated from UCLA. I was puzzled, thinking I knew everyone my age of South Asian descent at that school (I was heavily involved in the Southern California ‘brown’ social scene, I must admit.) When his Facebook profile showed a different UC school, he later clarified, saying he transferred out. I later learned he had just attended summer school in LA. “It’s OK”, I thought to myself. “He just wanted to impress me, I guess.”

When I noticed his eyebrows looked significantly different one day, I asked if he’d gotten them done. He said no – even though I knew they were clearly groomed compared to the day before. I let it go...until a few weeks later when he had to get his chest waxed for an acting gig. As I’m filling out his client information sheet, I notice an area dedicated to previous visits. What was written? Eyebrow wax. “It’s OK”, I thought. “He just wanted to appear manly, I guess.”

When I got him access to NBA All-Star Weekend events in LA, I thought I was being a good, helpful, journalist girlfriend. I then found out he told his friends he got the pass from his agent. “It’s OK”, I thought. “He just wanted to appear successful, I guess.”

When he said we were getting married and that he was talking to his parents regularly about it, I asked him when I’d meet them. Even though he had met many members of my family, he avoided any opportunity to introduce me to his. “It’s OK”, I thought. “Everyone handles their personal lives differently, I guess.”

Though he fabricated information and practiced gaslighting frequently, I continued to stay in the relationship – and justified his dozens of mistruths – even after his ex-girlfriend emailed me with a warning about his tendency to lie. Yes, you read that correct. His *ex* contacted me to warn against continuing the relationship.

Looking back, I can’t help but wonder if Aladdin, the film that featured my first cinematic crush, subconsciously brainwashed me into thinking it was OK for a guy to lie, because that’s what good-looking, picture-perfect guys do when they’re trying to impress a girl. Was my subconscious holding on to the Aladdin obsession of my youth?

For years I didn’t have any examples of culturally-relatable, healthy courtships in American pop culture...other than Aladdin; there wasn’t much of a push for POC representation in TV/Film in the 90s period, unfortunately. I rewatched the movie recently, and that’s when the epiphany struck. I finally noticed all the parallels.

Had my subconscious been doing me a disservice all these years? Was it telling me things like, “it’s OK, Aladdin lied too and you love Aladdin. Surely, this guy will grow into his goodness – you’re just in the middle part of the movie right now.” With this realization, I was at a loss for words. I didn’t know who to trust anymore since I clearly couldn’t trust my subconscious.
I imagine my young brain internalized this message even more because it identified with Princess Jasmine’s life struggle as well.

In the film, Jasmine’s father, the Sultan, uses the go-to parental tactic of emotional guilt to get Jasmine married by indirectly referencing his own death: “I’m not going to be around forever, I just want to make sure you’re taken care of.” My mother doesn’t have a palace, but she, too, has said something similar over the years. Did my subconscious factor that in as well?!

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, your subconscious is the part of your mind that notices and remembers information when you are not actively trying to do so, and influences your behavior even though you do not realize it.

So basically, it appears that my adult subconscious – as it relates to love and marriage – was influenced by my seven-year-old “emotionalized thoughts, hopes and desires” to be with Aladdin, the first “person” I encountered who I could marry without upsetting my mom. As an impressionable young child with a massive crush, I learned it was OK for a guy to lie to me without any remorse, and to still accept him as my significant other because surely, the guy (like Aladdin) would reform later.

Unfortunately, my subconscious didn’t get the memo that life is not a movie, and people are not Disney characters – even if they look like one. In the end, Aladdin – ahem, I mean, ‘H’ – and I didn’t work out. The drama that was our relationship went on for two years before we broke up. Funnily enough, he is now married to the ex-girlfriend who sent me that “warning: he lies a lot” email, and I am happily single — to my mother’s dismay — after yet another Aladdin-like relationship. What?! Don’t judge me – I hadn’t had my “this is Aladdin’s fault!” epiphany yet.

Now that I’ve had this epiphany, though, I can’t help but wonder what my life would have been like if Aladdin's character arch was different. What if Aladdin wasn’t a liar? Or if he was, what if he had shown remorse? Or perhaps, the broader question is how my life may have been different if American pop culture had given me more examples of courtship between South Asian, Muslim couples that I could personally identify with.

(Note: I’m incredibly envious of today’s youth who have options like Riz Ahmed, Zayn Malik, and Ramy Youssef for Muslim men representation.)

Maybe I would be a different person. Maybe I’d be happily married now, or happily single but not traumatized by romance because I would have made healthier choices. Who knows how my future would have played out. The one thing I do know for sure: If someone has to ask “do you trust me?” it probably means you shouldn’t.

Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue