Disney's Aladdin

Aladdin is portrayed as much sweeter and smarter in Disney's version than he is in the original story. Aladdin is seen doing selfless acts such as giving his food away to hungry children. His positivity in the opening scene is just one of the many examples of the way Disney "disneyfies" its stories. He is a young boy struggling to eat everyday but yet he is seen with a smile on his face, singing and dancing. Disney almost glorifies the life of a boy who is without family or friends or without enough food to eat. Children watch this opening scene and cannot see the hardship that someone might face who might not actually have a family or enough food.

For how outdated some aspects of the movie is, I think that Disney makes some strides for women in the depiction of women. I mean I could go on and on for days about the sexual dress Disney creates Jasmine to wear, the way Jasmine is being forced to marry and also the horrible scenes in the final few scenes of the movie when Jafar is making her feed him but I do think that within so many horrible depictions of women, there are a few positive ones. I think that the fact that Jasmine goes off into the city by herself shows the strength that she has. While one might say that Aladdin is always saving her, I would contest that the times that Aladdin helps Jasmine are more because Jasmine has never been into the city before and doesn't know her way around rather than her being a helpless girl who can never do anything by herself.
Jasmine always spoke her mind about what she felt. I think one good example of Jasmine's strength is when her father and Aladdin (aka Prince Ali) are talking about marriage, and she overhears them and storms in and tells them how disgusted she is with their behavior. She does not want others to decide her future, and she is very open on expressing this.

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Jasmine is picky, she is not going to marry a suitor just because he is handsome or wealthy, she has standards and values and does not believe that she needs a man just because the law requires it. I think this is very big for Disney as Jasmine shows girls that one should be with a man because they love them and not because they need them to take care of them. Jasmine is smart as well, she is quick to go along with Aladdin's plan when she gets in trouble for stealing the apple, and she is quick to come up with a plan to distract Jafar as Aladdin sneaks in. She is feisty and doesn't like being told what to do and I think that these are important messages for girls to see. While there are many more negative representations of women then there are positive, I think it's important to show the ways in which Jasmine is a positive representation of girls.
Read this to learn more about all the ways Jasmine is one of Disney's best princesses: https://freeform.go.com/funday/news/14-reasons-why-jasmine-was-the-most-inspiring-disney-princess-of-all-time