The Stereotypes in Disneys Cinderella - Movie Review Example

Running Head: Stereotypes in Disney’s Cinderella The 1950 animated film Cinderella by Walt Disney Studio is one of the most famous and well-loved classics of American childrens entertainment. The movie has had several rereleases, the latest being in October 2005 (Thomas 138), and Cinderella herself continues to be a potent marketing tool in the modern world as part of the Disney Princesses brand. However, the character and the movie reinforce negative stereotypes about women. Instead of empowering women, the fairy tale story feeds not just one, but several destructive fantasies to young, impressionable children, especially little girls. All of these illusions center on the twisted ideal of beauty that forms the foundation of the entire plot. The first and most obvious fantasy that is propagated by the movie is the identification of beauty with goodness and ugliness with evil. Not only is this identification far too simplistic, it also introduces young girls to one of the most widespread cultural fallacies in the world: that beauty automatically denotes virtue and that it is to be trusted without question. Physical ugliness, on the other hand, is equated with spiritual ugliness. The fictional characters in Cinderella may adhere to these dichotomies, but living, breathing human beings certainly do not. Of course, it must be made clear that this paper is not defending the cruelty Cinderella is subjected to. What this paper will argue is that the film teaches children to make the automatic connection between good looks and good behavior on one hand, and unattractiveness with viciousness on the other. This simplistic division of human morality becomes even more problematic when one considers the film’s exact definitions of “ugliness” and “beauty.” A careful examination of the character designs reveals that the ugly stepsisters are not so ugly after all, at least in the physical sense. When their ungainly dresses and gigantic hair accessories are taken away, Anastasia and Drizella actually look rather normal. The only displeasing features they have are their large, bulbous noses. It is also interesting to note that Cinderella has a well-defined bosom, while both Anastasia and Drizella are extremely flat-chested, as if they had not yet reached puberty. In fact, judging solely from their physical bodies, one could easily mistake the two for a pair of gangly prepubescents. In short, the two sisters may not have their stepsister’s radiant loveliness, but they are not appallingly hideous, either. They are not ugly so much as they are plain. Nevertheless, the movie persists in calling them the “Ugly Stepsisters,” the appellation by which they are known to this day. Cinderella, on the other hand, is the picture-perfect fifties dream girl. Despite all the housework she is forced to do, she never gets dirty or tired. Apart from a tiny rip in her apron, her simple clothes are spotless and whole. She never, ever sports disheveled hair or the tiniest smudge of ash. In other words, Cinderella is the spitting image of the perfectly coiffed and perpetually efficient American housewife that was idealized in the 1950s (Ford & Mitchell 35). What are the implications of this unfair labelling of the stepsisters as “ugly”? First of all, plainness is turned into a synonym for ugliness, even though the definitions of these two words are very different. Second, large button noses such as those sported by Anastasia and Drizella are labelled as undesirable, while Cinderella’s small Caucasian-looking nose is thought to be part of her charm. This is a very subtle but important signal of the studio’s historical preference for Caucasian features over those of other races. Of course, Disney has become much more sensitive to such concerns since the highly conservative, almost xenophobic era of the fifties when Cinderella was made. In recent years, the studio has made considerable efforts to create children’s films that feature characters from other cultural backgrounds, such as the highly successful Aladdin, Mulan, and Pocahontas films. The upcoming 2009 feature The Princess and the Frog will also star the first African-American princess in the history of the studio. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that watching early Disney releases such as Cinderella subtly helps deepen prejudices among white children and inferiority complexes among colored children, or even among light-skinned children who do not fit the movie’s narrow conception of prettiness. However, Anastasia and Drizella are by no means the principal villains of the film. That distinction belongs to Lady Tremaine, their mother. It is Lady Tremaine who first forced Cinderella to become a servant and repeatedly thwarted her attempts to attend the ball and win the handsome prince. Even a cursory examination of Lady Tremaine’s character design reveals that she does not fall into the same category as her daughters. Although advanced in years, with visible wrinkles and gray hair, her appearance is still that of a fine-looking woman with “noble” features. In addition, her dignified bearing makes for a striking contrast with her daughters’ incurable awkwardness. However, the character of Lady Tremaine is still another means to reinforce the destructive ideals of beauty. She is the stereotypical wicked stepmother, an aged widow who seeks to oppress and even destroy her stepdaughter because she jealous of Cinderella’s youthful, virginal beauty. Her mature age is inextricably linked with her evil intentions. This is the second fantasy propagated by the film’s fictional universe. Moreover, Lady Tremaine knows that Anastasia and Drizella cannot possibly compete with their stepsister for the affections of the handsome prince. Thus, her personal jealousy is combined with her maternal love. All of these factors tie into the third fantasy that is propagated by Cinderella: the existence of love at first sight. By a persuasive mix of magic and romance, children who watch the film are persuaded to believe in this myth. While it is certainly true that in real life two complete strangers can feel an immediate and magnetic attraction to each other, this mutual attraction is not love. It is simply a powerful kind of attraction. Of course, Cinderella is not the only movie that spreads this fallacy. Thanks to the countless films, songs and literature that attest to the reality of love at first sight, children grow into adults believing that they will be able to immediately identify their “special someone” as soon as they see him or her. And of course, the first thing that human beings notice about other human beings is their physical appearance. Thus, the unrealistic ideal of love and the unreasonable standard of beauty are passed on to succeeding generations. The film exacerbates this problem because it does not only depict physical beauty as the the key to true love. As Tatar (138) has observed, the film also enshrines beauty as the source of salvation for a woman. If Cinderella had not been so beautiful, she would not have gotten the attention of the prince. If the prince had not become so infatuated with her, he would never have scoured the entire kingdom for her. If he had not gone to such great lengths for her, she would never have escaped the drudgery and misery of her life as a servant girl—unless, of course, her fairy godmother appeared again to grant her wishes. The fairy godmother herself is an agency of patriarchy. Not once did she help Cinderella throughout the long years the young woman spent as a servant. Instead of using her magical powers to whisk Cinderella out of that house and into a better life, the fairy godmother only helped Cinderella beautify herself for the ball. The recurring emphasis throughout the film is that women must beautify themselves as much as possible in order to win the undivided attention of just one rich and powerful man. This is why Anastasia and Drizella fuss so much over their ball gowns. It is also why they rip Cinderella’s first gown to shreds. What’s more, the animal-like behavior the stepsisters displayed in that scene can often be seen in real-life women. It only shows how deeply ingrained the need to win a man using beauty is in our culture. To summarize, the film depicts beauty as the foundation of “goodness” on several interrelated levels. At the first and most conspicuous level, beauty is identified with personal virtue. On a deeper level, beauty is also identified with true love. Finally, a woman must be beautiful in order to catch a man, who will then give her a better life. All of these destructive beliefs work together to enslave the minds of young children and form them into adults forever pining for a fairy tale life. Works Cited Cinderella. Dir. Clyde Geronimi and Wilfred Jackson. 1950. DVD. Walt Disney Productions, 2005. Ford, Elizabeth and Deborah C. Mitchell. The Makeover in Movies: Before and After in Hollywood Films, 1941-2002. Jefferson: McFarland, 2004. Tatar, Maria. Off with Their Heads!: Fairy Tales and the Culture of Childhood. Princeton: Princeton U P, 1993. Thomas, Susan Gregory. Buy, Buy Baby: How Consumer Culture Manipulates Parents and Harms Young Minds .Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2007. Read More