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Author
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Comment
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Colleen
Unregistered User
(7/19/04 11:15 am)
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Interesting Comments on Cinderella
The Las Vegas Weekly (one of our weekly alternate newspapers) recently
ran a review of "A
Cinderella Story". The review itself wasn't particularly
favorable and isn't why I'm posting. The reviewer, presumably male
(his name is Matthew Scott Hunter), had the following to say about
Cinderella in general:
"When you think about it, the underlying story in Cinderella
is the worst kind. The heroine is defined only by her ridiculously
exaggerated misery, arbitrarily put upon her by the most unrealistically
despicable of people. And in the end, all of these problems are
somehow solved by Cinderella getting her prince - a man she wants,
first and foremost, simply because he is a prince. It's a tale that
is alternately silly and shallow, and yet as far back a Disney's
animated classic to as recently as Drew Barrymore's Ever
After, there have been versions that make us forget the story
is a superficial, adolescent soap opera." (Matthew Scott Hunter,
copyright 2004.)
Is he completely missing the point of Cinderella in particular and fairy tales in general? Is he correct in his assessment? Is he showing ignorance of literarly history or even of history in general? (Didn't women in Cinderella's circumstances - dead parents, step parent who had no use for her - truly suffer in real life?) Wasn't there a time when the only escape from a bad life at home would be a good marriage - and if it was a bad marriage, there was no escape? The reason I mentioned the reviewer's gender is because I wondered if a woman would be more or less likely to share his view of Cinderella (the fairy tale, not the movie he was reviewing). Anyone care to comment?
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Veronica
Schanoes
Registered User
(7/19/04 3:25 pm)
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Re: Interesting Comments on Cinderella
Actually, I've always shared this view of Cinderella--the Cinderella
that's been popularized during most of this century, epitomized
in the Disney
Cinderella. Not the view about "unrealistic" characters,
because I don't much care about that, but the bit about a blank
prince as a solution to all her problems. That's one of the reasons
why I loved Ella
Enchanted, because it gave a reason why the main character
never rebelled.
Fortunately, there are many better versions of the Cinderella tale out there.
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JenCrouse
Registered User
(7/19/04 11:29 pm)
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Re: Interesting Comments on Cinderella
Personally, I have always been kind of suspicious of Cinderella portrayed as a gentle kind creature who would never so much as spit in the soup of her mean step-sisters and step-mother. If she was truly abused to the point of being completely cowed, how could she ever have gotten the courage to sneak off and charm the prince? I just don't buy it.
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janeyolen
Registered User
(7/20/04 1:32 am)
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Re: Interesting Comments on Cinderella
The taming of Cinderella started in the late nineteenth century (some would say started with the Perrault version, but I disagree.) Its really heyday was the Disney era. Earlier folk versions of the Cinderella story feature a hardy heroine who, with the help of a few stalwart companions (sometimes her mother's spirit, sometimes an old man, sometimes an old woman/fairy/witch) saves herself.
She is recovering her patrimoney which has been stolen from her.
She dissembles to her stepsisters and stepmother.
She has no remorse over her sisters loss of toes or eyes (in one version) or house and lands (in most versions) and only in the Perrault does she forgive them. But she is no mamby-pamby sweetly singing away her troubles and needing to be rescued by the mice and birds till Disney.
Jane
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Terri
Windling
Registered User
(7/20/04 8:22 am)
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Re: Interesting Comments on Cinderella
For all the reasons Jane gives and more, the answer to your question is yes, Colleen. The reviewer is indeed ignorant of fairy tale history in general, and the history of Cinderella in particular.
An online article on the latter can be found here: www.endicott-studio.com/forashs.html
And Jane's essay on Cinderella, in her excellent book Touch
Magic, is a classic on the subject. Perhaps a letter to the
Las Vegas Weekly is in order, to encourage the reviewer to read
Touch Magic?
Edited by: Terri Windling at: 7/20/04 8:23 am
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