2005-04-08 - 3:34 p.m.
Cinderelly Cinderelly Night and Day It's Cinderelly
I know this is silly coming from a grownup but I gotta go on about my deep deep love for Disney's Cinderella. It's one of my favorite movies of all time and Cinderella ranks right up there with the coolest chicks in cinema. I love her and the movie unabashedly.
In Cinderella, the Disney animators created on of the REALEST characters. Considering this was the 50's when women were supposed to be anethesized Stepford wives, Cinderella was sassy, funny and sarcastic. Unlike certain other helium voiced Disney ladies (cough Snowwhite cough) she was a woman.
She starts the movie with a completely realistic bed shot. Like most of us needing to wake up and get going, she's having a hard time getting out of bed. Even with the help of all of her animals, she very clearly was not into all of the damn housework she had to do. When the stupid butler bells are ringing all over the mansion and she has laundry on each arm AND her head, her response is a very exasperated "in a minute." The fuck you was quite clearly implied. I love how she rolls her eyes when she hears the beginnings of her stepssisters' music lesson knowing what as waste of time those lessons are.
Throughout the beginning of the movie, you can tlel she's the person whose holding it together, knowing her life kind of sucks but making the best of things. I wondering why the flesh and blood Brandy couldn't infuse her Cinderella with more humanity than the cartoon?
And unlike so many other Disney animated films, the cruelty she faces isn't because of magic or witchcraft, it's because of a bitchy stepmother and two bitchy stepsisters. They are casting spells on her. They are making her do housework while they sit on their asses. The plastics of Mean Girls have nothing on that threesome when it comes to psychological warfare.
It's a harrowing scene to see her "family" tear apart her ballgown. She just received the nicest gift of her life from her little animal friends and the evil stepmother picks it apart until she can find a justification for ripping it off of her. And then she's is losing it on the garden bench, it's not because of landing her man, it's her wondering "can something go right for a change in my life!?!" The true tragedy of that scene is that she can't catch a fucking break.
So when things come together for her, you're genuinely happy the way you are when your friend has a good date after hearing about the dates from hell that wore her down.
And that is why I love Cinderella. Watch it. Learn it. Love it.
