Psychoanalyzing Disney
One of the side effects of parenting a toddler is that you end up watching a lot of cartoons. On our last long car trip, my daughter was watching Disney’s Aladdin. While I couldn’t see the screen, I listened as we drove. I caught myself analyzing the characters, specifically the details of the mind and background of the villain Jafar.
Jafar is obviously power hungry. That’s no surprise, but I don’t think he was always that way.
History
Jafar was always ambitious, that is part of his character, but the addiction to power, the Machiavellian drive came later in his life. If we assume that the sultan was, as he declares “An excellent judge of character” It would make sense that Jafar was a promising, aspiring scholar. He quickly became a trusted counselor. However, as he continued to learn more, he began to feel that he was a smarter, more capable, and more qualified leader than the sultan himself. (Parentage is a weak claim to leadership)
Each time his council was followed, it fueled his delusions, each time his council was ignored, his ego retaliated. He became bitter and began to give into his darker side. He began studying magic, mysticism and regional lore looking for a ways to usurp power and prove his superiority. He learned to control subordinates and deceive supervisors. He eventually placed himself at the proverbial right hand of the sultan and began slowly to manipulate him.
Puppetry was not enough for his ambition however, total control of the sultan wouldn’t satiate him, for he wanted now more than control and power. He wanted, he needed, prestige, recognition, adoration. People still looked to the sultan for leadership, and it offended Jafar. People still didn’t know Jafar, and that enraged him, but he was at a standstill. The laws, and the traditions of the people would not allow for him to replace the sultan. While Jafar could manipulate a few, he couldn’t command a rebel army, nor could he create an alliance with foreign kingdom. When all possibilties disappeared, he turned to the impossible.
He consumed himself with the search for some way to bend reality. To supersede all laws and traditions. He eventually came upon the story of the lamp, the genie, and the tale that Disney unfolds.
Two words
Two words in the dialogue I think prove that Jafar is not just ambitions, but evil. Jafar learns that he needs Aladdin to obtain the magic lamp. Aladdin is found and captured with the runaway princess Jasmine. When the princess demands to know the whereabouts of our young hero, Jafar tells her that he has been convicted of kidnapping the princess and immediately punished. When jasmine fearfully inquires as to the punishment, Jafar replies “Death. By beheading” (emphasis added) Jafar’s obsession with the sultanship has brought him to take whatever measures necessary to accomplish his goals. Lying about the fate of Aladdin was just such a measure. Our sheltered heroine not only lost her new-found (and only non-feline) friend, but she would have felt personally responsible for his death, a repercussion of the lie. But when Jafar added the words “By beheading” he created an horrific, haunting image that would serve no purpose in forwarding his plan, but would trouble and disturb Jasmine for the rest of her life. Jafar’s sneer and the tone of his voice showed obvious pleasure as he destroyed her innocence. She of course was too lost in her thoughts and emotions to notice him relishing in her pain, but we, the all seeing audience can clearly observe his true manifestation.
This of course, as the power-lust previously discussed would not have been present in Jafar’s early career. Yielding to evil came with (and probably in result of) his obsessive clamor for power and recognition, after thousands of moral compromises, and ultimately becomes the vulnerability exploited in his demise.
The Moral
What conclusion do we get from all this? I watch too many cartoons.