I was worried when I started watching Cinderella. I really wanted to like the movie. I distinctly remember loving it when I first saw it at 7 years old and I really didn’t want to shatter my childhood memory of the film by hating it now. I was a little scared when the movie started because I couldn’t help but notice the similarities it shared with Snow White, a movie which I hated after watching the second time. Both movies more or less start with a storybook opening to a young, beautiful, women cleaning an extremely large castle while dressed in rags. Just as I was beginning to lose hope, Cinderella surprised me.
The first thing that I liked about the movie was that, unlike Snow White, Cinderella did not appear to enjoy being forced to cook and clean for others 24/7. From the way Cinderella sings of her hopes and dreams it is apparent that she knows that she deserves more than to be confined to a stove and broom for the rest of her life, which I think is an OK message to send out to the millions of girls who will continue to watch this movie for generations to come (it isn’t ideal but it is definitely better than Snow White). Cinderella also remains hopeful of somehow being able to better situation, despite the cruelty that is inflicted upon her by her evil stepmother and evil step sisters. I think her attitude is summed up by when she utters the sentence “well there’s one thing, they can’t order me to stop dreaming.” I was a little disappointed that Cinderella doesn’t try to lift herself out of her predicament, but I was comforted by the fact that she does approach each day with a positive attitude and tries to take advantage of whatever little victories life gives her, like the opportunity to attend the royal ball.
I also like that even though Cinderella does end up marrying into royalty, it is not something that she always dreamed of doing. When thinking about her predicament her first thought is “I will not spend the rest of my life cooking and cleaning for others” not “one day I am going to marry a rich prince so I won’t have to cook and clean for others.” Though the movie is centered on Cinderella’s trip to the royal ball where she first meets her handsome prince, marrying the prince seems like an unexpected bonus, not Cinderella’s sole goal in life.
One thing that I definitely did not notice when I watched the movie as a little kid was that the story is actually pretty relatable, especially to teenagers. I know what you’re thinking right now, how is a story with a prince, a fairy godmother, and an evil step-mother even remotely relatable? Hey, I didn’t say it was realistic, I said it was relatable. We’re teenagers and though we may not have an evil step mother, we do have schoolwork, chores, and sometimes even jobs. When all of these obligations start to pile up it can leave us feeling a little like Cinderella: overworked. All Cinderella wants to do is party and blow off a little steam. She just wants one carefree night of fun, and if she happens to meet prince charming there, well who’s to say she shouldn’t enjoy it.
Maybe this trailer for the popular movie A Cinderella Story will help you see what I mean about Cinderella being relatable. It has the plot of Disney’s Cinderella, but is set in a modern day high school.
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