Not How It Is, But How It Could Be

When the first bits of news dropped in regards to the live-adaptation of Disney's animated telling of Cinderella, I was as skeptical as I usually am about new things - which is to say a lot. Yes, I'm a very guarded person with very serious trust issues and a pretty strong intuitive system. But in my defense, the first few articles that came out went straight to praising how this adaptation would showcase a less demure Cinderella, one who can ride horses and show cleavage and not sit on the sidelines. So, I really had a lot of good reason to roll my eyes and ask why any of it was necessary since we already have Ever After: A Cinderella Story. And, honestly, I love the original Disney film and various adaptations in general and was content not to have Maleficent 2.0 - which isn't a bad film as a loose adaptation of Sleeping Beauty per se, but that I didn't appreciate as an effort to demoralize the 1959 animated film as outdated and lacking (which is how it was strongly marketed).

Here's the thing. Those articles were talking up the aforementioned points of interest obnoxiously and with only a basic understanding of why those points are important in the grand scheme of things when it comes to stories geared towards females. They were trying to sell it as, "This won't be the Cinderella you [erroneously] remember as needing a fairy godmother and prince to escape her indentured servitude because hey look horseback riding!" I could write an entire think piece on how this flippant attitude towards Cinderella's lot in life is telling in regards to classism, disregard of slavery and indentured servitude as a very real thing that existed, disregard/misconceptions of abuse in modern society, and, yes, even misogyny (a lot of it internalized). But that's a think piece for another day.

Here's the other thing. Turns out: 1. I was 1000% wrong in my skepticism. 2. Those points about how director Kenneth Branagh's Cinderella would have agency and be empowering were 1000% right if misguided and 3. Many of those same people who were excited while I was skeptical were stunned and even angered because Branagh delivered a film inherently about women and gave Ella truly empowering agency for a period fantasy, but it wasn't the kind of obtuse agency that those people wanted.

The story opens up on young Ella with her mother. Ella's mother is so very important. So there's one chalk mark for how this is a movie about women right off the bat. Most adaptations of the story emphasize Ella's relationship with her father. The mother is already dead by time we meet Ella (either through childbirth or when Ella was too young to remember her). So essentially we never have a mother by which to compare the cruelty of the stepmother to. And before somebody cries, "Ah, but let's not pit women against women!" that's simply not how feminism works. The fact is, if you are a woman, you will certainly meet another woman in your life time who is cruel and even if she has her reasons, you will be forced to make comparisons of her to other women who are not cruel as a standard; and I'll come back to this point later because it's important.

The fact is, when adaptations emphasize how wonderful Ella's father was and how close they were it then turns into precarious narrative of pitting a saintly man whose one flaw was marrying for the sake of his daughter and being taken in by a woman against a scornful woman. It becomes a black and white narrative where Ella loses her loving and doting father, her protector, and then must fight for herself against a cruel woman who we know little to nothing about (or only know to be fortune hunting) and by being the opposite of that woman she gets the token prize of another man - who within the setting has to be the purchaser of her redemption by loving her the same as her father loved her (which, hey, isn't always a bad narrative either for the record; it has its purpose like all things when done well).

Branagh introducing Ella's mother as a much more powerful influence on her life is beautifully refreshing and we see so little of it in film, especially fairyale-based films. In Branagh's Cinderella, Ella's entire kingdom as a child may be paid for and provided for by her father's work, but it is Ella's mother who influences the place and makes it happy. She guides the father and gives him purpose and happiness and she guides Ella and rather than doting on her, bolsters her self-esteem by never talking down to her, by treating her with the capacity to believe in everything, to learn, to love, to simply be a good human being! It's subtle, but it's less about Ella's mother enforcing rules and regulations, but offering her own insight.

That's why it's so vital to pay attention to the wording when Ella's mother does ask her to make a promise. She prefaces it first by praising her daughter for the natural strengths she already possesses (groundbreaking) and then, like a teacher, explains how the strengths Ella already has the capacity for already has power and magic (i.e. Ella's mother already believes her daughter is strong). Ella's mother is wishing to bestow EMPOWERMENT on her daughter while she has one last chance so that nothing can ever destroy her when she's not there to help her anymore. Asking Ella to promise to be kind and courageous is asking Ella to trust herself and believe without a doubt that nobody has the power to take those choices away from you.

Furthermore, courage is open ended enough that it still gives Ella the agency to decide what she believes is the courageous thing to do. This is supported time and time again throughout the movie: Ella decides it is courageous to forgive her mother, Ella decides it is courageous to preserve the house she was once happy in, Ella decides it is courageous to disobey her stepmother, Ella decides it is courageous to stand up to a man with ideologies she disagrees with, Ella decides it is courageous to risk her own life and happiness for the sake of the entire kingdom. This is all empowering and it is all because of her mother's influence and not her father's!

In fact, Branagh turns the father narrative a bit on its head. Ella's father is not as strong as her mother was and lets loneliness cloud his judgment. Ella's father then mistreats a woman, who was seeking companionship and agency for her own daughters, because of that misjudgment and not knowing how to handle his mistake. He runs away, belittles his wife behind her back which negatively influences Ella's reaction, and thus sets up a reason for Lady Tremaine to fall back on her own bitterness for safety (which is exactly how you effectively create a villain who is not inherently evil, can be redeemed but still makes the wrong choices foregoing that ultimate redemption - on screen anyhow).

Meanwhile, the entirety of Kit's arc is his struggle against his father. Kit has a soft heart (shocking) that his father wishes to harden with reality and regulation (authoritarian parenting). Kit's father wants him to know what it means to be king. There's so much going on here about how men have a choice too and that shirking off things that are often seen in our society and in fairytales as feminine or ignoring a woman's input is just as unwise as being 'taken in by a woman' because of loneliness, misjudgment, etc. In the end, Ella's mother's spirit influences Ella to challenge Kit to be himself which in turn influences the king and reconciles a father and son (in a beautiful moment that shows how okay it is for men to be tender and openhearted with one another, that it doesn't make them any less princes or kings) and ultimately influences an entire kingdom. Do you see how absolutely powerful that is and how it's all because two women had a healthy relationship when it's usually about a father and daughter?

Now for discussing the other three women in the film, that is Lady Tremaine, Anastasia and Drizella.
Ella's relationship with her mother serves as a Venn Diagram backdrop to Lady Tremaine's relationship with her daughters that I find absolutely subversive and fascinating; I haven't seen many talk about it, but it's there and critical to the narrative. It's also universal in that it can apply to parenting styles/child psychology in general.

In the same way we are given a beautiful glimpse into the way Ella's mother encouraged her, believed in her, nurtured her, and was all around a textbook case for good parenting/teaching, we are given glimpse after glimpse of how Lady Tremaine does not believe in her daughters no matter how much she pushes them to be better. She turns up her nose at their lack of ability rather than nurturing other talents they might have if she were to look beyond the superficial. This point comes to a head when Lady Tremaine herself reveals to Ella that she believes her daughters to be beautiful, but stupid. This underlines the very empowerment and agency that people argue doesn't exist in the film. We are shown the contrast of a mother who doesn't see the worth that already lies in her daughters and how that strips them of empowerment and causes them to be insecure and pitted against one another subconsciously (internalized!). So whereas Ella is empowered to choose her lot in life and fall in love with Kit whether he be apprentice or prince, Lady Tremaine is the one in sole control of her daughters' futures and feels the need to take it upon herself to secure them marriages for the sake of provision (even though she herself claims to have once been married for love).

Now here's where it gets better and why it's so subversive. If you think that the Venn Diagram is lacking anything in the middle, think again. Both Lady Tremaine and Ella's mother love their daughters. That's right. Lady Tremaine's choices are just as inherently motivated by a desire to see good come to her daughters as Ella's mother - she says so explicitly. Circumstances and core values is what separates them in what they see as being good for those daughters. Lady Tremaine believes it is best for her daughters to be married and provided for (subtle narrative that only socially adept women who accept the role of men have agency and a chance to survive) and outlives her husband giving her a hard choice on how to live by her belief system and continue to do good for her daughters. On the other hand, Ella's mother is raising an individual who can stand on her own, but does not live to see her own belief system tested (such as if Ella's father had still died); that responsibility and struggle falls to Ella who must test what she's been taught and prove it true or untrue for herself which is why it's important she has moments of doubt, imperfect and despair and makes choices that maybe aren't the wisest, choosing heart over head (like staying in her family home). Basically, Branagh gives us a film that explores multiple sides of the same die which effectively humanizes why a stepmother may be cruel and why stepsisters may be raised to be the same. (And taking away the layer of feminism you still have a strong overall theme of why parenting is a huge responsibility and why early childhood is such a critical time in a person's development!)

Above I said sometimes when a woman meets with another woman who is cruel, even if she has her reasons, you will be forced to make comparisons of her to other women who are not cruel as a standard and that's not inherently anti-feminist or a pitting of women against women. It's an important point because Branagh had a choice to make when wrapping up Lady Tremaine's story. Which is why I love that Branagh ignored the request from people in focus groups to make Lady Tremaine's demise a lethal one in favor of forgiveness. Because, that is feminism! (obviously it encompasses the entire spectrum of what it means to be a good person, but since I'm focusing on the feminism of the film...) Feminism is realizing not every woman is on the same level and might not ever be, but coexisting and not dehumanizing the other woman for the sake of some rhetoric.

Lady Tremaine tells Ella her reasons and then uses them to justify her cruelty. Ella has the choice to either punish her for all of the lots in life that led to her brokenness and her desperation as soon as she has the power to or say 'no, what you did to me is not okay, but that's not the kind of person I'm going to be to you in return' and she thankfully chooses the latter. Lady Tremaine is still banished and not allowed entrance back in Ella's life (important when you view the film through the lens of abuse), but Ella still realizes that it is healthier to forgive and move on with her own life and allow Lady Tremaine the same right to go on living her own - there is always the possibility that if the story had continued Lady Tremaine's world might have changed in that moment and maybe she even began to heal which is an encouraging thing to consider (looking at you, fan writers).

I would like to just thank Branagh for having the courage to take that route, as someone who has been hurt by women who didn't understand or who were themselves hurt. I would like to thank him since I have often had times in my life where I was Lady Tremaine (or perhaps more appropriately the stepsisters) because I was hurt and responded in kind because there weren't better examples to follow or I just couldn't see past myself. That's the beauty of this film! It shows several women making choices and influencing one another for better or worse without ever stealing their agency away from them, rather showing how agency no matter your sex is a great responsibility (because it is a great power) that does not exist within a vacuum.

The film for all its merits is not above criticism no matter how much I adore it. There are valid complaints to be made, but none of them should be about how Ella is weak and a bad influence following the likes of characters such as Elsa and Anna in Disney's Frozen (actual claims that have been made). There is a sizist joke in which one of the largest, if not the largest, woman who appears in the movie is poked fun at for being unappealing (sweaty, stinky, etc.) and while kudos that she's a hard working woman it's also sad that it had to be a larger woman when a thin woman could be just as unappealing for the same reasons; however, it is so fleeting that it could have been worse and the movie mostly sidesteps demeaning people on their looks (the movie, for example, doesn't equate stupidity with physical ugliness with the stepsisters as Ella herself thinks they are lovely on the outside). Another criticism could be the narration - I've seen the complaint that it removes you from the story and breaks the flow. Personally I think it adds whimsy and another female voice to have Helena Bonham Carter's brilliantly portrayed fairy godmother narrate the story throughout, but I can understand the complaint. I can also see where maybe it was a choice based on test audiences just not following along or a concern that the younger audience might need some cues. I can understand that completely as even with those cues too many adult reviewers are just absolutely dense about the script - so if anything maybe Branagh should have made it Cinderella: Pop Up Addition complete with interstitial moments where he comes out onto the screen with a red sharpie to highlight what people have completely missed.

Of course, the main criticism that could be had is that the movie is 98% white. On the one hand, I'm thrilled that Nonso Anozie has a main part as the Captain, sidestepping the rule of thumb that a poc can not have a position of power in a period fantasy because of "historical accuracy" or other such nonsense. The Captain is truly one of the most delightful parts of the film (seriously, I'd marry him just as fast as I'd marry Kit!) as he understands Kit, challenges him, speaks to him as a friend as much as a subject, is loyal to him, and proves his merit time and again as a contrast to the Grand Duke. That said, it would have been nice for more diversity. By bucking the norm with one poc in a position of power, it would have been nice to see that nonconformity carry to somewhere else in the film. While I don't believe in colorblindness on a whole, the colorblind Broadway-based adaptation with Brandy in the 90s at least gave us talking points on why in fantasy it shouldn't matter the color of the character's skin as the story is still the same (as well as talking points on interracial relationships) and I think that's where this adaptation, nearly 20 years later!, is lacking.

Honestly, I could talk for days (and have) about this movie. I haven't even touched on the fairy godmother, the acting, the filmography, the costuming, the score, the countless quotes that have been like lights and inspiration for me in a very dark year, and other little nuances that keep me coming back to this movie like a thirsty person. But at the very heart I have to say what I think I love most about Branagh's Cinderella is if you take it beyond its worth as a film about females, it's simply a beautiful movie about people. It's about relationships and choices and the various types of strength that exist in this vastly complicated and deeply marred world. It's about how different people can go through the same thing or something similar and come out on the other side totally unalike. Some come out resilient, others broken. Some who have been hurt, hurt others. Some who have been hurt never want to hurt another human being even if they continue to hurt in the process. Some people are kind by nature and some have to learn it, but at the end of the day we all have the capacity for magic.

Which is what leads me to the quote I chose for the title of this post.

She saw the world, not always as it was, but as it could be.

Which is to say there is hope for everybody even when it seems like there isn't and even when others operate in the realm of how this world often is (dark, selfish, cruel, angry, sad) or we're tempted to do so ourselves (because we're only human) that doesn't mean we can't operate in the realm of how it could be or at the very least believe in that potential and strive for it. That's precisely what this movie is all about and there's absolutely nothing wrong or problematic about that. Perhaps those who say otherwise are simply scared that kindness, a very difficult trait, and courage, also difficult, really are the answer because it would mean they would have to try harder - and I say that as someone from experience who is neither of those things naturally but who will never stop trying to be better at them.

In essence the message of the film reminds me of the timeless quote by Wilferd Peterson (who, ironically credited his views on life on the inspiration and collaboration of his wife who lived the way he idealized) -

Walk with the dreamers, the believers, the courageous, the cheerful, the planners, the doers, the successful people with their heads in the clouds and their feet on the ground. Let their spirit ignite a fire within you to leave this world better than when you found it.