This review by Olivia Bernal previously appeared at Bitch Flicks as part of our series on Animated Children's Films.
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| Cinderella (1950) |
I would guess that in its long years
of making animated features, Disney has made a mint on the princess
formula. There is always a brooding prince, handsome, but distracted by
his more worldly pursuits (i.e. war, evil, magic, etc.). There is a
beautiful yet tragic young woman who is either on-her-knees humble,
completely unaware of her high-class lineage, or else common as dirt. It
is this woman’s duty to make trouble—stubbornly, stupidly, and
innocently; the prince cleans up her mess, the audience rolling their
collective eyes, lovingly amused.
In the case of Cinderella,
the silly mistakes of losing a shoe and ignoring an expiring spell
bring Prince Charming to Cinderella’s doorstep, ready to find his mate
no matter how long it takes. This comes after a long and emotionally
torturous journey on the part of Cinderella. In its beginning scenes, we
see her struggle with housework under the ridiculous demands of her
evil Stepmother and Stepsisters. She washes floors while singing
prettily, the bubbles harmonizing her melody. It is revealed to us that
she used to be rich and spoiled, but destiny wringed her into this
incarnation – selfless, lovely, and dutiful. She is the better for it;
look what fate made of those Stepsisters – loud, obnoxious, and ugly.
We see the Stepsisters’ true
colors when, having been promised by her Stepmother to attend the
Prince’s ball, Cinderella pieces together a gown from her real Mother’s
dress and beads and cloth trashed by the Stepsisters and collected by
Cinderella’s animals friends. As she cleans and cooks (in her
Stepmother’s attempt to make her too late to attend the ball), the mice
and birds sew together something passable for her to wear. The
Stepsisters, recognizing their discarded materials, rip it apart and
flounce off, their bustles comically bouncing after them.
It is shocking to see such a
comely, self-possessed woman ripped apart as such. But a fairy godmother
replaces the dress with a blue, glittering number, complete with absurd
ear-covering headpiece. Cinderella floats into the ball and the rest is
history. Beauty trumps power once again.
Watching Cinderella again
for the first time since I was a child, it was amazing to me that time
and again Disney portrays women as either bitches or victims. Ursula,
Maleficent, Snow White’s Queen, the Queen of Hearts and of course
Cinderella’s stepmother Lady Tremaine are all evil women, jealous of the
beauty and innocence of their younger counterparts. One by one they
seek to quell romance, passion, and everything else good from the lives
of the eventual princesses by seeking power, wealth, and beauty of their
own. Only a man can save these women from their pitiful disputes,
damaging though they are. Perhaps the notion of a man wielding this type
of power over a young, beautiful woman was a little too akin to rape
for Disney’s taste. Either way, the Disney-fication of evil into an
older, vindictive woman promotes an attitude that women are either a
victim or seeking to be a victim; a mentality that when unleashed in the
real world leads to horrific statements like, “She was asking for it.”
Newer Disney movies rely much less on this format; I think of such movies as Mulan, Beauty and the Beast, and Pocahontas whose
end result of marriage contradicts a much more liberated adventure. In
1950, however, romance, passion, and entertainment could only be
accomplished via marriage. True love was confirmed by a man deigning to
step from his elevated social status to marry a woman of common birth.
(A scheme that, as it usually turned out, wasn’t necessary because said
princess is in fact rich or royal or whatever.) And marriage was enough
to fill a plot. Jane Austen’s scheming ladies were a prototype for
Disney princess movies. The goal is love, sure, but wealth and security
sweeten the deal, too.
The problem I have most with Cinderella,
though, is in the sweet density of Cinderella herself. “Have faith in
your dreams and someday
/Your rainbow will come smiling through/
No
matter how your heart is grieving
/If you keep on believing/
The dream
that you wish will come true,” Cinderella croons as she prepares herself
for another day of back-breaking, selfless labor. This kind of ignorant
rhetoric endorses a blind acceptance of the status quo. Cinderella does
not believe she can affect change in her own life. She will wait with
faith and something good is bound to happen. Of course, as Disney shows
us, it does; Prince Charming really does come and all is happily ever
after. It negates a choice and, above all, this is the importance of the
feminist movement – to allow the Cinderellas of the world to say “Fuck
you” to all the evil power-mongers and be on their way – Prince or no.
If women had just kept on believing, their dreams would definitely not
have come true. Action in the form of choice is the truest path to
liberation.
It is no coincidence that Cinderella was
made in 1950. It was the era of writing the standards for the modern
housewife; principles of which were impossible for any woman to attain
without depression or at least a nasty drinking habit. This archetypal
housewife has become the subject of so many books and movies (see The Hours, Far From Heaven, Revolutionary Road, etc.). The era was the springing board for Second Wave feminism. As nostalgia, it is still fun to watch a movie like Cinderella.
Perhaps, if nothing else, we can enjoy these movies as a relic of the
era – a document of history and ideas that are, luckily, past.
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Olivia Bernal is a public school English teacher from Kansas. She reviews books at The Independent Book Review.
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