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bxebxee · 7 years ago

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Why Cinderella Is Important To Me, an Informal Essay

There are some feminists who are vocal opponents of Disney princesses like Cinderella. Before I really go into why Cinderella is important (to me), I think it’s important to recognize that without the work of the feminists of the 60s/70s/80s/90s...etc., the world would truly be a worse-off place, and I am FOREVER grateful for all of their contributions. The world is not perfect, and neither is feminism. Older feminists got (and continue to get) a lot of important, good things right, but some of their views concerning Disney princesses in general rubs me the wrong way. (The article linked is from 2006, so take it with a grain of salt. I will reference this later.)

I think there are some key generational differences in feminist culture of women who were born in the 70s versus women who were born in the 80s, and certainly for all women moving forward. When we are born into a society with a set standard (whatever that standard may be), we respond in a different way, and our priorities/activist attention will be centered on other issues. I recommend that everyone read this really good take by Anne Marie Slaughter concerning women, the workplace, and living. This article does a better job at explaining this than I could ever possibly hope to do.

I don’t like to block-quote, but this is POWERFUL stuff from Anne Marie Slaughter:

I owe my own freedoms and opportunities to the pioneering generation of women ahead of me—the women now in their 60s, 70s, and 80s who faced overt sexism of a kind I see only when watching Mad Men, and who knew that the only way to make it as a woman was to act exactly like a man. To admit to, much less act on, maternal longings would have been fatal to their careers. But precisely thanks to their progress, a different kind of conversation is now possible. It is time for women in leadership positions to recognize that although we are still blazing trails and breaking ceilings, many of us are also reinforcing a falsehood: that “having it all” is, more than anything, a function of personal determination.

Okay, now to the fun stuff.

Let me summarize Cinderella:

Cinderella (Cindy) is a rich, privileged girl who lives with her single-parent father because her mother died when she was just a baby. Cindy lives in a de-facto castle with a Pony. Her dad is hella rich, and since he adores her, she’s probably the sole beneficiary.

The dad feels guilty that Cindy doesn’t have a mom and then unilaterally decides to marry some woman for the sole purpose of having her act as a mother to his kid. Note: in the Disney movie, it’s expressly stated that Cindy’s dad went out looking for a mom replacement - nothing more.

The dad dies. Cindyis then “abused and humiliated” by the stepmother and made into a servant in her own home.

Cindy’s room is in the servant quarters. She hangs out with rodents and birds and basically lives at the whim of her terrible stepfamily. She has no life and does menial labor for people who make her life miserable.

But One Day, there’s this Ball she wants to go to, and her stepmom is terrible human being who taunts Cindy by saying she can go if she has a dress. Note: this serves two purposes - (1) it’s a way of saying no; and (2) it’s a way of rubbing it in Cindy’s face that she has nothing and is nothing.

Big theme that’s always repeated and is relatively true is that Cindy stays “kind and good” throughout all of this and perseveres through sheer “goodness” of her heart. Because she’s “kind and good” to the animals, they make a dress for her using the scraps luxury goods lying around the house.

The stepsisters assault Cindy and rip the dress from her body. This is violent and humiliating, and tbh you should be locked up if you pull this shit! Anyway, they stepfam leave for the ball after twisting the knife and Cindy is miserable and probably at the Brink.

Important: The Fairy Godmother makes an appearance and saves the day. I want to stress that it is not the prince who ends up saving Cinderella, but rather the Fairy Godmother. Without FairyG, you don’t have a happy ending.

The Fairy Godmother is the one who presents the magical Deus Ex Machina for Cindy to get her life for one night. But FairyG knows that Cindy is a hot girl who’s been thoroughly sheltered for her entire life, so she gives a curfew of midnight. “The magic will wear out” is such bullshit tbh like just say you don’t want Cindy out too late.

Cindy loses 1 slipper in her rush to get home, and that sets off the whole Find Cindy arc of the last 1/3 of the movie.

The prince is so fucking into Cindy omg. He wants to wife her.

Eventually, the search crew gets to Cindy’s place, but stepmom catches wind that Cindy might be mystery gal. Cindy gets locked in the tower but she breaks free due to the help from her animal friends!!

Stepmom trips the guy holding the glass slipper, causing the slipper to SHATTER so that Cindy doesn’t put it on. But stepmom is a cuck who doesn’t know Cindy is a real bitch with a backup plan.

Cindy pulls out the spare shoe she has, puts it on, and we montage to the marriage scene and happily ever after.

The supposed message that is distasteful to a lot of people is that Cinderella is a girl who doesn’t have a dream outside of marriage and aspires to being someone’s wife as her ultimate goal. She escapes one servitude for another. In THIS article, which I linked above as well, the author says this about Cinderella when she talks to her daughter: “It’s just, honey, Cinderella doesn’t really do anything.”

Cinderella’s "Passivity” Explained:

Now I agree with a lot of things in that article, but I am purposely pulling out that one quote because it Pisses Me Off when people categorize Cinderella as some jobless shut-in.

Cinderella wasn’t like this by choice. Her dad died when she was too young to be independent, and her new guardian was a terrible human being who basically kept her around for inheritance purposes. Cindy was not financially independent, nor did she have any power. Let’s really consider her background!!! If her father thought that she “needed” a mother, he probably never taught her anything about finances or her rights (assuming we’re in an era where those existed). Like... I can see he loved her very much, but what it’s a very 1950s thought to assume your kid needs both a mother and a father. (Cinderella was released in 1950 LOL.)

So Cinderella’s real problems started because her dad made incredibly poor choices related to co-parenting. And for all of the stepmother’s faults, maybe it pissed her off that she was only being wifed because this guy wanted her to act as a glorified nanny for his brat. The stepmother is still terrible though, no excuses. Anyway, it’s evident that Cinderella’s childhood and adolescence were not happy times, and she had very little time to adjust to this new world order.

“Good and Kind” is Misleading:

Cinderella is part of the union of Nice Princesses, the OG3 of Snow White, Cinderella, and Aurora. You have feisty Disney princesses like Ariel, Jasmine, Rapunzel, Merida...etc., and then you have girls like Cindy.

One of the main themes of Cinderella that they push really hard is that she’s a good person. She’s kind, hopeful, and doesn’t let the meanness of the world change her. Her purity is related to purity of spirit, where the negative circumstances around her do not turn her heart towards bitterness. Check out this song for the proof.

I agree that she’s a good person, but throughout the movie you’ll see a lot of places where Cindy gets snarky and shady!!! I mean the FACES that she makes when her stepmother gives her ridiculous chores:

(You can watch the full vid here. Also, can you believe how hilarious that this face appears right at 4:20? LOL)

“Good and Kind” doesn’t mean she’s not sneaky when she wants to be. There’s this one scene where Cinderella drops a tray of tea in “surprise” at the news that the duke is going around testing feet sizes of all the maidens. Now, I’ve seen Cinderella balance three loads of laundry while avoiding a nasty cat who always tries to trip her. She didn’t look like she dropped it in surprise because she HARDLY jumped. I guess you can say maybe she was so out of it and surprised that nothing else registered, but my take is that she dropped it on purpose to eavesdrop on the stepmother.

Cinderella’s version of sneaky is also kinda funny too because when she escapes the tower, she has that other glass slipper with her. A Real Bitch Is Always Prepared!!!! And she had the nerve to chirp “if it would help~~~”

I love her.

Cindy is Not Perfect:

The one thing I will say about Cindy is that she is Naive. She is Naive as HELL. She does try to believe in the goodness of all people/animals, and she gives people the benefit of the doubt. But she’s terrible at hiding her emotions when she’s happy. She’s transparent as Glass whenever she’s in a good mood, and she gets Radiant. The stepmother cannot stand this, and it kills her to see Cinderella happy.

The only reason Cinderella gets locked in the tower right before the duke shows up with the slipper she left behind is because the stepmother notices Immediately when Cinderella is happy. The stepmom has this sixth sense for it, and she puts together two and two to figure out that Cinderella was the Mystery Gal from the ball.

The Prince is Irrelevant:

People also dislike OG3 princess movies because the prince “saves” the princess for her happily ever after. I want to stress that it was the Fairy Godmother who was the mvp in all of this. The prince is an Afterthought, and he was a happy accident for Cinderella, but the person who made it all possible was the Fairy Godmother.

I will always say that Cinderella was craving a life, not a man.

But back up for a second because frankly... Cinderella getting with the fucking prince is Peak Revenge on her terrible stepfam. I mean you have Cinderella who has lived the better part of her life as an abused servant-orphan suddenly getting married to the prince, who will probably have political and financial power over these terrible people. Also, can the stepfam do any better than the royal family? Probably not. Even at the ending, Cinderella flat out kisses the king’s head as if he was a child. The duke is probably pissing himself over keeping her happy because she basically saved his life by pulling out that the shoe letting him complete his task successfully. She has EVERYONE in the royal family eating out of her palm.

Conclusions:

On a personal level, I feel emotional fondness for Cinderella because she hangs in there. She endured a lot of bullshit, but she eventually got out. That’s the happy ending that gives me hope. Marriage/finding a man is not what drives satisfaction of that movie. We cheer because Cinderella gets to leave her abusers behind in the dust while living her best life.

SHE LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER!

The End!

#disc horse

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