“I am not a prize to be won!” Princess Jasmine famously says, and, of course, she's right. She's telling us she's not an inanimate object. She will not happily go home with whoever wins the competition, with as little say in the matter as a trophy would have. A lot of the times, in Arabian Nights fairy tales, the marriage at the end was even more of a consolation prize: something horrible would happen to the person our hero or heroine had actually made a connection with, and then out of nowhere at the very end they'd be offered some king or concubine or nobleman's daughter they'd never even spoken to before. This was treated as a happy ending, and I can certainly see why Jasmine doesn't want that! But there's another way of looking at the word “prize” in relation to women and dating – a meaning which is pretty much the exact opposite of how Jasmine meant it.
Being a prize can also simply mean you are secure in your feminine energy, enough to know you are worthy of all the time and energy the masculine puts into the relationship with you. It's basically the opposite of believing no one would ever really want you, that you aren't worthy of good treatment, and settling for the first guy who will have you even if he abuses you, expects you to do all the housework, or takes you out only when he's got nothing better to do.
Jasmine spent a lot of time finding only this type of man. Look at Prince Achmed, the only example we have of a typical suitor of Jasmine's. Remember what he said to the Sultan as he stormed away: “Good luck marrying her off!” like he believed the problem was entirely Jasmine's fault, that he didn't have to do anything at all (like maybe be a nicer person) to get Jasmine's affection. Like she should be thanking him on bended knee for even deigning to pay attention to her. By the second definition of the word, those suitors were treating Jasmine less like a prize and more like a mass-produced dollar store trinket. How much value could he possibly be placing on her, if he thinks he can come to the palace being a total jerk and she'll still think he's worthy of her??
Maybe there were times it seemed to Jasmine that no one was ever coming who would treat her the way she wanted. She'd gone through so, so many men who refused to value her enough even to act like decent people, and then there was the external pressure. Jasmine was raised to believe that this is what she was supposed to do with her life, and kept so sheltered she wasn't really exposed to any other option. Her father kept telling her to just pick someone, and expresses that all-too-familiar concern that she will be entirely alone once he is no longer around if she does not. Jasmine could have decided her ideal love life wasn't realistic, that her perfect man didn't exist or at least was forever out of reach while she was locked up in this palace, and that she might as well marry someone so she wouldn't have to spend her life alone. She could have just settled for a Prince Achmed and hoped he wasn't going to beat her if she disobeyed him (yes, that was a thing in the Arabian Nights.)
But she didn't. Jasmine knew exactly what she wanted, and how she deserved to be treated, and she never lost sight of that goal. “If I do marry, I want it to be for love.” Obviously she didn't leave the palace to find a husband, she left to find freedom, but either way she was leaving the place where she was only ever treated as the inanimate-object prize. She knew her life, as it was, was rolling steadily along to “unhappy marriage, population Jasmine and one stuck-up prince”. Jasmine dares to take a step forward, to try something she's never done before, to find that better life.
Enter Aladdin.
Take any image from the movie where Aladdin's looking at Jasmine (especially that beautiful moment where he first sees her) and you can see how much he values her. Find yourself someone who looks at you the way Aladdin looks at Jasmine... Aladdin's main goal, throughout the entire movie, is to marry Jasmine – not just to date her, no, our Aladdin is entirely committed. He'll brave the temperamental Cave of Wonders for her, he'll battle an all-powerful evil sorcerer turned giant deadly cobra for her, and when Jasmine is mad at him, thinking he's another prince who thinks he can just come to claim her (the inanimate type of prize) without consulting her, all he cares about is making things right. He never once thinks Jasmine is difficult, that she's too much, that he needs to squash down or “tame” her outspoken, fiery nature. He prizes everything about her, not as the inanimate object prize, but as the “so valuable I'd do anything for you” kind of prize. When Aladdin takes Jasmine on the Magic Carpet with him, it's an important symbol. Aladdin wants Jasmine to be by his side throughout the rest of his life, sharing every place he goes and everything he does. He doesn't just want to prove he can obtain some beautiful trophy. He wants her.
This is one of the many things I love about Jasmine, how much she values herself. Jasmine knew what she was worth, and she refused, even in the face of all kinds of pressure, to settle for anything less than what she knew she deserved. And in the end, she got it. Because Aladdin never saw Jasmine as a prize, in the one sense of the word, he was the first one to actually see her as the prize she really was, in the other sense. In Aladdin, Jasmine finally had the man who loved, respected, and valued her as much as she loved, respected, and valued herself.
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