Looking back, I can’t help but wonder if Aladdin, the film that featured my first cinematic crush, subconsciously brainwashed me into thinking it was OK for a guy to lie, because that’s what good-looking, picture-perfect guys do when they’re trying to impress a girl. His *ex* contacted me to warn against continuing the relationship. Though he fabricated information and practiced gaslighting frequently, I continued to stay in the relationship – and justified his dozens of mistruths – even after his ex-girlfriend emailed me with a warning about his tendency to lie. “Everyone handles their personal lives differently, I guess.” Even though he had met many members of my family, he avoided any opportunity to introduce me to his. When he said we were getting married and that he was talking to his parents regularly about it, I asked him when I’d meet them. “He just wanted to appear successful, I guess.”

I then found out he told his friends he got the pass from his agent. When I got him access to NBA All-Star Weekend events in LA, I thought I was being a good, helpful, journalist girlfriend. He didn’t have to utter the phrase, “Do you trust me?” I just effortlessly did.even when his stories didn’t add up. So naturally, I didn’t question anything he said or did. Because he presented himself as this “perfect” Muslim (praying, fasting, not drinking/swearing), I looked up to him - though you could just argue that I looked up to him because he was 6’1”. Aside from being aesthetically pleasing (tall, slim, well-dressed hipster), he and I were on similar career paths and he met the one requirement my Pakistani mother had: he was Muslim. I was in my early 20s – a perfectly marriageable age in the South Asian/Muslim world – when I started dating the guy I would affectionately call ‘H’.

You know who else lied frequently and had no remorse until after being caught? All three of my ex-boyfriends (two of whom also have Aladdin-like perfect hair.) Coincidence? I think not. In fact, he only showed guilt and expressed any sort of apology AFTER he was caught. getting the princess), he was OK with it. As long as the lie helped him with his goal (i.e. Which can only mean one thing: Aladdin didn’t give a f*** that he was lying. The thing about Aladdin is, the film did not showcase any element of guilt whenever the title character spoke anything less than the truth. The thing about lying is, if you have a certain moral code, you’ll feel guilty every time you speak a falsity – whether or not you ever get caught.

Namely.he lies, and he’s OK with it - until he gets caught. you remove your childhood crush goggles), you can see how Aladdin – like all of us – is a flawed human being. But when you look at the film objectively (i.e. Yes, Aladdin is the harrowing protagonist and he is the hero as it relates to defeating Jafar.

Aladdin old guy