Maybe It’s Time to Give Cinderella a Rest

There are plenty of arguments out there that would deny this kind of sentiment since Cinderella is one of the all-time favorite stories of a lot of people and her fairytale transition from a young woman who’s forced to serve her wicked stepmother while dressed in rags is one that’s been done over, and over, and over. There’s a slight amount of cynicism there, but it has more to do with the fact that no matter what version is brought to the audience, it’s the same story, over and over. A lot of people don’t see a problem with this, and more power to them for sticking to their guns, but a story has to change, to evolve, and sometimes it has to just take a powder and rest for a few years. But one thing that’s been made clear by Disney, and anyone else that’s decided to take on this story, is that it’s still going to cause a lot of people to perk up when it comes to bringing it back in one way or another. Money talks louder than sentiment sometimes after all. 

But from the moment that Disney decided to take up this story and make it into something that would one day be picked apart for plot holes and various other elements that people feel the need to bring up from time to time, Cinderella has the type of story that everyone is going to glom on until there’s nothing left for it to give. One only has to execute a simple Google search to find out how many Cinderella movies there are, and that the story has been taken and copied, revisited, continued, and redone in various ways that have shifted the elements of the story around in various ways to tell the tale from one perspective or another. But there’s one thing to take note of, the main character has always been the focus. 

One of the better representations, no matter what anyone thinks, is Ever After with Drew Barrymore, since it takes a far more realistic lean, compared to many other movies, and tells the tale of a young woman whose life was taken over by a cruel stepmother and her two daughters. What’s great about this movie however is that Danielle is every bit as the maiden as her cartoon counterpart is, but she’s fiercer by far since she enjoys getting into a good scrap with her best friend, and she’s outspoken in a way that makes her even more appealing. On top of that, she’s not looking for a man to rescue her, but her humility is attractive in the sense that she’s ready to stand for what she believes in, but tends to care more about others than herself. All in all, this version of the Cinderella story is one that a lot of people have come to like since the main character was the focal point, but there were many other working elements in the movie as well, as the prince was seen as a young man that wanted a life away from his station in life, and kind of needed a little humbling since he didn’t understand how the world worked outside his ‘gilded cage’. 

Many other versions of this story have come along over the years, and a lot of them have made it clear that Cinderella is the focus, but too many of them have created an idealistic story that, admittedly, is meant to be uplifting and send a message that good things can happen to good people. But the fact is that this story is one of those that feels as though it’s been overplayed for quite some time, and might need to take a rest. There are so many Disney stories waiting to be developed that it sounds fair to assume that some of them that have been kicking around for a while could take a break to allow people to enjoy and possibly build up the stories that are being pushed at this time. It’s very possible to let these stories remain on Disney+ and continue to give more attention to newer stories so that people can help to give rise to new legends, but it does feel that more and more people are going to feel that this is their time to push their own version of the story. 

That’s encouraging in a way, to think that so many people have a different version of a story that’s inspired and given so many people joy. But at this time it does feel as though Cinderella should be given a rest for a while. Whether anyone would agree with that is kind of hard to say since fans tend to want to hang onto as many of their favorites as possible, so it could be that in the next decade we might see several more versions of this story emerge.