Guest Post: Disney's Sleeping Beauty with Matthew!

Disney’s Sleeping Beauty

or “Why Disney Didn’t Make Another Faerie Tale Movie for Over Thirty Years After This”

Let’s be clear. I’m not going to say that this movie has nothing to offer. I love the animation style, I love the good faeries, and I love the villain. The parts that are good about this movie are incredibly good. The parts that aren’t so good, on the other hand . . . well . . .

Now, to be fair, the original story doesn’t have a lot to offer. Girl is cursed to prick finger and fall into extended sleep, girl does this, is rescued in quite possibly the lamest rescue ever, they live happily ever after. Simple, straightforward, and about as dull as faerie tales ever get. And Disney made a good attempt at making it more interesting. They had a good thing going for a lot of it. But on the whole, they still focused too much on the things that were dull and uninteresting about the original story.

But let’s start at the beginning. We start with our storybook backstory, learning of King Stefan and his wife having a daughter named Aurora. We see the ensuing celebration, and we can already tell that this movie is going to be markedly different from the previous ones. The animation is a little more--for lack of a better word--artsy. Also, this movie draws a lot of inspiration from Tchaikovsky’s ballet adaptation of the story. It uses much of his music, and even a lot of the movements of the characters are very dance like. I think a lot of people found this shift a style a bit off-putting, which might be partly why this movie didn’t do nearly as well, but I really like it. I actually wish they’d taken it a bit further. How fascinating would a nearly silent animated version of this story be?

But I digress. Stefan asks for the three good faeries of the realm, Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather, to bestow their magical gifts on the child. Flora gives her the gift of beauty, and Fauna gives her the gift of song. (I mean, she’s gotta be able to sing. It’s a Disney movie.) But before Merryweather can give her gift, the shit hits the fan, and the evil faerie, Maleficent, appears in a torrent of green flame.

And, my GOD, but I love Maleficent. She is easily one of the most badass Disney villains ever created. Everything from her name to her outfit to her methods is just absolutely badass. Her motivation is the only thing that’s really lacking, as she still as the same motivation as her story counterpart: she was snubbed at the party. Only where the book faerie kind of lost interest, Maleficent actively tries to find and kill Aurora throughout the movie. But then again, she’s kind of one of those villains who defies motivation. She’s just evil.

So Maleficent does her thing, casts her evil spell, and leaves, and Merryweather does her thing, casts her not-really-terribly-helpful-at-all spell, and the King Stefan decides to solve the problem by burning all the spinning wheels in the kingdom.

The difference, though, is that it doesn’t end there. They don’t just put the sleep spell on her, burn the spinning wheels, and say “Well, that’s that, problem solved!” The three faeries in particular know that they’ve only delayed the problem, that it would be far better for the spell to never occur at all, and that Maleficent wants her dead, and won’t stop pursuing her until she is, one way or another. So, since Maleficent was very specific as to the exact time that Aurora would be pricking her finger, they come up with the bright idea of hiding Aurora in the woods and raising her as a peasant until that day passes. What’s going to keep Maleficent from just cursing her again, I don’t know, but one plot hole at a time.

So, they take her to the woods to live as a peasant, and . . . sixteen years pass. This, to me, is one of the moments when the movie missed a golden opportunity for some solid storytelling. The faeries have to live without magic in order to keep Maleficent from noticing them, and they don’t really know how to function without magic. The King and Queen have just given up their daughter and watching her grow up for sixteen years. And the princess is going to be living as a peasant, completely separated from all civilization and all people outside the three good faeries, while being hunted down by an evil faerie who wants to kill her. Does this situation not seem RIPE with interesting story ideas? But no. We’ll just skip ahead to her sixteenth birthday and pick up the story from there. Yeah, okay.

So, Maleficent has not been entirely idle this whole time. She’s had her little minions looking for the baby for sixteen years. But, as we learn in the next scene, they have literally been looking for a baby for sixteen years, not realizing that in the course of those years, the baby has grown up into lovely young woman with all the personality of a beige shower curtain.

This same woman, renamed Briar Rose to protect her identity, is actually a girl of sixteen at this point, though she doesn’t look like any sixteen year old I’ve ever seen, and the three faeries send her off to pick berries--because that’s what you do when you need distraction in the forest, right? Berries?--while they prepare for her birthday party, which will include the revelation that Briar Rose is actually the Princess Aurora, and she gets to leave the life of seclusion she’s always known and go to a life of having everyone know who she is and be required by law to obey and essentially worship her. That doesn’t sound jarring at all, does it?

What follows is hands down the most unspeakably dull scene in the entire movie, where Aurora does her Disney princess thing and sings and dances with her animal friends, who decide to dress up as a dance partner for her, until a real dance partner shows up! A mysterious man who overheard her singing, and decided to join her in a manner that is NOT AT ALL creepy! It’s just a man watching a girl alone in the woods and then pursuing her affections. No big.

But because Aurora is a complete idiot, she falls in love with this mystery man, and agrees to meet him that night at her cottage. So, not only does she not run away from this man, she tells him where she lives. Stellar. Also, she doesn’t know his name.

Meanwhile, the faeries realize that, after sixteen years, they still can’t cook or sew without the aid of magic. How they’ve managed to raise a small child during that time is anyone’s guess, but they eventually decide to do the party right and use magic for the first time in sixteen years to throw Aurora this party. This scene has some good animation and comedy, as Flora and Merryweather argue over whether the dress should be pink or blue, and subsequently get into a magical fight of color and sparkles that I’m sure is not in any way noticeable to Maleficent’s pet Raven, who is looking for any sign of the lost princess. Except that it totally is.

So. Aurora arrives home. She tells her “aunts” that she’s met a man, they tell her that she’s a princess, is returning home tonight, and is already betrothed to a prince from another kingdom named Philip. So, there’s drama all around, but Aurora’s despair has nothing to do with the fact that she’s about to experience a radical change of lifestyle. No, it’s just because she doesn’t get to meet up with the boy she’s only just met and has fallen in love with.

Meanwhile, the mystery man--who, in a twist of fate that could only come from Disney, IS that same Prince Philip that Aurora is betrothed to--tells his father that he’s fallen in love with a peasant woman. This displeases his father, King Hubert, because Philip has long been betrothed to the Princess Aurora from the neighboring kingdom, who is returning to her parents today, in fact. Philip doesn’t listen, and goes to meet his mystery peasant girl anyway, because TRUE LOVE!!!

Meanwhile, the faeries escort the moping Aurora back to the palace, where she is lured away by Maleficent, and compelled to touch the spindle and fall into the enchanted sleep . . . which kind of begs the question, if Maleficent is powerful enough to make her do whatever she wants, why go through all the business with the curse? Why not just have her throw herself off the highest tower or something? Would’ve been a hell of a lot easier. But oh well. The curse has come to pass, and the faeries put the rest of the kingdom to sleep as well, until the curse can be broken by--what else?--true love’s kiss.

And as it happens, the faeries learn through King Hubert that Prince Philip is the SAME GUY that Aurora fell in love with in the woods! Oh, happy day! Unfortunately, Maleficent gets to him first, tying him up and putting him through probably the most cruel torture ever devised by a Disney villain: instead of killing him, she’s going to keep him alive until he’s an old man, and THEN, she’ll let him go and break Aurora’s curse.

 . . . I mean, damn. Let’s all just sit for a moment and ponder that.

But, the three good faeries come to his rescue, arm him with the SWORD of TRUTH and the SHIELD of VIRTUE (also the PEN of SUBTLETY), and--let’s just be honest here--basically do all the work for him while he could charging through. I mean, on the one hand, I love the fact that three middle aged women are essentially the heroes of the story, but on the other hand, it’s a little disappointing to realize that your SWORD of TRUTH only slew the dragon because the faeries charmed it to do so. Ah, well, still better than just having the wall of thorns give way to the prince without him so much having to hack his way through, I suppose.

Oh, yeah, and Maleficent turns into a dragon. Badass.

Anyway, Maleficent is defeated, Philip enters the palace, breaks the spell with true love’s kiss, everyone wakes up, the prearranged marriage is okay because they fell in love with each other anyway, happily ever after, etc.

This movie has so much incredible potential, and yet falls so short of what it could have been. I won’t say it isn’t an improvement on the original story, because it most certainly is, but that’s not saying a whole lot, and I can see why so many people view this movie as a disappointment.

The checklist:

Have somebody do something? Well, the faeries certainly do. Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather are essentially the heroes of this story. They’re the only real active participants in it, it’s their idea to do more for Aurora than just burn the spinning wheels and hope for the best, and they fight Maleficent in the end. And Maleficent, far from just making a brief appearance at the beginning, is one of the most active characters in the movie, as is often the case with villains. However, the main characters still do very little. Prince Philip does do a little more than his counterpart, as he does actually have to fight his way to the palace to save Aurora. But Aurora is actually, in a way, LESS active. At least in the original story, the princess went exploring when she found the spinning wheel. This Aurora has to be magically compelled. So, seeing as how she’s still the main character of the story, half a point.

Introduce some conflict? Hells yeah! Ultimately, this whole story isn’t so much about the sleeping beauty as it is about the fight between the faeries, and Maleficent’s apparent vendetta against King Stefan and his daughter is so obsessive that it pretty much guarantees conflict. It’s one of the big things that movie’s got going for it.

Give the parents a reason for their stupid: Not really an issue, as Aurora is spirited away from the palace, and the parents are actually there to celebrate her sixteenth birthday. And the reason they didn’t invite Maleficent is obvious. I mean, she’s basically the devil.

Flesh out the world: Check. This is probably what Disney faerie tale adaptations do best. They remove the ambiguity of setting that’s natural for faerie tales and put them in a real life context. There’s still some ambiguity, of course, but I appreciate that there is a definite structure to the story. Two kingdoms with a definite political structure in place, the kings have names, magic exists with faeries, and the love interest is actually given a name other than “Charming.”

As far as an adaptation of a faerie tale, yes, this movie is a vast improvement. However, if you’re interested in how I think it could have been done better, well . . . read my review of Tangled.

Guest Post! Hoodwinked with Jesse

So, because it is looking doubtful that a book review is going to be posted today (I’m sorry guys; I know I’m so behind. April has been stupid busy at both jobs, I’ve got a show opening tonight, and it’s not that I’ve been procrastinating on writing the reviews — I honestly haven’t had time to read the books), have a guest review from Jesse (codedlockfilms)!

Fairy Tale Reviews: Hoodwinked! by Jesse Coder

Hail and well met, friends. So, I am a big ol’ fan of fairy tales that have been deconstructed and told from another perspective. This penchant of mine began in the early 90’s when I first read Jon Scieszka’s The Stinky Cheese Man and other Fairly Stupid Tales, a short children’s book of parody fairy tales, including such stories as “Cinderrumpelstilskin,” “Chicken Licken,” and yes, “Little Red Running Shorts.” My love for this type of story continued with some of Scieszka’s other books, like The True Story of the Three Little Pigs and The Frog Prince, Continued (seriously, if you have not read any of Scieszka’s books, give them a look) and has continued to this day. Into the Woods is one of my favorite theatre productions ever, I adore the Maynard Moose Tales by Willy Claflin, and I greatly enjoy Enchanted, which is, in my opinion, one of Disney’s most underrated movies.

And yet, for as much as I love this type of story, I had not seen Hoodwinked! until about 6 or 7 years after it came out. This was not a movie that advertised itself well. The trailers looked dumb, the animation looked really half-assed, and it just seemed generally unappealing. I probably would have never seen the movie at all if not for my friend Jethro, and when I saw this movie for the first time, it reminded me of something. You see, no matter what your preconceptions are, no matter how well you might think you have something pegged, no matter how often your instincts about your entertainment are proven correct, you should at least give everything a chance, because stuff can still surprise you. Hoodwinked! is not only one of my favorite fairy tale adaptations; it is also a proud member of my personal favorite-movies-ever list. So let’s take a look at the film, shall we?

Hoodwinked! begins with the climax. Interesting choice. Okay, it doesn’t begin with THE climax, just A climax. Specifically, the climax of the Red Riding Hood story with which we are all familiar. Red Riding Hood enters her granny’s house and finds the wolf in her grandmother’s bed, wearing a conveniently provided costume, complete with a novelty mask. Where he got that, we don’t know. At the moment. More on that shortly. They do that whole “what big blanks, the better to blank you with” deal (wow, that sounds really bad when worded like that) and the Wolf swiftly loses his cool. He and Red square off, Granny stumbles out of the closet all tied up, and the Woodsman bursts through a window, swinging his axe and yelling like a crazy person. The title screen then pops up, and we cut to shortly thereafter, where the police have the place surrounded and cordoned off, with Red, Granny, the Wolf, and the Woodsman all in custody. The police chief, a grizzly bear, decides to just take them all downtown, though as one of the officers points out, they don’t have a downtown, this being the woods and all. But before he can do so, a famous frog detective by the name of Nicky Flippers stops by to get to the bottom of the case. He begins to interrogate each of the suspects to get their respective versions of the story, beginning with Red.

She begins her day like any other, making deliveries for her Granny Puckett’s sweets shop. See, the forest in which this story takes place has something of a pastry-based economy, where the only goods that ever seem to get exchanged are cakes, crumpets, muffins, things of that sort. And schnitzel. But we’ll get to that. Red spends a short amount of time talking to a bunny named Boingo, who tells her that he is no longer able to make deliveries for the Muffin Man. This is because the Muffin Man is the latest victim of a criminal known as the Goody Bandit, who has been stealing recipes all over the forest, putting everyone out of business. Red decides to take the recipe book from her shop and make the dangerous trip up the mountain to her Granny’s house, where she believes that the recipes will be safe. She disguises the recipes within a fake basket of goodies and takes a short cable car ride towards the mountain peaks, but ends up accidentally falling out of the car and landing completely unharmed in the middle of the woods, because this is a cartoon, and you can do things like that. She encounters the Wolf, who asks her a bunch of questions and acts generally suspicious before attempting to take the basket from her. She proceeds to beat the crap out of him and escapes by tricking him into falling into the river. Awesome. She then finds a path up the mountain and encounters Japeth the mountain goat. And please, if you go the rest of your life without seeing Hoodwinked!, please at least watch this one scene. It’s edited for time; it’ll only take you three and a half minutes, and you will be glad you watched it. Just trust me, no summarization could possibly convey the humor of this scene adequately. Go on, watch it. I’ll wait.

No, seriously, I’ll wait. This post will still be here in three and a half minutes. Go.

…Did you watch it? I hope so, because all I am going to say is, “I know! Amazing, right?” And you’ll need to know what happens in that scene to understand some of the stuff I talk about in the rest of this post. No, I am not giving you a choice. Watch the damn scene.

Red then arrives at Granny Puckett’s house and the opening climax happens again, albeit primarily from Red’s point of view. The detective then begins to question the Wolf, because there are a few distinct holes in Red’s telling of the story. The Wolf, as it turns out, is actually an investigative reporter who formerly worked on the old Stiltskin case, chasing down leads on his real name. Cute. He is currently investigating the Goody Bandit case, and believes that Red is a prime suspect, since more goodies pass through her hands than anyone else in the forest. He follows her around looking for evidence, and approaches her in the woods to ask her the questions we saw him asking earlier in the movie. Through this, we get new insight into the events of the scene in question. For instance, Red heard him growling before coming out of the bushes, but it was really his stomach growling because he skipped lunch. Also, his supposed “attack” on her was actually just him crying out in pain as his tail gets caught in his photographer’s camera winder. The reason he asks questions of her is not because he wants to eat her Granny, but because he is a reporter. The reason he tries to steal the basket is because he thinks the stolen recipes are inside. That sort of thing. We also learn why the track that Red was on earlier was blown out. (Told you you’d need to watch that scene.) He then shows up at Granny Puckett’s cottage looking for more clues. In an attempt to get some answers out of Red, he disguises himself using some novelty Granny Puckett merchandise (remember, she runs a famous sweets shop) and the opening climax plays again from yet another perspective.

As with Red’s story, there are still some holes left over, so the Woodsman is questioned, and as it turns out, he actually has very little to do with the story at hand. He’s not really a woodsman; he’s a struggling actor named Kirk who tried out for a part in a commercial for Paul’s Bunion Cream. His day job is driving a schnitzel truck for a bunch of nightmare fuel children. He got a callback for the audition and was in the forest doing a bit of method acting when he chopped down a particularly large tree and ended up accidentally on top of it. He rolled down a hill and crashed through Granny Puckett’s window, screaming in terror. Like you do.

With Kirk not being much help, it’s Granny’s turn to be questioned, and she confesses her big secret: She is an extreme sports junkie that goes by the handle of “Triple G.” I am so not even kidding. She is in the middle of competing in a high-speed downhill ski race when she is attacked by the “European team,” a team secretly made up of mercenaries sent by the Goody Bandit to put Granny out of commission. If you haven’t yet figured this out, this movie is kind of insane. To get rid of them, she uses a few grenades (because of course she has grenades) to cause the avalanche that almost inadvertently killed Red (I really wasn’t kidding when I said you would need to see that scene) and parachutes down to her cottage. She accidentally lands in the chimney, gets tangled up in the parachute, and stumbles into the closet, which is why she is tied up in the opening climax.

With the questioning done, Nicky Flippers considers the evidence, while Red slips away to have an existential crisis about what it actually means to be a Puckett, since basically everything she knew about her grandmother is a lie. This is honestly the weakest part of the movie, and while it’s mostly played for laughs, it’s still kind of forced. But it’s only a small flaw in an otherwise solid movie. Nicky puts everything together and deduces that the Goody Bandit is actually the rabbit Boingo, since he was mentioned in all their stories at some point. It’s more complicated than that, but this is a summation, after all. Suffice it to say that you pretty much knew it was going to be him from the beginning, given that he was voiced by Andy Dick. See, Boingo was sick of working as a low-rate peon for the likes of Granny and the Muffin Man, so his plan is to steal every recipe in the woods, then blow up the entire forest and build a massive factory, where he will put addictive chemicals into his sweets and take over the market. Yeah…

Um, Boingo, I get that you’re the cartoonishly evil villain and everything, but how exactly do you plan on controlling the entire market for sweets when you’re about to blow up the forest that the market exists to serve? I don’t care how addictive your goodies are; you can’t sell cookies to smoking piles of rubble and charred flesh. You just don’t seem to have really thought this one through, is all I’m saying. My advice is to not be voiced by Andy Dick if you can help it; he doesn’t really possess the ability to play characters with actual dimension.

So Red confronts Boingo, but it turns out that he knows ear-based kung fu, so he beats her and straps her into the cable car that is set to blow the forest sky-high. If it seems like my descriptions are a little dry here, please understand that it is only because this is the kind of movie where such bizarre things happen that I think the best way to make it entertaining is to just tell you what happens and let the events speak for themselves. Luckily, the Wolf, Kirk, and Granny are able to mount a rescue, since the cops have already gone in the wrong direction, expecting to find the Goody Bandit robbing Red’s cottage. The cable car is sent down the mountain, but Red manages to free herself from her restraints as Granny grinds down the rail on a muffin pan to help her escape. They free the cable car from the line, and it falls into the river, and since the explosives powerful enough to level a forest were underwater when they went off, no harm is done. Cartoon, remember? The villains are captured and sent to prison, the recipes are returned, and Nicky Flippers invites our protagonists to join a secret team that travels the world ensuring that stories have happy endings. And our movie comes to a close.

Hoodwinked! is a movie that only exists because of a lot of luck. Its animation is distinctly subpar, the result of a less than 8 million dollar budget, which is pocket change in the world of animation. But the animation they could afford is used to great effect. It may not look smooth overall, but each character is animated with a distinct personality and the comedic timing is flawless. This is a movie that was made not because some big studio thought it would make a ton of money, but because a tiny team of creative people knew they had a good idea and fought tooth and nail to make it happen. It had a fantastic cast of voice actors, including the talents of Glenn Close, Anne Hathaway, Patrick Warburton, Jim Belushi, and many others. But does it hit the important points on Cassie’s list?

1. Make Little Red less of an idiot. Absolutely. She is portrayed as very intelligent, independent, and able to take care of herself, as well as being much more proactive. It’s her idea to take the recipes to Granny for safekeeping, it’s her that confronts the villain first, and thankfully, she also didn’t fall for the Wolf’s disguise. She just wanted to keep him talking long enough to get him to incriminate himself, since she thinks he might be the Goody Bandit. She has a distinct character arc, if a relatively small one, and was a very enjoyable protagonist.

2. Develop the world. Yes. The forest has a defined geography, culture, and even an economy. It’s not just the wolves who talk; it’s all the animals, to the point that humans are actually a very small minority. The wolf doesn’t want to eat the humans; he wants to get a scoop on the Goody Bandit. The wolf isn’t mistaken for Granny; that is an act on Red’s part. A little girl is allowed to go by herself into the woods because the animals are all completely sentient and possessed of human-level intelligence, so they are safe to interact with unless they happen to be evil. The only question that isn’t really answered is what the carnivorous animals eat. It’s sort of implied that they do get hungry for meat, but we can probably just assume that they subsist mainly on sweets, just like everyone else.

3. Give me a point. Yes. In fact, that is the whole idea behind the movie: To give the original story a point by looking at the perspectives of each of the characters involved and figure out what is really going on with the story at hand. The reason we are telling this story is to finish telling the story. If that makes sense. There are even little messages about growing up and moving on, as well as teaching the value of honesty. Plus a message about being prepared. Quite well done.

As I have said, Hoodwinked! is not a movie that I expected to enjoy. But as I sit before you, behind the words and lines of code, through the tubes of the Internet and back onto my computer where I am typing this long before you will see it, I say to you that despite its limitations, it is brilliantly constructed, brilliantly acted, and it is one of the funniest movies I have ever seen in my entire life. Do yourself a favor and see it at least once. I guarantee that you will not regret it. Or at least watch that one scene. The link’s still up there, if you haven’t looked already.

…Do it.

Guest Post: Disney's Cinderella (from Matthew)

Disney’s Cinderella

or “Why This Movie Really Isn’t As Bad As You Think It Is” - by Matt Guion

Seriously, people. It’s not.

Okay, to be fair, Disney’s Cinderella is one of the earliest movies I remember watching. My family didn’t get a VCR until I was about three, and we only had a handful of VHS home movies, of which Cinderella was one, and one that I watched a lot. So yeah, there’s a fair amount of nostalgia attached with this film. But the same can also be said for Shirley Temple’s The Little Princess, and I have no qualms whatsoever about ripping that movie to shreds. So, that being said . . .

Cinderella came after something of a dry spell for Disney animation, partly due to the war and a reliance on “package films,” or movies that told more than one story. Cinderella was the first full length animated feature since Bambi to tell one story, and only the second full length animated feature to be based on a faerie tale. And like Snow White, it was a big hit, and effective started Disney’s classic era, which would sustain them for much of the next couple decades.

This time, Disney tackled a story that was well-known and universal, the classic rags to riches story, and while they definitely put the Disney spin on it, they also stayed pretty true to the source material. But what I have found, after watching it again, is that the things about this movie that I’m not crazy about are the things from the original story that they stayed true to. Pretty much everything Disney DID add their touch to, I liked better.

So, starting from the beginning: the movie opens, just as Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, with the storybook exposition, where a narrator gives us the beginning of the story. Cinderella -- who, incidentally, has that name with no sort of explanation behind it -- is the daughter of a wealthy widower, who marries Lady Tremaine believing that Cinderella needs a mother. Lady Tremaine has two daughters of her own, Anastasia and Druzella, both of whom are generally spiteful and mean-tempered. Then, Cinderella’s father dies (thus, taking care of that little problem from the story) leaving Cinderella at the mercy of her stepfamily, who now reveal their true colors and treat Cinderella as little more than a servant.

Which brings us to our first “issue” that people cite with this story. Why doesn’t Cinderella just leave, if her family is treating her so badly? Well, let me answer your question with a question: where would she go? It’s indicated that she’s still a child when her father dies, and thus, her stepmother is her legal guardian. When she is old enough to take her life into her own hands, as it were, she’s no longer the daughter of an aristocrat. She’s a commoner, a servant. Her stepmother has basically stripped away whatever legal claim she might have had to her father’s estate. And awful as Lady Tremaine is, she’s still giving Cinderella a place to stay. Yeah, Cinderella has to work, but she has a home, she has food on her plate, and a roof over her head. She’s not going to give that up lightly. Also, when you’ve been raised from childhood to be a servant to your stepmother, you kind of grow up with that inferior mindset into adulthood. Also, legality aside, I do think that Cinderella still sees the place as her father’s house. We’re told that it’s falling into disrepair, because Lady Tremaine cares little for it, and Cinderella has a vested interested in staying.

So for better or worse, Cinderella stays and allows herself to be treated as a servant. But it’s worth noting that this Cinderella is considerably more interesting than her Perrault counterpart, as well as more interesting than the other Disney princesses from this time before being a Disney princess was even a thing. She actually has a very enjoyable personality. Yes, she’s optimistic and kind against all odds, but she can also be vaguely sarcastic, as though she’s on the very edge of talking back at times. Unlike Snow White, who just seemed oblivious, and Aurora, who actually was oblivious, Cinderella seems fully aware that her situation pretty well sucks, but she’s trying to make the best of it that she possibly can. I wouldn’t call her content with her situation. More like resigned. Her attitude seems to be, “I may not like the lot life has dealt me, but there’s not a whole lot I can do about it, so I may as well try to make the best of it.” And unlike Perrault’s Cinderella, who isn’t even able to make her wish and has to have the Fairy Godmother do even that for her, this one does actually try to make her life suck less. It just doesn’t seem to work. She befriends a group of mice, and one of them accidentally gets into trouble. She sings while she works, and Lucifer the Worst Little Demon Cat Ever messes up the floor she was cleaning. She finds a dress to wear to the ball, and . . . but I’m getting ahead of myself.

As I said, Cinderella--being a Disney princess--has animal friends. Birds, who don’t talk, and mice, who sadly do. (And if befriending mice in your house doesn’t force you take a step back and reexamine your life situation, then I don’t know what will.) And this is the one thing Disney did that I’m NOT wild about: the mice. And really, it’s not even the mice themselves. It’s their voices. The mice themselves actually have very enjoyable personalities, with Jaq and Gus taking on an Abbott and Costello style friendship. In a way, this movie is kind of their perspective of the story. Cinderella from the point of view of the mice. I mean, yeah, it’s mostly a bunch of filler material of Tom and Jerry-style antics with Lucifer, but they’re still enjoyable to watch.

So, the plot properly gets going when Cinderella answers the door to a royal official with an invitation to the ball, which she promptly takes up to her stepfamily. And again, to her credit, unlike Perrault’s Cinderella, this Cinderella does actually assert herself here. While her stepsisters are laughing at the idea of her going to the ball, Cinderella points out that EVERY eligible maiden is to attend, and that includes her. Lady Tremaine reluctantly agrees on the condition that she finish her work AND find something to wear . . . which she will, of course, make impossible by keeping her constantly busy.

So, singing mice to the rescue! Cinderella has a dress and an idea of how to fix it up, but she doesn’t have time to do it herself, so . . . the mice do it. This leads to one of the more creative, though also sillier, sequences of the movie where the mice and the birds fix up the dress . . . while singing. (Ugh.) It also leads to another fun sequence with Lucifer, as well as the whole “Leave the sewing to the women,” line that kind of irritates me. But regardless, Cinderella tells her stepfamily that she’s not going, tries to make herself feel better and fails, and then the mice surprise her with her newly updated dress. Delighted, she puts it on, and rushes downstairs to join her stepfamily in going to the ball.

Unfortunately, the mice, in their innocence, used things that the stepsisters had discarded in order to work on Cinderella’s dress, specifically a sash and a necklace of beads, and they use that as an excuse to rip Cinderella’s dress to pieces. The stepfamily leaves Cinderella standing in the ruins of her dress as they go off to the ball without her.

So, yeah . . . SHE FREAKING CRIES. Guess what? So would I! She’s been trying to make the best of a crappy situation for so long, she thought she’d finally have a chance to escape, at least for a little while, and then she’s attacked by her stepsisters -- and I mean physically attacked, that scene is creepy! -- while her stepmother did nothing. This was the breaking point. This was the point when she just couldn’t take it anymore. We’ve all been there, and Cinderella has been through more than most. Cut her some slack, folks.

Anyway, she’s had enough. She’s hit her lowest point. She doesn’t even see the point of dreaming anymore. And that’s when the Godmother shows up. Not when she’s doing her best to dream and hope and do what she can, but when she’s lost all hope and needs someone to give her some. And the Godmother doesn’t just grant her this wish on a whim. This is exactly what Cinderella needs, and not just because the Prince is going to be there. So, the Fairy Godmother is not someone who rescues a helpless damsel in distress, but someone who gives hope to someone who has lost it.

So, the Fairy Godmother sings her song and casts her spell and gives Cinderella her warning, and Cinderella is off to the ball. Now, we’ve been ignoring the prince all this time, so let’s turn to him for a bit.

 . . . Yeah, not much to say about the Prince. He doesn’t show up until the ball, and has little to no personality. But we can talk about the king and the duke for a bit.

So, the King is the one who is so gung-ho to marry his son off, very simply because he wants grandchildren. This seems to be partly practical -- carry on the family line -- and partly personal -- his son has long since grown, and the King misses the child he once was. So really, the King is the real love interest in this story. He’s the one with the schemes and the desire for his son to be married. He’s looking after his own happiness rather than his son’s, but the character is so funny and likable that we don’t really mind how selfish and unreasonable he’s being. The King has a very belabored Grand Duke, who basically does all of his bidding and helps to carry out the King’s schemes.

The Prince, therefore, is bored out of his skull during the ball . . . until Cinderella turns up. He sees her, wandering through the palace lost, and approaches her for a dance. And somehow, Cinderella is unaware that this is the Prince. I mean, okay, he’s dressed like any other nobleman at the ball, but given that everyone’s, you know, looking at him and deferring to him, you’d think it would’ve been obvious. But never mind. They dance, obviously infatuated with each other, while we hear “So, This is Love.” Whether they’re actually in love . . . well, I personally think the question is irrelevant, for reasons I’ll explain later.

The dance the night away, and the clock strikes twelve, and Cinderella is off and running. The Prince makes a few token protests (seriously, three lines and a song, that’s all this guy gets) before he is engulfed by adoring young women and obscured from the remainder of the plot. The Duke, who has been charged with keeping an eye on them and informing the King when the Prince proposes, runs after her instead and sends the palace guards after her, knowing that his neck is on the line. (Again: the duke does all this. Not the Prince.) And of course, Cinderella loses the slipper.

Cinderella’s ensemble changes back to pumpkin, mice, horse, dog, and rags, and since the palace guards aren’t looking for those things, they run right past. Cinderella, far from being disappointed, is actually quite happy, and why shouldn’t she be? She got out of the house, away from her stepfamily, got to go to a royal ball, danced with a handsome guy, basically had a one-night stand without the sex, and even though she has to go back to her old life, this night just might be enough to restore her hope in the future again. And of course, she still has the other glass slipper. And no, it’s never explained why the other things disappear and not this. I guess we have to assume that the Fairy Godmother had enough magic to at least let her keep the shoes.

The scene that follows, where the Duke tells the King that the girl got away, is one of the most hilarious scenes in the movie, as the King goes from being giddy at the thought of his son getting married to flying into a murderous rage when hearing that the Duke let the girl get away, and then back to delighted once he learns that the Prince has said he’ll marry the girl who fits the slipper. So here, the King sees an opportunity. The King isn’t really terribly picky whether the Prince marries the girl he loves or not, he just wants him to marry someone. So since the Prince has, probably in a fit of passionate grief, sworn he’ll marry the girl who fits the glass slipper (most likely meaning the girl who owns the slipper), the King intends to hold him to that exact promise, probably thinking that someone is bound to fit the slipper, it doesn’t matter who. Just so long as she can bear grandchildren.

Next morning, as the stepfamily is suffering a post-ball hangover, the King’s proclamation arrives. The stepmother sees the same opportunity that King did, though from the other end of it. The shoe could easily fit either Anastasia’s or Druzella’s foot as well as anyone’s. Once she explains this to her rather dense daughters, they immediately fly into a frenzy, ordering Cinderella around as usual so they can get ready for the arrival of the Duke.

Cinderella, however, isn’t listening. Because she has caught on as well, and this is one thing I love about this moment of the movie. Cinderella not only realizes that the guy she danced with last night is looking for her, but that he’s the Prince. Cinderella had already given up ever seeing him again, dismissing her feelings as infatuation that she would get over eventually. But this isn’t just any suitor: this is the Prince. This is someone who can finally get Cinderella out of her crummy situation. This is her way out.

And once she realizes that, she STOPS listening to her stepfamily. She doesn’t do what they’re ordering her to do; she hands off the clothes and goes to get ready for the Duke. She essentially extends her middle finger to her stepfamily, and goes off to do her own thing, never thinking for a moment that there’s a damn thing they can do about it, because the Prince is looking for HER, and she knows it. Unfortunately, she completely underestimates her stepmother’s bitchiness, and gets locked in her own tower.

So, it’s not like she does NOTHING here. She knows she’s finally getting her break, and prepares for it. The reason why she is thwarted here and has to be rescued is because she’s locked in a remote tower. She can’t jump out the window, she can’t yell for help, and she can’t break out of the door. There’s literally nothing she can do.

So once again, mice to the rescue! As the stepsisters are comically trying on the tiny slipper on their overly large feet, Jaq and Gus retrieve the key from Lady Tremaine’s pocket and start laboriously moving it up the stairs. And can we just stop and look at how freaking badass these mice are? I mean, did you SEE all those stairs? Damn.

Okay, so they bring the key to the top of the tower, but just as they are about to slide it under the door, Lucifer the Cat That Just Needs to Freaking Die Already, traps Gus and the key under a cup and won’t let him go. And now, we have to look at what Cinderella does next. When the birds are having no luck deterring Lucifer, Cinderella remembers the dog, Bruno. Now, earlier in the movie, Cinderella scolded Bruno for terrorizing Lucifer, even though Lucifer totally deserved it, because they had to learn to live together and get along. But now that Lucifer is directly keeping Cinderella from happiness, she says, “Fuck that shit, get the dog up here so he can get rid of this little spawn of Satan.” The birds do, Lucifer falls out the window, and Cinderella is able to free herself and rush downstairs before the Duke storms out in a huff. Lady Tremaine trips the Duke so that the slipper falls and shatters, but even as the Duke is freaking out, Cinderella just calmly pulls out the other slipper. She already knows that she’s won.

And she has. We don’t know what becomes of the stepfamily, but Cinderella and the Prince get married and go off to make grandchildren for the now ecstatic King, and they all live Happily Ever After.

It’s easy to write this movie off as “Just another Disney movie,” but I think they did a much better job with this movie than people give them credit for. Again, if anything, the problems in this movie have more to do with the source material than how Disney adapted it.

But to the checklist:

Give Cinderella control over her destiny: I would say check. Though this Cinderella isn’t the most active of the Disney princesses, she’s still a hell of a lot more active the Perrault’s Cinderella. This Cinderella is very much an optimist, someone who tries to make the best of things, who does actually make an attempt to go to the ball on her own, who makes a conscious choice to leave her stepfamily for the Prince, and who does what she is able to do to get herself rescued. She receives help only when her own efforts have been thwarted by circumstance and general bitchiness. She’s a lot more interesting and active of a character than I think most people give her credit for

Enhance the role of the Prince: Heh, no. But to be fair, they do enhance the role of the people who ACTUALLY want to see the Prince get married--namely the King and, to a lesser extent, the Duke--and I think that actually does a lot. I think that reinforces the fact that despite the way it’s often romanticized, this is still, at its heart, an arrange political marriage. Yes, the Cinderella and the Prince make googly eyes at each other for a bit, but that’s not where the focus is. The focus is on the King scheming to marry off his son by any means necessary, and Cinderella using the fact that the Prince happens to like her to escape from her family. Not that the two of them don’t like each other, I’m sure they do. But it’s more of an added perk to the marriage than something that the story actually revolves around.

Address the plot transgressions: SOME of them are addressed. Cinderella’s dad dies, so isn’t around to see his daughter being treated horribly. Cinderella doesn’t run away because her life with her stepfamily is really all she has. The Fairy Godmother shows up when Cinderella is no longer capable of being optimistic and hopeful and has pretty much reached the end of a very long rope. And it’s not really the Prince using the shoe to identify Cinderella as it is his father taking advantage of the Prince’s grief and using whatever means he can to marry him off. I might be reading quite a lot into a simple story, but I think the characters are well-defined enough in this movie to fill in a lot of these plot holes, and I think that’s really key in this adaptation. They don’t really address the question of the impracticability of a glass slipper or the fact that the slippers don’t disappear with the rest of the outfit, but given that those are iconic parts of the story, and this is an adaptation rather than a retelling, they couldn’t very well get rid of them. So, I’ll give this three-fourths of a check.

Cinderella might not be the best of the Disney faerie tale movies, and maybe my childhood nostalgia colors a lot of this, but I still think the movie holds up pretty well. For all that it’s romanticized, both by Disney lovers and by Disney detractors, the movie actually manages to keep a fair amount of the romance OUT of the movie, and just focuses on telling a compelling story about a girl who gets handed a bad lot and finally gets her break . . . not unlike the previous Disney princess, as it turns out. Walt Disney loved stories about the underdog, the downtrodden protagonist who finds him or herself and rises above adversity. Really, romance was a secondary concern. Viewed in that way, this story works, and much better than I think a lot of people think that it does.

Guest Post: Disney's Snow White with Matthew

Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves

or “How Disney Popularized a Really, REALLY Mediocre Faerie Tale With Vastly Entertaining Filler Material”

Seriously, folks, let’s face it. What does the story of Snow White really have to offer? Not that much. It’s basically Sleeping Beauty with little people. If not for Walt Disney’s odd fixation with this story, it would fall into the same category of “Faerie Tales That Only Scholars and Enthusiasts Know About” that also contains stories like “The Juniper Tree” and “The Six Swans” and other stories I’m sure you haven’t heard of [I am ridiculously sad that "The Six Swans is one of these stories. Enough to want to tack another month onto this project to cover it. So save my sanity and go read it for yourself! - CG]. 

 

So what is it, exactly, about this story that so entranced Walt? Well, for all its flaws, the story actually lends itself very well to the type of movie Disney needed at this time. Disney had been putting out a number of animated shorts and he wanted to take the next step and make a full-length, fully animated feature film, something no one had ever done before.

So Walt needed to tread carefully here. At this point, animation was for those funny shorts people saw at the beginnings of their movies, between the news reel and feature film. (Or wherever they put it, I’m just naming a couple things you would see at the movies in those days.) There would need to be a fair amount of entertainment in this film. Now, if you haven’t watched this movie for a while, watch it again, and really pay attention to actual plot-driven aspects of the film versus the filler material.

We start with our opening narration, giving us the backstory in the form of a storybook, just like the two faerie tale animated features that would come in the fifties. We learn that Snow White is a princess and an orphan, and her wicked stepmother, the vain Evil Queen, forces her to work as a scullery maid, which as we see in a scene a few minutes later, she does without complaint. I mean, you’d think that, as a teenage girl with raging hormones, she’d be pitching a fit, saying things like, “You’re not my real mother!” and “You can’t make me!” and whatnot, but no, Snow White seems perfectly content to clean and clean, doing so with a song in her heart and smile on her face.

Okay. So Snow White is established as our pristine, pure young woman with no personality flaws whatsoever. How fascinating. Let’s look at our Evil Queen, who is actually the first character we see in this film, and represents a pretty scary element, especially for kids. I mean, for all that we chide Disney for cleaning things up and sanitizing them for kids, some of the films are scary as shit, and the Evil Queen pretty well set the tone for the villains that came after. Walt kind of had the same dichotic view of women that Perrault did at this point: you were either good and pure, or you were wicked and vain. (Note that these are, in fact, the only two women in the entire movie.) He would later add “comical and bumbling” to the list of female traits, but for now, it’s just these two.

So after establishing that the Evil Queen’s magic mirror has proclaimed that Snow White, not the Queen, is the “fairest in the land,” we have our first musical number with Snow White singing about her fondest wish is finding a man to marry. Again, how fascinating. The Prince in question happens to be riding by at the time, hears her song, climbs over the palace wall, and joins her in singing in a not-at-all creepy way, no really. Regardless, Snow White swoons at his manly, manly voice, and we have our love-at-first-sight moment.

So, now, the plot gets moving again, as the Evil Queen sends out the huntsman to kill Snow White and bring her heart back in a box. Charming. The huntsman, seeing how sweet Snow White is (and, let’s be honest, as bland as her personality is, she’s incredibly likable), can’t kill her, and tells her to run away and never return. Snow White does so, and is so frightened by the shadows of the unfamiliar woods that she falls into a heap and cries. (Incidentally, the scene in the woods contains some seriously excellent bits of animation.) She awakens to find that, lo and behold, the shadows weren’t unfriendly at all! They were cute little bunnies and deer and birds who want to be her friends! Oh, happy day!

So the animal friends make sure the plot moves forward a bit by taking Snow White to abandoned and very messy house where she can clean. And thus, we have our second musical number, “Whistle While You Work,” and a little feature of Snow White and her animal friends cleaning the house. Notice that throughout this sequence, we see very little of Snow White herself. We hear her voice, of course, but the focus is mostly on what the animals are doing because, let’s face it, animals scrubbing, sweeping, and dusting are vastly more entertaining than a human being scrubbing, sweeping, and dusting.

It’s worth pointing out here that Snow White does have a pretty consistent personality trait. She’s very motherly, both in her desire to take care of others and her desire to make sure everything is clean. Say what you will about the implications regarding purity and domestication and all that, but it gives her something to care about, something to drive her character forward, unlike a certain princess who would come a couple decades later. *coughAuroracough*

Cut now to the real stars of the picture, the dwarves. Yes, the dwarves. I mean, really without the dwarves, people wouldn’t remember this picture. Snow White’s nice and all, but she’s just not a dynamic enough character to truly be memorable. So right about at the time when kids would have started getting bored with Snow White’s warbling and the cute antics of her animal friends, we’re introduced to the characters who make us laugh. Not only that, but we see with their opening song that these are the laborers, the ones who work hard in a mine, all day, every day. Consider that this movie, then, was made during the Great Depression, and we’re given a bunch of characters that the average moviegoer can relate to. It lifts up the common worker in a really great way, because the dwarves are the ultimate heroes of the story, not the handsome prince. Yes, the prince kisses Snow White awake, but it’s the dwarves who rush to the rescue and drive the Evil Queen off a cliff.

So the dwarves, like Snow White, sing as they work, and eventually march home to the familiar “Hi-Ho.” They arrive home to find that someone has broken in to their home, and after some comic antics, they find that it’s Snow White, the princess, who they of course have an immediate protective devotion to. (Except Grumpy, of course.) Snow White, because of her desire to take care of her new friends, offers to cook them a hot meal for once, but informs them--quite sternly, actually--that they’ll not get a “bite to eat” until they wash up . . . which they do in a particularly amusing musical scene, where they approach the water and soap as though they are things they’ve never seen before. Doc teaches them how to wash up, and then as a group, they force Grumpy, the only one who flat out refused to wash up, into the tub where they wash him as well.

This scene, it should be pointed out, is terribly amusing and does nothing to forward the plot. More on that in a moment.

So, we return to the Queen and the Hunter. The Queen now has the heart in a box, but discovers that it is not, in fact, Snow White’s heart, but the heart of a pig when the mirror tattles. So, she decides it’s time to take matters into her own hands and ventures down into her secret dungeon laboratory (yes, she has a secret dungeon laboratory) and mixes a potion that will effectively disguise her as an ugly old hag. (And lest the irony is lost on you, yes, she turns herself ugly so she can be considered pretty.) The scene of her mixing the potion with all sorts of evil magical brouhaha is probably one of my favorite bits of Disney animation. Anyone who thinks that Disney is all about feel good stories and light entertainment should take a look at this early scene. You see a person essentially using very dark magic, and the animation is put to good use here, as the scene is creepy as hell. I don’t think people really associated animation with this sort of darkness.

But back to the dwarves, who are spending the evening with a delightful musical romp in “The Dwarves’ Yodel Song,” or “The Silly Song.” The song has few words, no story, and really no point. It’s just the dwarves singing and dancing and generally goofing off as Snow White watches. It does nothing to move the plot forward and, in fact, brings the plot to a screeching halt. And yet, this is my absolute favorite song and scene in the movie. This song is just such fun, as we watch the dwarves doing what really makes them happy. Again, there’s that reliability with common workers, because the dwarves are basically just unwinding at the end of a long day of work. And there’s a great contrast between the life Snow White has with the dwarves and the life she had at the palace.

So, you might be noticing a pattern at this point in the story. Watch the “Whistle While You Work” scene. And now watch the washing up scene. And now the “Silly Song.” They don’t contribute much to the forwarding of the plot, they’re mostly entertainment based, and they could stand on their own, apart from the movie, and still be entertaining and complete. In other words, they’re a lot like the sort of animated shorts Walt Disney was known for up until this time. This is how Walt was able to tread that line between what animation was known for and what Disney was trying to do. In general, the good guys want the simplicities of life. Good work, food, a family, some music and dance, a loved one. Just a very simple life. The Evil Queen, on the other hand, is not content. she wants more than what she already has, and what she has is considerable seeing as how she’s, you know . . . the Queen. So she moves the plot forward so as to forward her own ambitions.

Once the dwarves have had their fun, they encourage Snow White to entertain them with a song, which she does, singing the iconic “Someday My Prince Will Come.” And yeah, I’m not wild about this as a general message for the movie, but again, it was a very different time. What Snow White gives us more than anything is hope. Her life, at the moment, is not in the best circumstances, and yet here she is, with continued hope that one day, she’ll be happy, with a smile on her face and a song in her heart. During the Great Depression when this movie was released, this was especially important to the people watching, who needed a bit of hope in their lives. The Prince isn’t just a romantic inclination, it’s a way out of a bad situation. The Prince in Cinderella is similar, which is why neither of them has much in the way of personalities. They’re ideals, rather than characters.

Next morning, the dwarves are off to work, leaving Snow White to take care of the house and make dinner for their return. And who should arrive, but the Evil Witch with a poisoned apple, which she convinces the gullible Snow White to take a bite of. The animal friends ride off to get the dwarves, and the dwarves--without a moment’s hesitation, which is more than can be said for them going to check on an intruder in their home OR wash up for dinner--ride to her rescue. Snow White’s already (allegedly) dead, but the dwarves chase the Queen off a cliff and then a rock falls on her. (Notice, they don’t actually do the killing, because they’re the good guys.) But Snow White is dead, the dwarves mourn her in one of the most heartbreaking scenes in all animation, I mean SERIOUSLY! They put her in a glass coffin so people can look at her (vaguely creepy, but okay), the prince comes along, kisses her awake, they live happily ever after, etc. All this in about the span of five minutes.

Snow White was, in many ways, the movie that a lot of people needed at that time. It was a combination of an entertaining series of animated shorts and a story of good overcoming evil and hope overcoming a rotten situation. What we expect of a story today has changed. Filler material, however entertaining, is deemed unnecessary, we prefer characters to be more than absolutely good or absolutely evil, and plots need to be realistic and complex. And lest you worry, this isn’t a “movies aren’t the way they used to be and therefore they suck” post. I generally enjoy movies with the qualities listed above. But such a movie would not have played well in the thirties, and certainly not from a new animation studio trying to do a full length feature for the first time. Walt Disney knew how to balance pushing the envelope with what people wanted, and he did it very well. Add to that the entertaining music and the incredible animation, and it’s easy to see why this movie was and is so popular.

When it comes right down to it, though this is technically an adaptation of Snow White, the movie’s popularity has very little to do with the original story. Disney could have picked any other story and given it a similar treatment and it would have become just as popular. Snow White is a great example of evolution of storytelling, of how a classic (if mediocre) story can be made relevant to a brand new audience. That’s what Disney did.