Jasmine and Esmeralda share more than a tan skin tone and fiery temper; they are also arguably the two most sexualised characters in Disney’s history.

Women of colour in mainstream media are often subjected to the same tired tropes over and over again: reluctant victim of oppression, fiery seductress, exotic dancer, and these get old fast. That’s probably why, when Disney decided to animate the stories of Aladdin and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, they decided to have the main female characters do something completely unexpected, something drastic and original; something to distinguish these movies from so many others like them.

Jasmine and Esmeralda; two animated women of colour, whose names mean a flower and a jewel respectively, effectively turn these tropes on their heads, by managing to fulfil all of them at once.

“They are both oppressed and rebellious, bewitching and spirited. They are smouldering and dark skinned and completely conscious of their own sexualities; foreign and exotic and unconstrained by the rules of ‘civilised’ society.”

They are a white man’s wet dream, and a constant reminder of the long lasting effects of colonialism and orientalism on how women of colour are seen in mainstream media.

Blatant sexualisation is blatant.

It is at this point that I would like to offer a brief disclaimer: these two women are probably my favourite Disney women of all time; due in most part to their rebelliousness, their unapologeticness and their utter refusal to do what is expected of them. But it is also due to their thick, dark abundance of hair and deep brown skin that so resembles my own. I see myself in them. And this is what makes writing this article all the more bitter-tasting. These women represent me, yes. But they represent me as a one dimensional caricature, a fantasy, a fetish, an image warped through the lense of white male expectations.

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Esmeralda and Jasmine are of different races: Esmeralda is Roma, while Jasmine is Arab, different time periods: 15th century France versus 9th century Arabia, and very different social classes, not to mention the plots of the movies they are in are completely different and yet their stories draw so many parallels, it is almost beyond belief.

Esmeralda is shown at the Fool’s Festival, earning money by performing a sequence that ends up as a cross between a strip tease- with the creative use of a spear in the place of a pole- and a lap dance, even going so far as to entice Frollo himself, stoking the beginnings of a fiery obsession. Sound familiar? That’s probably because it bears a resemblance to Jasmine’s sexy dance for Jafaar, complete with shackles and a new, red outfit, after giving him the brilliant idea to make her his queen. These are the most risqué scenes Disney has given us since the infamous Jessica Rabbit, and it’s hard imagining a similar one in today’s Disney movies.

However, these women’s sexualities are not simply used for screen time; they are brought upon as major tools in order to further the plots of their respective films. Jasmine saves Aladdin, by pretending to be in love with and then kissing Jafaar, using her body as a distraction, while an entire song is given to Frollo for him to lament his growing attraction to Esmeralda. He sings “I feel her/I see her. The sun caught in raven hair/Is blazing in me out of all control/Don’t let this siren cast her spell” as her fiery figure does yet another lustful dance in the fireplace.

This seems like a good time to remind you that Jasmine is canonically fifteen, and Esmeralda about sixteen.