Why I Identify With the Genie in Disney's Aladdin

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).

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 the song he makes it clear to Aladdin that anything Aladdin can wish for, the Genie can supply: "Life is your restaurant / And I'm your maitre d': / C'mon, whisper what it is you want -- / You ain't never had a friend like me!" (Disney 1992).

Although this is a magical fantasy and I do not believe that I literally have magical powers like the Genie, I do identify with the Genie's willingness to tackle any conceivable problem or desire. It is like a corollary to the Genie's willingness to adopt any number of different identities -- he can use them to cope with any number of different problems. The final aspect of the Genie in Walt Disney's Aladdin that I find most appealing is his limitation.

The Genie is a magical being that grants wishes: this would seem to suggest that his abilities are unlimited, and the concept of limitation does not apply. But of course the first thing he tells Aladdin is a list of the things that he cannot do: he cannot kill, he cannot make anyone fall in love, he cannot resurrect the dead, and he will not grant Aladdin more wishes. We must remember that he is trapped inside a lamp, and at the mercy of whomever owns the lamp.

This leads to the shocking twist near the end of the film, when the villain Jafar gets hold of the lamp: suddenly the audience realizes that the Genie's powers depend a lot on who is in charge of him. This is interesting because it suggests a connection between the Genie's resourcefulness and power, his ability to do almost anything he likes, and the Genie's own limitations. When people consider their own sense of possibility, it is always worth considering what things will never be possible.

The imagination can allow us to circumvent all kinds of limitations, but the limitations have to be present first in order to give the imagination something to overcome. Additionally we can understand this as part of the nature of the Genie. Once he is granted his freedom at the end of the film, he departs. A lamp is required for a Genie to make himself.