Why I Identify With the Genie in Disney's Aladdin Thesis

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Disney Character: Genie from Aladdin (1992)

I identify with the Disney character The Genie from Aladdin for three main reasons. First, the Genie is protean: he is capable of taking many forms and dealing with a broad variety of circumstances. Second, the Genie is powerful. Although he uses magic to exhibit his powers, one could argue that people use their own creativity and intellect in a similar way. Finally, the Genie knows his own limitations. He knows when he needs the help of someone else to escape the lamp in which he's trapped. In claiming that I identify with the Genie, I am not suggesting that I myself have magical powers: no human being does. But the Genie does seem to be a profound symbol for imagination, creativity, and possibility. As I hope to demonstrate in my conclusion, it is these aspects of the Genie -- rather than his bright blue color or his shape-shifting prowess -- that I identify with.

Reviewers of the 1992 Disney cartoon Aladdin frequently used the word "protean" to describe the character of The Genie, the blue supernatural entity voiced by Robin Williams. For example, the critic Malcolm Johnson describes "the protean Genie changing voices and masks, even becoming Ed Sullivan at one point" (Johnson 1992). This is the dictionary definition of "protean": the word applies to something that has a fluidity or mutability of identity, and is able to change according to circumstance (Merriam-Webster, 2014). Why do I identify with this? It seems like a good reflection of personal identity in the Internet age. Personal communication on the Internet allows a person to be whoever he or she wants to be. This is a useful point made by Internet entrepreneur Christopher "moot" Poole, in his 2011 to the Web 2.0 Summit: "Facebook purports that you have one identity, who you are online are who you are offline…[But] we all have multiple identities, and that's not something that's abnormal, it's just a part of being human: identity is prismatic, there are many lenses through which people view you, and we're all multifaceted people" (Poole 2011).

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The Genie is a good example for this view of personal identity: he changes his shape or size at almost every moment he appears in the screen. Every person has experienced the sense that who he or she is differs according to the social role that he or she is playing at any given moment. The same hypothetical person can be a mother to her children, a child to her own parents, a doctor by profession, a passionate advocate about social issues when she votes, a softball player when she exercises, and a knowledgeable stamp-collector when she pursues her favorite hobby. This does not imply any contradictions at all -- they are merely different aspects or facets of one person. The aggression shown by a woman who plays softball is different from the affection shown by the same woman when she is caring for her children. All people are protean in this way, but it is rare for a character in a film to show just how many different identities one person can assume. The Genie in Aladdin is a rare example that makes this aspect of personal identity explicit, and his cartoon appearance changes at every given moment to show what aspect of his potential being he is currently expressing.

Of course, the Genie's shapeshifting is an element of his second defining characteristic: his tremendous power, and his ability to do basically anything he is asked to do. This is made evident in the jazzy song that he sings to Aladdin, "You Ain't Never Had A Friend Like Me." In….....

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