When I was only four years old, I insisted on watching Cinderella every single day for about a year straight. My father, who stayed home with me at the time, gladly rented the movie from Blockbuster every day to keep me happy. I am excited to revisit such a crucial film from my childhood and try to figure out why I was so obsessed with it.
So far, I like how the story is set up as a book with drawings. Even now that draws me in, and it shows how the movie is based off of an original fairy tale.
When the stepsisters and stepmother are first shown, both of the stepsisters' eyes are looking down and they have very large noses. The eye similarities between villains really interest me, and I noticed that the stepmother and the cat both have green eyes big eyes. Also, the stepmother at the beginning fades into just eyes as she fades into the darkness.
Cinderella is shown singing to animals and always communicating with animals. This is very weird. I understand the appeal of the talking animal idea, but Cinderella rarely communicates with humans and it is quite sad. This further shows how disconnected she is from the human world. It is also bizarre how much Cinderella's voice sounds like a grown woman. She does not sound like a teenager or even a young woman when she talks. This confuses me because you'd think they would want to portray Cinderella as innocent and pure to evoke empathy for this poor girl trapped in her home, yet they give her a more mature voice. I would be interested in discussing this further.
The stepsisters are seen trying to be good singers, great musicians, and beautiful people, yet Cinderella already possesses these qualities. I do not like this aspect of the movie because it makes it seem like Cinderella gets the guy because she is perfect in life. The stepsisters, while they are awful people, are probably good at other things yet their mother wants them to fit the perfect mold of a woman. This bothers me a lot because the ideal is so unrealistic. However, Disney is changing with these ideas so I can appreciate that.
I'm about halfway through the movie and I have come to the conclusion that this movie is terrible. First of all, the cat and mouse antics are so boring and are impossible to pay attention to because there are no words. I'm not even convinced that these scenes need to be in the movie! The storyline is also pathetic. Cinderella and her prince fall in love in 0.2 seconds and no one seems to question that this is supposed to represent true love. Every little girl wants their Prince Charming, but why? They don't even know each other! There is so much unnecessary rhyming in the movie as well. I am already sick of Disney movies where these girls need a man to save her from her situation. The Little Mermaid was the exact same way because she needed Prince Eric to have a reason to be on land.
All in all, I have no idea why I liked this movie so much. It would be interesting to ask a child what they love about this movie and see what they say. In my opinion, the movie fails to hold any of my attention and the love between the prince and Cinderella is as fragile as the glass slipper. I prefer the Hillary Duff or Selena Gomez versions any day.
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