Just when you thought that the Cinderella property couldn’t be squeezed to death anymore, Disney dropped a Sneakerella trailer last month. This time, it’s a gender-swapped version about a Queens sneaker designer, here’s the official synopsis: “After falling in love with Kira King, the daughter of basketball star and sneaker tycoon Darius King, and aspirant Queens sneaker designer gains the confidence to pursue his dream of becoming a professional sneaker designer with the help of his best friend, Sami, and his Fairy Godfather.” The moment the trailer dropped, the upcoming movie was met with tons of backlash and the dislike ratio was much higher than the likes, though the current number is unknown due to Youtube taking off the public dislike numbers. Obviously, I can’t exactly judge the full movie. The full product has yet to be released, so it wouldn’t be fair to trash an entire film because of my severe dislike for the trailer. However, the trailer exemplifies the issues with many “woke” and modern Hollywood films in that it desperately panders to an audience without realizing the negative connotations behind it. Let’s be real, Sneakerella is essentially the ghetto version of Cinderella. It plays on black stereotypes while adding a Cinderella spin to it. The most frustrating part isn’t even the fact that this film is playing off a black stereotype, but that it’s a Cinderella story aimed at the Black community.
Cinderella isn’t OUR story. Its roots aren’t steeped in black culture. I get that Disney wants to cater films that focus on more black characters, but Sneakerella is playing off a tired trope that seems more like a caricature of what African Americans like. This isn’t the first time that there’s been a predominant black Cinderella movie, with the 1997 Cinderella version with Brandy Norwood and the legendary Whitney Houston. Granted, that film was essentially a shot-by-shot remake of the original, but it still suffers the same problems as Sneakerella, or even The Wiz (the black version of The Wizard of Oz), and other remakes/reboots that center around a black cast. In order to move forward, there should be more black and original stories, not films that piggyback off of previously white characters with a black twist. Movies like Soul, Hidden Figures, and Dolemite is My Name are great examples of films that feature a black cast. These films explore a different side of the African American culture where the characters aren’t played as caricatures of their stereotype. Soul is about a jazz teacher who realizes the true meaning of his life, but the character feels authentic and real because of how relatable Joe’s character and world is. He’s a black man, but the film never touches on the tropes that black men are portrayed in the media.
Same thing with Dolemite is My Name, the film doesn’t pander into the tropes of African American males to identify with its target audience; The story feels genuine and honest because the writing for Rudy Ray Moore focuses on making this colorful character a three-dimension human being. Of course, Hidden Figures is more so steeped in history and relies on certain events of American’s past, but again, the important thing is that these are original films that weren’t previously played by a white protagonist. Sneakerella is offensive because it’s an obvious cash grab with an urban twist. The crazy thing is, the trailer actually does start off very promising. Sure, the movie seems more like a high budgeted Disney Channel original movie, but to tell the story of a kid from Queens trying to grow his business as a sneaker designer could be a fun story to tell. Yes, it’s still leaning on black tropes, but it would still be an original and authentic story featuring a black lead. More importantly, the lead protagonist wouldn’t feel like caricature because we’re actually following his journey vs. Sneakerella adding this urban twist to their already bloated catalog of Cinderella films. Of course, Sneakerella could turn out to be a great film that subverts black tropes and actually adds a new voice into the tired Cinderella saga. Again, the film has yet to be released so it wouldn’t be fair to instantly trash a film I haven’t seen, but the trailer doesn’t give me much hope that it’s clever feature that will bend its genre tropes. Sneakerella won’t be the last film where a black lead will step into a role that was previously established by a white character. The point of this article isn’t to boycott black actors from getting future leads that previously had a white actor in the role. The beautiful thing about movies is that films are works of fiction, so there’s particularly nothing wrong with that narrative. The point is that more authentic black stories need to be told instead of piggybacking off of well-worn franchises.
Follow Us
