Hello all!
To be honest, there's not much to say in the form of an update. I've just been living the college dream. Part of me loves Jumpstart, part of me is just tryna graduate. (But I'm DEFINITELY GLAD I am doing this instead of literally anything else for general education.) I've been overwhelmingly aware of my upcoming mission, and I think about it just about every day. It's a beautiful thing. I have sadly been neglecting writing the missionaries for some time at this point, but I'm starting to get my life together. I've been thinking of lots of cool new ideas for blog content! Most of them probably won't be up for quite awhile for however many reasons, but I am really happy about all the developments. There is also hardly a moment where some writer thought isn't on my mind. There is so much that needs to be done, but what I forget is that I do have the time to do it, and I need to trust that Heavenly Father will help me out every step of the way. No need to stress.
Other than that, I spend my time in the Dead-End Jobs Club; featuring your favorite writer, Elizabeth Day; your favorite artist, Joshua Dimond; and your favorite musician, Emily Dimond. I really promise I wasn't planning on going to college with my siblings but heck I am LOVING IT.
Alright, today we are here to talk about another of our beloved princesses. Forgive me for any and all bias on this one, but she's my favorite, like, ever. In my favorite movie ever, with my favorite "Disney prince" ever, by my favorite composer ever. So yeah. Jasmine is my favorite.
Aladdin has been my favorite movie for a minute. Something about homeless boys in vests accompanied by Alan Menken that originally came out in 1992 really gets me. I think Jasmine became my favorite when I realized that we were pretty much exactly the same. We both are lowkey romantics. We're pretty fierce when you mess with what's important to us. We believe in love! And we have the biggest most beautiful eyes you've ever seen. (Not to brag or anything, but, I mean.)
(We both love Aladdin a lot.)
I don't even know if I can accurately state it, but she's the princess that I relate to the most.
When we meet Jasmine, she's just had her tiger attack one of her suitors. (Another thing we lowkey have in common: we're a lil crazy.) She tells her upset father one of the things I love about her the most: when she marries, she wants it to be because she loves someone.
It's not that she didn't want to be obedient. It's that she wanted to obey the law when it was good. She wanted to stand up for what was right. She wanted to genuinely mean what she was doing, not just do it. As I said before, she believed in love! And she knew that some things are so important that they can't have a deadline; when something isn't right, it isn't right.
It's actually quite interesting that this post comes at this time because I am pretty upset about some recent articles I have been seeing regarding the 2019 Aladdin film. The big deal that they're making is that they are making some much-needed improvements to Jasmine's character. Um, what? She wasn't enough for you the first time? The problem I see very often with the feminist movement is that people expect too much of women... and these expectations and judgments are usually coming from other women. They judge a woman for not being ENOUGH of a feminist, for not being empowered enough, for not challenging the system enough. Even to other women, women aren't enough. That's the real problem. If we can't support each other, what do we really expect? Are we really so bothered that Jasmine relied on a man as well as herself? Are we bothered that she didn't try to use her royalty for good enough? I'm going to counter those questions real fast.
Jasmine runs away to have a chance at being her own person. She is literally empowering herself right now by doing this, because she's never really gotten a chance to make decisions like that; she's giving that chance to herself. She is in absolute awe at what the world outside of the palace is like, and runs into Aladdin trying to help a child get an apple. (A naïve act, but that's part of what makes it so beautiful, plus it is a display of pure kindness, which is quite honestly never wasted.) She's quick-witted, as we find out while Aladdin tries to get her out of her bad situation that follows, her going along with the story he's weaving almost flawlessly. Don't be concerned about helplessness. It is okay to need help when you don't know what to do. That is not helplessness.
In a small yet truly iconic moment that once again displays Jasmine's fast mind, Aladdin takes Jasmine back to his, if I may, "penthouse in the sky", doing his cool little pole vault stunt to jump from one building to the next. Not expecting Jasmine to observe him (How can you not love observant and intelligent minds?) and figure it out quickly, he starts preparing another way across, only to find Jasmine has already crossed in the same way he did, saying, "I'm a fast learner." She's a risk-taker. Aladdin finds this totally attractive, as do all of us.
After spending a totally cute evening with Aladdin, our favorite street rat is taken away to the palace. Jasmine tries to stop them by revealing that she is the princess, but it was under Jafar's orders, so away Aladdin goes. (I'm trying to figure out whether or not the sultan's advisor really would have more say than the princess. I am genuinely stumped.)
Aladdin's capture wasn't for lack of trying on Jasmine's part, and not just because of that scene. When she goes back to the palace, she immediately questions Jafar on what happened to Aladdin, and doesn't try to hide her disapproval. Our girl is all about standing for what is right. However, she is told Aladdin is dead, and this devastates her. At that point, what can she do? She thinks it's over. She couldn't have known that Jafar is a LYING SNEAKY SNAKE.
After our hero (Aladdin) finds Genie in the Cave of Wonders and wishes to be a prince so Princess Jasmine will love him (This is what we call dramatic irony; we know that Jasmine already loves him even though he is not a prince), Jasmine meets Ali and is not impressed by how impressive he is trying to be. Jasmine is ultimately just very smart. She doesn't buy into flattery, and she continuously shows. She values genuineness.
Ali returns at her balcony and is not winning any points with Jasmine, once again because he's trying to win points. It's once he tries being quite simply himself that Jasmine starts becoming willing to listen. She adorably shows her amazement in the world when she agrees to go out with him once upon seeing his magic carpet. And it's a great night with him, and she knows that she genuinely loves him. However, he lies yet again and says that Ali was pretending to be Aladdin, not the other way around, once Jasmine calls him out. People that love honestly always know.
After saying that she won't marry Jafar, and then shortly after seducing him to help Aladdin win the fight against evil (In both cases always using her powers for good instead of evil), she finally gets an apology from Aladdin, which she accepts. However, she is very sad, because she does really love him but the law is still the law. Luckily, that is not the end: Jasmine gets the conclusion she REALLY wanted, to CHOOSE the right thing at the right time for the right reason.
To me, Jasmine has everything that I want to be. She's wildly intelligent and beautiful, breaking that age-old stereotype real fast. She wants love, but she wants it to be her love. She wants to be obedient, but she wants to obey what is good. She is aware of her capabilities and unafraid to test them. She started feeling trapped, but learned over time that it wasn't that she could be anything she wanted to be, but that she could be everything she wanted to be.
So can you, family, friends, followers, and fans. Thank you for the endless support. Thinking of you reading my words makes me feel not like I can do anything, but like I can do everything.
I love you.
--Lizzo