MovieChat Forums > Cinderella (1950) Discussion > The Most Objectionable Story Ever Told

The Most Objectionable Story Ever Told

posted a year ago by HarveyManFredSin (4877)
59 replies | jump to latest

One that tells women that in order to be worthy, they must be physically beautiful.

One that tells men that in order to be worthy, they must be rich and have a high social status.

One that tells women that the greatest goal in life is to marry into money.

One that tells society that physical beauty equals spiritual beauty, and that anyone who is deformed, or, heaven forbid, disabled, is innately evil and cruel.

Time to call this out for what it is. Misogynist, ableist, body-shaming, capitalist, patriarchal propaganda that appeals to society's most simplistic and reductive instincts.

Cinderella should ONLY be adapted if the female hero is homely or at least less good-looking than her evil sisters, and on the basis that Cinderella ultimately rejects the Prince and a life of wealth for something which demonstrates more agency on her part.

[–] AmeriGirl26 (12249) a year ago

What's your opinion on the reinterpretation of this story that Amazon did?

[–] skipper (305) a year ago

Am I missing something? I don’t remember anyone who was deformed or disabled in this.

[–] HarveyManFredSin (4877) a year ago

The 'Ugly' Step-sisters are physically deformed in contrast to the classically beautiful and physically fortunate Cinderella (who we are told is an 'oppressed victim' contrary to her *immense* good fortune in being born with the very features that are most prized and honoured in a woman). Really, it's time society started talking more about beauty privilege, in addition to white and male privilege.

Did you all know that research has found that blonde-haired women earn on average 7% more than women with other hair colours? That's not only blonde/beauty privilege, it's arguably an extension of white privilege too, since no one is going to mistake a WOC for a 'natural blonde'.

[–] skipper (305) a year ago

I would never call somebody who was not as pretty as somebody else deformed.

[–] HarveyManFredSin (4877) a year ago

I'm not the one being mean here. That would be the people who wrote this body-shaming story. And, yes, their features are clearly out-of-shape/proportion.

Let's call a spade a spade here. It doesn't benefit anyone who is on the receiving end of social prejudice and bigotry, as homely women often are, to deny their status and thus their unfortunate predicament.

[–] Furienna (3312) a year ago

Like I said in an earlier post, it is only historically correct that the prettiest sister would get the richest husband.
But it wasn't either of the stepsisters, who had become an orphan and been turned into the household slave...

[–] HarveyManFredSin (4877) a year ago

Being raised by a single mother during the era in which the original story is set, would have carried its own stigma and hardship. By contrast, 'poor widdle oh-so-precious' Cinderella was *extremely* fortunate that she, an only child and the apple of her daddy's eye, had a father for most of her childhood, one who was wealthy enough to attract a financially desperate gold-digger who needed to provide for NOT one, but TWO children.

[–] Furienna (3312) a year ago

Well, it is not like Cinderella's father was around to protect her anymore.
The stepsisters at least had a living mother, who was looking after their interests.
Even if Lady Tremaine was cruel, that was an advantage for them.
As long as Cinderella was kept out of the way and didn't make them look bad in comparison.

[–] FilmBuff (6677) a year ago

I hope you are being sarcastic, but we're at the point where one can no longer tell. There are some people out there that believe the moronic tripe you just typed!

[–] GreenGoblinsOck8 (7394) a year ago

I've said this in similar topics but I really don't like people looking at something from long ago from a modern perspective. Judging from what you said you probably hate every old story and movie and can only stand stories that came out in the last 10 or 20 years.

I will never understand how someone can just expect an old story to have the standards of the modern day. But I pity you cause you are too much mind set in modern times to enjoy anything from the distant past.

[–] HarveyManFredSin (4877) a year ago

I object to the story, because it's still told today, and it still informs a lot of our culture (just look at one of the most successful films of the last 40 years, Pretty Woman, for example).

The messages preached by this toxic story, that 'physical beauty equals spiritual beauty' especially for women, and that women should marry into money, are still preached today.

[–] GreenGoblinsOck8 (7394) a year ago

I don't agree that it's about having to marry into money. The fact is Cinderella's stepmother is rich but won't ever share her wealth with Cinderella cause she hates her for some reason we aren't told. I admit this isn't my favorite Disney film but I do like it for the visuals.

[–] Furienna (3312) a year ago

This movie was made in 1950 and is set in the 19th century and should be looked at from that perspective.
Besides, it is a fairytale where the protagonist has talking mice as friends and a fairy godmother.
And we're not meant to see it as a fully realistic portrayal of how life works...

"Pretty Woman" is controversial and is often accused of giving young women the wrong idea about prostitution.
It is from 1990, and it's very unlikely that a movie with that plotline would be made in Hollywood today.

[–] [deleted] a year ago

All the Disney Princess movies were social engineering garbage.

This movie is literally what inspired girls to become gold diggers. The message was basically, if you're poor but exceptionally beautiful, just look for a rich man with status to marry out of your circumstances.

There was also an anti-parent subtext, too, the idea that parents aren't all that important.

You're right about the messages regarding physical appearance. Almost all Disney movies telegraph the idea that beautiful, young people are saintly, and anyone less than is stupid, untrustworthy, clownish or just plain evil.

Later, their movies stepped things up a notch by making beauty and goodness synonymous with being blonde, and being evil with having dark hair or being swarthy. A perfect example is Beauty and the Beast. Prince Adam is a sociopath. Gaston might've been an annoying jerk, but he wasn't evil. Yet the movie emphasized how evil Gaston was compared to Adam by giving him black hair and dark eyes.

This all seems conspiratorial until you see the pattern, and to where the writers changed the characters to fit this dynamic. For example, Phoebus in Hunchback of Notre Dame in the novel was a womanizing piece of crap who tried taking advantage of Esmeralda but in the Disney film, they made him blonde and heroic. Ditto, Pocahontas, with Captain Smith, who had dark hair.

[–] HarveyManFredSin (4877) a year ago

Wow! Finally, someone at this site who gets it! Thank you!

That said, I must confess that I have a certain affection for Disney Animation films, however, as you say, the demonisation of the 'ugly' and 'homely', and the suggestion that physical beauty, and moreover fair/blond(e) physical beauty is intrinsically 'good', is frankly disturbing. Not only is it ableist and a form of body-shaming, there's a disturbing 'Aryan'/Nazi subtext to Disney's attempts to indoctrinate us with the idea that 'blonde equals virtuous, and dark and swarthy, even relatively handsome dark and swarthy, equals evil and/or untrustworthy'.

And whilst I will credit The Hunchback of Notre Dame in finally giving us a Disney Animated movie with a *genuinely* deformed/'ugly' protagonist, you're also 100% correct to point out that in the original Victor Hugo story, the handsome Phoebus was much less admirable. It's also a big shame that Disney omitted the beautiful, but snooty, aristocrat, Fleur de Lys from this version, since she provided an interesting counterpoint to the similarly beautiful, but more virtuous Esmeralda (although one aspect of the update I do prefer is that in this version Esmeralda isn't a tragic and sacrificial innocent, but is given much more agency and is much feistier, and thus more likeable, and, oddly enough, much more convincing as a Romany street performer than the insipid and Cinderella-like 'wronged against' character from the original novel).

[–] [deleted] a year ago

I was more upset over the fact that they excluded Gringoire, which didn't make much sense to me. Gringoire was really the heart and soul of the novel and the relatable everyman. He also was comic relief. I guess he wasn't "handsome enough" in the novel to fit into Disney's very narrow worldview where everyone is either drop dead gorgeous (and virtuous) or ugly (and evil).

About Esmeralda, I don't agree that she was Cinderella-like. She was an archetype of the dumb, impressionable girl who crushes hard on men for shallow reasons. Hugo was writing a cautionary tale for girls like that, to warn them to not be taken in by guys that look and play the part of the "rock star/teen idol" (in the case of the novel, Prince Charming/knight in shining armor, which would've been the equivalent). Esmeralda meets her demise because she's a childish teenager who refuses to accept that Phoebus isn't a knight in shining armor, even when she sees with her own eyes what a womanizing creep he is.

[–] SandyR (7323) a year ago

I realize now you're parodying a corporate leftist moron. Nice work.

[–] HarveyManFredSin (4877) a year ago

I'm not corporate. A leftist, for sure. A moron, maybe. But definitely not a corporatist.