Cinderella. A fairy tale passed through generations for centuries. Some ancient cultures have their own version of a rags to riches folktale, from Rhodopis to Ye Xian to Queen Esther. The story we know as Cinderella was published by Charles Perrault in Histoires ou contes du temps passé in 1697. The story rose in popularity ever since, especially with the rise of cinema if the countless Cinderella movies are anything to go by.
And yes, there are dozens of Cinderella movies out now. From Disney’s animated film from 1950, Ever After, Hillary Duff’s A Cinderella Story, Selena Gomez’s Another Cinderella Story, the film adaptation of Gail Carson Levine’s Ella Enchanted, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1957 musical adaptation of Cinderella, Disney’s live action remake in 2015, and of course the 1997 musical starring Brandy. And even with that long list, I don’t think I’ve mentioned every cinematic retelling of a servant girl becoming royalty and living happily ever after.
Which begs the question: why is Brandy’s Cinderella worth talking about? Of all the Cinderella stories in the history of the world, how does this one stand above the rest? And how has it gotten better with time?
Diverse Casting
It’s impossible to talk about Brandy’s Cinderella without touching on the diversity of the main cast. The 90s was a busy time for tokenism and representation. And with Whitney Houston as executive producer, the 1997 musical was no exception. Said cast member Whoopi Goldberg to Jet magazine in 1997, “[the interracial cast] may be a first. It makes perfect sense because of who we are…this integrated cast is how the real world is. This is more normal than being part of a cast that doesn’t have any color in it.” And the normality of an integrated cast accomplishes more than scoring points and earning that sweet green. Cinderella’s main cast consists of four black women, two white men, two white women, and one Asian man, and everyone goes above and beyond to deliver memorable performances that people are still talking about to this day. Who can forget the sweet chemistry between Paolo Montalbán and Brandy, or Natalie Desselle and Veanne Cox practicing the art of curtsying and eyelash fluttering, or Whitney Houston belting out “Music in You”?
But as much as I’d love to go into further detail about why some of the casting choices were such a big deal, that would require me (a pasty woman with no known African ancestry) speaking for an audience that I don’t necessarily represent. To make up for my lack of personal expertise, some of the articles linked at the bottom are perfect reads for what the casting of the romantic leads means for Asian men and black women.
The Stepfamily: The Tragedy of Vanity
In adaptations past, it’s not unusual to see the stepmother as the conniving femme fatale and the stepsisters as clumsy, unattractive jealous bitches there to make Cinderella more beautiful in comparison. In the case of Brandy’s Cinderella, the stepsisters are two women who would be far more appreciated as protagonists in 2020. Minerva is clever and muscle-bound, has an affinity for poetry, and knows at least three languages (four if you count Pig Latin. And anyone who knows Pig Latin is automatically amazing). Calliope is more closely aligned to the clumsy stepsister we’ve seen before, but her quirks are more endearing than detrimental. Also, women who snort when they laugh are adorable. Fight me.
Another thing to note about the stepsisters is that they don’t antagonize Cinderella directly. They say mean things about her here and there, but for the most part they take their cue from their mother, played by Bernadette Peters. Sometimes, they’re even sucked into Cinderella’s fantasies of love and romance—first on the day before the ball, and again when Cinderella sings “A Lovely Night” hours later. But then the stepmother asserts her power, and the stepsisters fall back in line.
In fact, the tragedy of the stepsisters is that they aren’t allowed to take pride in their deviant identities. Once the prince’s ball is announced, the stepmother pushes them to fall in line with the beauty standards of the day in the hopes that the prince will pick one of them to be his bride. She tells them never to let him know that they’re smart or quirky, always appear pretty and flirty, and in her own words “hide our flaws until after the wedding.”
Which brings us to the stepmother, the villain of the Cinderella story. Throughout the whole movie, she is a woman clinging to the pretense of prestige by any means possible. She openly scorns love and teaches her daughters to value grandeur over humanity. She only has power over her family, but she will do anything she can to hold onto it even if it costs her own daughters their happiness.
Another interesting aspect of Peters’s portrayal is the hints we get of the woman she used to be. While preparing for the ball, she insinuates that she wishes her parents had pushed her to greater heights the way she pushes her daughters. Though she values marriage over love, she sings of how she “fell in love with love” once and things didn’t work out. Even Cinderella says of her, “If you only knew how she’s changed, you would understand.” In any case, the movie doesn’t reveal how she became the way she is. And regardless of how she used to be, there is now nothing more to her than vanity and misery.
Though the stepfamily gets their comeuppance at the end of the movie, there’s one aspect of the ball that has perhaps been under discussed in recent years. When Cinderella shows up and starts dancing with the prince, everyone is shocked into a stupor. Then, as the romantic leads break into “Ten Minutes Ago,” the other guests start pairing off and dancing with each other. Everyone begins enjoying themselves…everyone except the stepfamily. Towards the end of the song, we get a small glimpse of the stepsisters arguing with each other. Then they go spy on Cinderella and wonder why men overlook women who don’t fit the status quo of beauty. The stepmother obsesses over who Cinderella is, and spends the entire night trying to find out. They are only there to catch the prince’s interest, and when they don’t succeed, they are unable to enjoy themselves on what should be a fun night out.
At the end of the movie the stepmother finally acknowledges her daughters’ deviant identities. But rather than validating and appreciating them for who they are, she does this as a last-ditch attempt to stake a claim on the throne. Because of this, her acknowledgment of her daughters means nothing. And they are excluded again, but this time on purpose.
Cinderella: Overcoming Abuse
One of the biggest themes of Brandy’s Cinderella is the subtext of abusive parenthood. It’s such a hallmark of the Cinderella story that it shows up in nearly every adaptation (for better or worse). But for simplicity’s sake, we’ll compare the subtext in this film with that of the animated Disney movie and the 2015 remake.
Brandy’s Cinderella falls somewhere between the two movies. The stepmother isn’t as terrifying as the animated Lady Tremaine or as easily understood as Cate Blanchett’s portrayal, but her power over the household is still a direct threat to Cinderella’s happiness. Cinderella isn’t confined to the house for the first half of the movie, but when she does leave it’s to run errands with the stepfamily. We don’t know how old she was when her father died, but everything from her body language to her interactions with the stepmother to her poor self-esteem suggests that the stepmother had plenty of time to convince Cinderella that she is unworthy of unconditional love and there’s nothing she can do to improve her lot in life. When prompted, Cinderella tells the Fairy Godmother, “Those three are all I’ve got. Before my father died, I promised him we’d stay together as a family.” To which the Fairy Godmother responds, “This can’t be what your daddy had in mind for you.”
But this isn’t to say that Cinderella’s character is defined by her abuse. The opening scene in the market shows that she has no qualms about stating her opinion; when the stepsisters fuss over an over-the-top hat and the stepmother struggles to come up with a good compliment, Cinderella flat out states that it doesn’t flatter either of the sisters. She is also a daydreamer, missing her father and waiting for the day where she’ll find unconditional love. When she bumps into the disguised Prince Charming, she is not easily wooed by his attempts to get her attention. She is wary of him, only warming up to him when he apologizes for offending her. They briefly connect over a shared desire to escape their respective situations. But then the stepmother interferes, and Cinderella falls back into the role of dutiful servant.
Before the ball, we see that Cinderella’s greatest comfort is her imagination. She consoles herself by pretending she’s someone else, from a prima donna to a Peruvian queen to a mermaid. But her imagination isn’t enough to comfort her on the night of the ball. Her stepmother mocks her for daring to think the prince would want anything to do with her, and goes out of her way to exclude Cinderella in the preparations throughout the day leading up to the moment where the stepfamily takes the carriage to the ball without her. So when Cinderella expresses her wish to go to the ball, she’s not just wishing her stepmother had given her permission to go. She’s wishing she was worthy.
What sets the Fairy Godmother’s arrival in this movie apart from others is that she isn’t just there to make literal magic happen. She’s there to help Cinderella realize that she’s already worthy. The song “Impossible” becomes the crux of the movie as the Fairy Godmother helps Cinderella believe in herself and reminds her of her own imagination. And when Cinderella’s creativity and daring are reignited, the pumpkin becomes a carriage, the mice become horses and coachmen, and her rags become a beautiful ball gown.
When Cinderella arrives at the ball and sheds her servant identity, we finally get to see her relaxed and happy. She is sweet, clever, funny, playful, and down to earth. Is it any wonder that the prince—and by extension, the audience—falls in love with her? Then her insecurity rears its ugly head when the king and queen attempt to get to know her, and it’s overwhelming for her. She begs the Fairy Godmother to take her home, but instead she reminds Cinderella that she deserves to be there just as much as everyone else. The prince finds her, and the two romantic leads realize how deeply they’ve fallen in love with each other. And while the romance itself is pretty corny, the characters are well developed enough to make their chemistry believable.
After the ball, Cinderella is on cloud nine from the best night of her life. When the stepfamily brags about having the prince’s attention all night, viewers can taste the sarcasm in Cinderella’s response. And when she relives the romantic night, everyone—even the stepmother—gets sucked in. She even climbs the manor’s staircase for the first time in the movie, and it’s only after she descends that the stepmother realizes that Cinderella was the mysterious belle of the ball. But when she attempts to reassert her dominance, Cinderella doesn’t accept it. She stands up for herself and forces the stepmother to explain why it’s so hard to imagine the prince falling in love with her. The stepmother struggles at first, then claims Cinderella isn’t worthy for superficial reasons, and then shows her true colors at the mention of Cinderella’s father.
And it’s here, after the stepmother’s tirade, that we get the key moment of Cinderella’s character growth. That’s right. It’s not the Fairy Godmother’s arrival, it’s not the night of the ball, it’s not even the next day when she reveals herself as the owner of the glass slipper. It’s here, after everyone has gone to bed, when she goes out to speak to her father’s spirit and says this:
“Father, I know I promised that I’d never leave here. But after tonight, I don’t see how I can stay. If you only knew how she’s changed, you would understand. I deserve better, Father. I deserve to be loved.”
The next day, she finally does the very thing she’s dreamt of doing for years. She packs her bag and leaves. And it’s when she leaves that she reunites with the prince. They come together as a couple, and they have both reclaimed agency over their lives.
We can talk all day long about what the Cinderella fairy tale says about women and feminism. The original tale sent the message that kindness and hard work will eventually be rewarded, no matter how long you have to wait for it. Brandy’s Cinderella takes it a step further and says that anything is possible for anyone. Everyone has the power residing in them to find what they’re looking for, regardless of what’s standing in their way. At the least, it’s a more interesting way to write the Cinderella fairy tale.
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