Post by Matilda on Sept 10, 2020 15:22:31 GMT
See, I think there's a lot of potential in this story. We have a girl in an abusive domestic situation who manages to rise above it all and capture the eye of the prince. Surely that's an all-American message? Don't let misfortune in circumstance get the better of you, one day you'll recognized for what you're worth. Rags to riches.
Namely, I think what you can read into the movie is something about kindess to others being rewarded. Contrary to the step-family who are nothing but selfish and spiteful, Cinderella's strength lies not necessarily in innate qualities like grace or even an abstract "good nature" (although she has those too), but in the fact that despite her own diminished circumstances, she still takes time out of every day to help those even worse off than she is — the mice, the dog, etc. Hence the mice and birds making the first dress for her is the just and logical reward of the virtues she has demonstrated. Hence, also, why the Fairy Godmother's magical methods of bringing Cinderella to the ball involve transforming animals (as well as a pumpkin, a product of the garden which Cinderella presumably tends to herself as well, though the movie doesn't make it explicit) into whatever she needs, rather than plucking the coach, staff and so on out of thin air. The Godmother amplifies the natural way of the world as envisioned by the movie, which is that Cinderella's helpfulness will be repaid in the fullness of time, rather than overwrite it.
Consequently, while Cinderella blowing up at the stepfamily might have been cathartic, I think it would have run the risk of cutting against that interesting throughline. Cinderella's strength is that she does not let herself become embittered by what she suffers, but, as you say, “rises above it all” — certainly the most inspiring thing about the movie is the fact that although she never rebels against them openly, Cinderella clearly has no illusions about what kind of a person Lady Tremaine is, or how paltry and despicable Anastasia & Drizella really are. Even through all the abuse, she keeps her worldview straight and does not for one moment consider whether Tremaine might be right, whether it might really be her fault, whether she really might be worth nothing. As many an abuse survivor will tell you, that's courageous enough all on its own.
…On another note entirely, while we're talking about Cinderella, I always thought there were some simply fascinating things going on with anthropomorphism in that film. Gus-Gus's introduction seems to gesture at the idea that sentience is "catching" — that "normal" mice are basically animalistic but all it takes is contact with Cinderella's educated, clothes-wearing, bipedal mice for Gus-Gus to start to turn into one of them. I don't think that was the authorial intent but one could do worse than theorize that Cinderella's ability to "uplift" animals through sheer interaction with them is a tiny hint of magic that she gets from having a Fairy Godmother — perhaps it was even the Gift her Fairy Godmother gave her at her christening, if we apply Sleeping Beauty rules.
I certainly agree that C's kindness to those less fortunate (or equally unfortunate) is the crucial aspect of her personality, and the mice do definitely return her kindness in various ways throughout the movie, particularly by freeing her so that she can try on the shoe. So yes, the message is that kindness is rewarded.
Your point about the Fairy Godmother's magic amplifying this reciprocity rather than bypassing it through sheer magic is a valid one, though I must say that neither as a child nor as an adult viewer did it strike me that way. Just felt like she needed something living to go on. Of course one felt that the horses and coachman etc. were kindly disposed towards C because of their experience of her kindness, that they were friends and not just random creatures drafted into the operation. But I didn't feel that the FG's magic was building directly on the "kindness is repaid" scheme. I might have thought of it in the way you suggest if the mice had volunteered for duty: "We want to help Cinderelly! Can you use us?"
And to reiterate my earlier point, the FG's magic would also have seemed more continuous with the returning-kindnesses of the mice if she had magically reconstituted the dress they had painstakingly made for her, maybe with a few magical tweaks in the design, rather than dressing C up like a fashion doll.