For the past decade (longer really), the entertainment industry has been enamored with revisionism. Specifically, it had been enamored by revisionist takes on classic fairytales. Just last year Maleficent and Into the Woods nearly grossed a combined BILLION dollars. Later this year it'll be Joe Wright's Pan, a retelling of, you guessed it, J. M. Barrie's classic Peter Pan that takes to the screen. But for now, we have Kenneth Branagh's latest, Cinderella.
And it's weird.
My better half saw the trailer before I did, and immediately she commented on the colors and how the film looked and felt as if it were a throwback to a time where Technicolor ruled. And she was right. In a climate saturated with revisionist takes on just about everything ranging from fairy tales to your grandpa's casually racist stories, Cinderella is a throwback. Something critics and audiences alike are heralding as enchantingly sincere and a tribute to old-fashioned virtues - a reprieve, almost, from the barrage of retellings we've been assaulted with over recent years. But in being a reprieve for some, in being a throwback to classical fairytales and old-fashioned virtues, for others Cinderella also becomes this strange throwback to wrong-headed and outdated gender stereotypes and an argument for the idea that women shouldn't question their situations or trouble anyone with their opinions or feelings.
As we learn early on from Ella's (Lily James, she gets Cinder'd later) dying mother, the mantra here is "Have courage and be kind." On its face, there's nothing at all wrong with that. In fact, as a motto it doubles as something more people in the real world could afford to take to heart and as a reveal of two of the major weapons that characters of all fairytale and fable demographics use to survive - whether it's giving the crazy old beggar at your doorstep shelter in exchange for a rose or helping an injured man on the side of road simply because it's right. The list goes on. And Cinderella is no different. The unfortunate part, though, is that the story and the film use these principles to justify a wish-fulfillment fantasy about a young woman being rescued simply because she handles her miserable, abusive life with obedience and without protest.
The biggest problem I have with Cinderella is how much her "be kind" mantra really means "be submissive." We're told via narration by Ella's fairy-godmother (Helena Bonham-Carter) that Ella is special because she "sees the world not as it is, but as it could be." And that's a wonderful statement except for the fact that Ella uses her imagination solely to both justify staying in her childhood home and to sustain enough willpower to be politely acquiescent to a step-mother and step-sisters (Cate Blanchett, Holliday Grainger, Sophie McShera) who blatantly despise her. When she is banished from her room to the dusty, cluttered attic, stripped of all her possessions and standing, she simply tells herself that it'll be nice to be somewhere out of the way and that everything's okay because she still gets to live in her parent's home and respect their memory. Through her interpretation of her mother's final wish, Ella teaches herself to accept daily physical and emotional abuse, to expect it as the norm because she believes as a result she is honoring her dead parents. And in doing so, she becomes this strange, almost martyr-like character rather than the hero of her own story.
Cinderella is supposed to be a story about suffering injustice and then ultimately having that injustice rectified. But Cinderella herself never kicks against the pricks. Not even when she's by herself! Sure, she cries here and there, but most of her time is spent trying to pretend that none of this is happening or that it's okay that it is. But maybe the worst part of the whole thing is that she won't even try to extend her mother's mantra to other people. She doesn't even considering suggesting her step-mother and step-sister act more kind. No, that would predicate itself on Ella putting herself out there, evaluating their attitudes and judging their actions and personalities. And that wouldn't be kind. It would be courageous, undoubtedly. But it wouldn't be kind. And that part of her mother's mantra is clearly what Ella focuses on.
If I'm being honest, this overwhelming, celebrated submissiveness might, in some strange way, be more tolerable if it were equal across the board. The problem is that it totally isn't! While Ella is off making and serving breakfast with ash on her face (read: being "kind"), Prince Charming (Richard Madden who, in a bit of nuance, is given the name Kit) takes a similar mantra and decides to actually do something courageous. Unlike Cinderella, Kit refuses to accept his father's command to marry in a way that strengthens their kingdom and instead opens up the ball to everyone in the hopes of finding the intriguing, mysterious girl he met during a stag hunt. Like Ella's early moment with her dying mother, Kit's father too makes a request, reiterating who his son is to marry. But rather than simply accept his father's dying wish, he tells his father that though he loves him, he will not heed his request. And what happens? His father is proud of him! It's this courageous act that finally shows the king that his son will be the perfect heir to the throne. Meanwhile, Cinderella is letting her step-mother verbally tear her to shreds and lock her in the attic.
We're told Cinderella is special because she sees the world not as it is, but as it could be. And yet, as soon as she is locked away in the dusty, dilapidated attic that she was happy to be in because even though she no longer had any of her possessions or standing in the house, at least she was out of the way, we're blatantly told that she will be happy simply with the memory of her brief time with the prince - that her memories will sustain her as she continues to live her depressing, abused, submissive life with three women who treat her worse than the mud under their expensive shoes. Cinderella is so passive, so utterly devoid of any kind of will or desire for a better life, that she can't even extend a hand to open the window as the prince and his entourage arrive at her home to test the sisters' feet with the glass slipper. No, like the rest of the story, she simply sings and nostalgically remembers the time she danced with the prince to a crowd of a hundred admirers until everything magically works out perfectly - in this case with her mice friends opening the window for her.
Ella never does anything for herself and yet again and again she is saved. She's saved by her mice friends. She saved by her fairy-godmother. She's saved by the prince. She saved by her circumstances. She's simply saved and all because she's nice. Nice and sweet and passive and submissive and obedient. All while the film whole heartedly nods in approval.
It's all just so weird.
I get that this film wants to be a throwback. But what it doesn't seem to realize is that without nuance, certain throwbacks come with a carriage full of wrong-headed, offensive luggage. Don't fight back, the film argues. Don't try to change your situation yourself if you're a woman. Because it just isn't want "nice" women do. "Nice" women simply do what they're told and take their abuse with compliance and a warm smile. But don't worry, gals, if you just do what you're told and take your abuse like good little girls and don't talk back, then eventually karma will reward you with a handsome prince to come rescue you and punish those who have wronged you (perhaps by having them confusingly leave forever as commanded by an all-knowing narrator).
In the end, I just don't understand what the point of this movie is. The only real nuance in the film other than Prince Charming having an actual name, is the brief hint at some deeper motivations behind the evil step-mother's actions and behaviors and maybe when Ella first meets the prince in the woods. Other than that, I guess one could point to the almost unbearably too-long ball scene, where Ella seems to come out of her shell and despite apparently not knowing that Kit is a prince, makes a grand entrance followed by immediately dancing with him in the middle of everyone while never questioning why he's wearing white, why everyone's looking or why he has a sword attached to his belt. I could almost see this as a clever nod to Ella knowing more than she lets on, perhaps scheming herself to win the heart of the prince to make it out of her current situation and punish those who have humiliated her. But then she immediately acts dumbfounded when they're alone saying, "Wait, you're the prince, aren't you?!" And there's the whole just being happy with her memories of the evening thing too. There are a plethora of interesting, subversive ways Branagh and company could have gone to make this both an interesting film and an interesting commentary on throwbacks and their often inimical tropes and themes.
But that just isn't what Cinderella is. It's just a throwback. And in being just a throwback, having no real message turns into a message itself. It's a weird message. An ugly message. A harmful message. Everyone in one form or another has experienced nostalgia. At one point or another, everyone has fondly remembered their past and the way things used to be. As such, it's only natural to want to create throwbacks to properties we loved as children. And often, those throwbacks can be very nice. But unlike what Cinderella would have you believe, sometimes nice isn't something you want to be.
