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Fairy Tale Fails – Cinderella

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Welcome to another exciting episode of Fairy Tale Fails! This week’s fairy tale is probably the most common of all of the tales, and has sparked many movie adaptations and even books based off the story: Cinderella. That’s why this post is going to be in two parts. One part discussing the story (that’s this post), the other discussing the book versus the most recent Disney live-action adaptation.

So let’s get started! I, for one, loved the old Disney Cinderella movie growing up. “Cinderelly! Cinderelly! Night and day it’s Cinderelly!” In fact, I’m pretty sure I sang that particular line over and over again in line to see the new Cinderella. My boyfriend must really love me to stick around after a) seeing Into the Woods and hating it, even though I loved it, b) THEN agreeing to see Cinderella in theaters even though I’m sure he was positive he’d hate it and c) standing in line for a long time before we could enter the movie with me singing an annoying line of an old Disney song in the voices of Jaq and Gus the mice.

That said though, in recent years it’s become one of my least favorite Disney Princess movies, mostly for the same reason I don’t care for Snow White – she doesn’t really have a wide range of self-anything. It’s all about waiting for a prince to come and take her away. And when she does get a prince to come and take her away, it’s like her life is just about this new prince. There’s nothing that says that she enjoys knitting, or gardening, or playing basketball. It’s all about being rescued by a prince. And in no way does the prince ever say “you know what, lady. I see that you’ve been treated poorly. I want you to know that I’d never treat you poorly, and I want to marry you.” No. Instead he says, “I’ll marry whomever this shoe fits!” and she’s all for it!

What if her feet were swollen the day he came around because she’d been dancing all night in glass shoes? Her foot wouldn’t fit the shoe, and he’d go find someone else. It seems foolish that he’d find someone who’s foot fits the shoe and doesn’t look anything like the person he met the previous night, but marry her anyway because her feet were the right size. Bizarre.

So we know the basic story, a girl is living happily with her parents when her mother dies. Her father finally gets a new wife, and that wife comes with two daughters. The father dies and the stepmother runs the house. The girls are cruel and force Cinderella to clean, cook, and take care of everything as a peasant even though she’s the rightful heir to the home. The king announces a ball in which the young prince will choose his new bride. Cinderella wants to go, but is told that she can only go if she does a whole bunch of chores and is ready on time. She does get everything done on time, but the stepmother and daughters tear her clothes to shreds and tell her she cant come.

That’s when her fairy godmother shows up and gives her a beautiful dress and shoes, and a giant carriage, complete with manservants, and goes to the ball with the condition she back at midnight. She goes, she and the prince dance, she loses track of time and as she’s running down the castle steps, one of her glass slippers falls off and she keeps running. The prince sets out to find the foot that fits the shoe, and tries the shoes on the stepdaughters to no avail, but hears Cinderella singing and demands she be brought down to him. The shoe fits and they live happily ever after.

Grimm’s Fairy Tales published their version of the story in 1812, originally told by Giambattista Basile in 1634. The original Basile version was about a girl named Zezolla. In this version, she is the daughter of prince who has married a governess. The prince goes away and meets a fairy who gives him presents for Zezolla and the governess’s two daughters, who have turned Zezolla into their servant. One of the presents the prince brings back is a seed. Zezolla plants the seed and soon a tree grows. The King hosts a ball and a fairy living in the tree dresses Zezolla beautifully to attend. The king knows instantly that he loves her, but she escapes him twice. The third time she attends the ball she accidentally leaves her shoe behind. The king hosts a feast to have all the ladies try on the shoes, and when Zezolla comes near the shoe magically leaves his hand and returns to her foot. They marry.

The 1812 version is different, much more similar to the story we know now. In Grimm’s version, Cinderella, or technically Aschenputtel, German for “Ashfool,” is the daughter a wealthy man. When her mother gets sick she tells Cinderella (NOTE: I’m saying Cinderella because I’m no Ashfool. There’s no way I’m writing that insanely long name a ton of times. It’s Cinderella) that she should be kind and trust in God. The mother dies and the father remarries to a woman with two daughters, and they force her into being their servant. Here’s the difference though – the dad doesn’t die!! The dad is still there, going about his business, not caring that his daughter is now his servant. What?! INEXCUSABLE, SIR, INEXCUSABLE.

So Cinderella lives like this for a little while with only little white birds to keep her company, and then her father goes out and asks what the girls want as a present when he returns. She says “whatever twig hits your hat first.” He obliges. When he gives her the twig, she goes to her mothers grave and puts it on top, crying on it. Her tears make the twig turn into a tree, and every time Cinderella prays to the tree, the little doves flutter around it. She takes the birds as a sign from her mother in Heaven that they will protect her.

Finally the King says that the prince will be hosting a three-day ball, after which he will choose his bride. Cinderella begs her family to let her attend but her stepmother throws a bag of lentil on the floor and says that she can go, only if she can clean up every last piece of lentil she just threw down. With the help of the doves, she manages to pick up every piece of lentil in record time. The stepmother is displeased and tells her to do it again, throwing down even more lentils than the last time. The stepmother really doesn’t want her to go with them, so she grabs the stepdaughters and they leave without her while she’s cleaning.

Upset, she goes to the graveyard to visit her mother and a dove drops down a beautiful gown and silk shoes, along with a note saying that she has to be back before midnight. She dances with the prince, but leaves before the clock strikes twelve. The next night, the doves bring Cinderella another gown and glass shoes. Once again she entrances the prince, but leaves before midnight. On the third night, the prince refuses to lose her again so he puts tar on the steps so she wont be able to leave. Her golden slipper gets caught in the tar, but she leaves it behind and runs, safe at home.

The prince wants to find this mystery woman, so he sets out to marry the woman whose foot fits the slipper. He arrives at Cinderella’s house where the prince puts the slipper on the eldest daughter. It fits, and he takes her to ride back to the castle. On the way, the dove whispers in his ear that she cut off her toes so that the shoe would fit. He checks her foot and sees the blood. The prince brings her back, asking for the youngest stepdaughter, he puts the shoe on her foot and it fits. Unbeknownst to him, she cut off part of her heel to fit into the foot. On their way back to the castle the dove intervenes again, and upon seeing the blood from the second daughter’s foot, he returns to the house once more. This time, he speaks with Cinderella’s father who tells them that they only have a maid. A maid! He doesn’t even say it’s his daughter! He just calls her the maid! What a jerk.

Anyway, the prince finds this “maid” and puts on the slipper and he knows it’s the same woman from the ball, so they go to marry. Cinderella wants to be nice though and she asks the stepdaughters to be her maids of honor. On the way over to the ceremony, though, the dove pokes one eye out of each of the daughters heads, turning them partially blind. After the ceremony, the dove plucks out the other eyes, rendering them completely blind. The end.

Here’s my issue with this – well, one issue with this – the dad is still alive and treats his daughter like absolute crap!!! I can understand in the other versions, the parents die, the stepmother never wanted the other girl in the first place so she’s a dick to Cinderella and makes her a servant. But if the dad is still alive surely he’d be nicer to his own daughter (and don’t call me Shirley). Omitting all the other faults in this story: the magic tree, the doves that act as little angels sent from her mom in Heaven, the prince and his stupidity, vanity, and just all around lameness. This one plot snag peeves me off more than anything else.

I did some research and it’s actually speculated that the dad isn’t her biological father. That the daughter was the wife’s child before marriage. Even so, at the point of the mother’s death, Cinderella is still a child which means he had Cinderella since she was a baby, you’d think that would make you feel more like a father to her and not want her to be your servant. You’d think. Granted, I don’t have kids. Maybe parents do want their kids to be servants. I’m pretty sure that’s what my parents wanted.

Alas, that concludes part one of the Cinderella edition of Fairy Tale Fails. Book vs Movie: Cinderella is up next!

Until then! Happy reading!

Rachel

email: rachel@booksandcleverness.com

Fairy Tale Fail – Snow White

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Hi everyone! Quick note before I begin: I’m still reading A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness but I have less than one hundred pages left! I’m sorry for the delay in the reviewing process. Nevertheless, here’s another Fairy Tale Fail!!

I don’t know about you guys but I’ve never been a huge fan of the much older Disney movies – not that I don’t like them, because I do. Disney movies are beyond magical! But movies like Sleeping Beauty and Snow White are way too damsel-in-distress-like for me. They don’t really have anything that might make them unique or likable. Their stories are mostly about how a man saved them from near-death. I, personally, like my Disney Princesses to have charisma and charm – and their own opinions.

That said, I’ve done some more research and I’m kind of pissed at my findings. The Brother’s Grimm’s fairy tale Snow White was actually much darker than I thought it was originally (yes!), but still kinda weird. And I find Snow White to be even more of an idiot in the movie.

Much of the beginning of the story remains in both the Grimm’s version and the Disney version: a beautiful Queen is sewing one day and pricks her finger. Upon seeing the blood she wishes for a daughter who is as fair as snow, with lips red as blood, and hair black as night (ebony, in the Grimm’s version). When the Queen gets her wish, she names her daughter Snow White. But shortly after she dies of birthing complications. The King marries a new woman who happens to be a witch, both literally and metaphorically.

The Queen has a magic mirror that she talks to and asks “who is the fairest in the land?” with the answer always being “you are the fairest in the land!” But this time, the mirror tells her that she is not the fairest, that Snow White is a thousand times more beautiful than she. The Queen gets pissed and sends a huntsmen to kill Snow White, rip out her heart, and bring it back as proof that she’s dead. The huntsmen doesn’t have the heart to do it (see what I did there? heh!) and tells Snow White to run as far away as she can.

This is when the similarities between the two nearly come to a halt. Because as far I know, little woodland creatures don’t usually take to one particular human, befriend that human, and lead that human to a safe-house. No, the Grimm’s version is much more realistic. So we’re gonna do a bit of a compare and contrast at this part because there are very slight but important details that I want to point out.

In the movie, she obviously is led to the dwarves house by friendly animals – isn’t that how everyone finds their home? Who uses Zillow? She then enters the house with a whole bunch of chairs and beds in it, and notices how messy it is. So she tidy’s up their home, and by the end of her cleaning she’s just pooped! Too exhausted to worry if maybe seven tiny, crazy axe-murderers live there, she plops down on three little beds and sleeps. When the dwarves come home from working in the mine, they’re taken aback, but then agree she can live there provided she clean the house, sew, knit, and cook (that last provision is also in the Grimm’s version).

Now the Grimm’s version. First, I’d just like to say that this particular story was published around 1812. This is a time when slavery still exists, when the age of consent for marriage is 10-13 years old, and when the freaken United States is only a 36 year old. THIRTY-SIX! And yet, in the Grimm’s version, Snow has more common sense and resolve than the much newer Disney version. When Snow White runs away from the huntsmen, she finds a tiny house far away from nothing and no one is home. Snow white is hungry, and tired, and sees an opportunity to steal their food, wine, and sleep in their beds before anyone comes home. A regular squatter. She completely messes up their entire home and everything is out of place. When the dwarves come back they’re pissed. But Snow White tells them all about the evil Queen and the huntsmen and they take pity on her, again as long as she can take care of the house (although, I get the feeling that in this version they’re also kind of just mad she messed up their house in the first place, and just want her to clean it up).

So here’s what I learned from that: the 1939 version (postbellum, the age of consent is 16 – as it is today, and the U.S. is 239 years old – women can vote, also) is more sexist than the original that is more than 200 years old! Snow White is the perfect woman in the 1939 version, walking in to a home and seeing a mess and thinking “by golly! I have to clean this up before anyone sees! I know I’m running for my life, but please, let me do the dishes first.” In Grimm’s version Snow is more about being unclean, a slob, and pretty much a hobo stealing their stuff. Not very ladylike, but I like it a damn sight more than the Disney version!

Anyway, the Queen learns she’s alive and in the movie she stops by as an old hag and has Snow White eat part of a poisoned apple that will put her to sleep unless “true love’s kiss” wakens her. The dwarves find out via woodland creatures that the Queen killed her and they chase after the Queen, trapping her, and she eventually falls to her death. The dwarves don’t want to bury her in the ground so instead they put her in a glass coffin above ground (because apparently they didn’t think about decomposition). After a while a prince shows up and falls in love with her, kisses her out of sadness that she’s dead, and she wakes and they live happily ever after.

In the story, it’s a bit different, though still weird that a prince loves a dead person he never met when she was alive, I’ll admit. When the Queen learns of Snow White whole still-alive-thing she comes by the dwarves house and first gives her a bodice that she laces up so tightly that Snow White can’t breathe and faints. The dwarves come home and find her just in time to unlace the bodice. The Queen then comes back with a brush, brushes Snow’s hair and Snow faints again, but the dwarves save the day (again). Lastly, the Queen shows up with a poisoned apple which Snow eats (stupid girl, you’d think she’d have learned her lesson) and chokes on a piece of apple. The Queen goes home and the mirror finally tells her she’s the fairest in the land.

The dwarves can’t figure out what happened to her, so they put her in a glass coffin. Again, after some time, a prince walks by and is enchanted by the dead girl. He convinces the dwarves to let him take the coffin and the girl with him. As his servants take the coffin, they trip over a branch and the apple is dislodged from her throat. The Prince proposes to her and she accepts.

They invite everyone to their wedding, including the Queen. The Queen wasn’t going to go until looking into her mirror, the voice back said that the new Princess is the fairest in the land. So the Queen goes to see this new woman, but Snow know’s it was the Queen all along and punishes her. She is forced to put on straight out of the fire hot iron shoes and dance in the burning shoes until she dies. The end.

So basically, what I’ve learned from all of this is that the men who wrote this back in 1812, were more in favor of women being actual humans with feelings better things to do than clean, than the men in 1939 who orchestrated the movie. I’ve also learned that I wouldn’t want to live in either time, because apparently they’re both filled with evil witches who want to rip peoples hearts out.

That’s all for now. If you want to say hi, or have a fairy tale you want me to talk about let me know in the comments or shoot me an e-mail at rachel@booksandcleverness.com. Until next time!

Rachel

Fairy Tale Fails – Beauty and the Beast

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Well, well well… Looks who’s alive after the move! Me!! We’re loving our new place – but we don’t care for all the boxes we have to throw out. Still, I’m just so glad it’s out of the way and is one less thing to worry about. Now, on to books!

I don’t know about you, but I’ve always loved fairy tales. I can recite every Disney Princess song forwards and backwards and in pig Latin. I love everything about the fantasy world, and ever since I got the Grimm’s Fairytales out of my grandparents bookshelf, I’ve been hooked for life.

But something happened when I read Grimm’s for the first time… I was horrified. The hard truth of the matter is that the fairy tales that have been recited to us thousands of times gloss over some of the most terrifying parts of the famous stories, and a lot of them are written by different authors! It’s like these authors just collectively said, “yeah, the 1700s are a really crappy time. Let’s just make everyone a jerk.”

I’ve always been one for Beauty and the Beast. As someone with brown hair, hazel eyes and a love of books, I’m pretty sure the story was written entirely for me. Sadly, that’s not the case, as it was published in 1756. In the original Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont version (I know, quite the name, right?!) Belle is actually the youngest of three sisters, the elder two are women who love jewels and material items, and who are really just nasty at heart. Their father was once a very wealthy merchant, but has lost all of his money so the four of them are forced to work on a small farm in France for a living.

The promise of wealth comes to him one day and he asks his daughters what they’d like as a present when he comes home. The two daughters ask for clothing and jewelry, while Belle only asks for a rose. The father leaves and gets no wealth or presents, but on his way home he gets lost in the woods and a creature that calls himself “Beast” invites him in to eat and spend the night.

In the morning, the father notices a rose garden and plucks a beautiful rose for Belle. The Beast notices his theft and tells him that he must die for stealing the rose (a little dramatic, Beast). The father comes up with a bargain – he can leave and give Belle the rose, as long as he promises to come back and he promises not to say a thing about the bargain to Belle. Belle, being awesome, gets the news out of her father when he returns home with the rose and decides to take his place instead, heading to the castle. This is really the only correlation between the two stories, and it’s really the best part. So much self-sacrifice! You go, Belle!

When Belle gets to the Beast’s castle he tells her that she is now the mistress of the castle and he is her servant. He begs her to marry him multiple times but she refuses every time. Every night that he proposes, though, she dreams of a really beautiful prince and believes that the Beast has this prince locked up somewhere in the castle, but never finds him. Eventually the Beast lets her leave to visit her family with the condition that she return in a week. She leaves with a ring and a mirror – the mirror allows her to see what is going on at the castle, and the ring allows her to return there instantly.

When she goes home she has every intention of leaving in a week, but her sisters are jealous of her lavish life at the castle and  put on a big show and make her believe that they really miss her and want her to stay – even rubbing onions in their eyes to make it look like they’re crying – while they really hope that the Beast will be angry and kill and eat her. Nice sisters! Belle decides to stay, but feels really guilty about leaving him so she looks in the mirror to see what he’s up to and sees that he’s dying from heartbreak in the rose garden. She uses the ring to go to him immediately and when she cries on him, telling him she loves him, her tears bring him back to life… as the prince in her dreams.

Now, in my opinion this is one of the most tame fairy tales. There’s no mutilation and not everyone dies. But, as this is the first of my new installment of Fairy Tale Fails, I wanted to start with the story that I feel bound to the most. Even without the magic rose, the kooky inventor father, and Gaston (noooo one fights like Gaston! Douses lights like Gaston! In a wrestling match no one bites like Gaston!) I still love this story. It has the same “magic” that Disney stories do and it even ended with a “happily ever after!” I really recommend reading this and seeing for yourself what a difference the two stories have. And can I just say, those sisters are complete assholes.

Until next time! If you have any fairy tales you want me to look up, read and compare to the family-friendly versions we all know, let me know in the comments or send me an e-mail at rachel@booksandcleverness.com. I look forward to hearing from you!

Rachel

The Genre Dilemma

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I’m at a dilemma. After reading The Mime Order I’m kind of stuck in a rut due to my current love of the supernatural.

I ought to give you the whole backstory. You see, I have a predisposition of getting obsessed with a genre and sticking to it for a really long time until I get bored with it and move on. I do this a lot – the most memorable and long obsessions began about two years ago, when I started reading books about Asian culture.

It all started with the wonderful Amy Tan and her first novel The Joy Luck Club which chronicled a group of older female Chinese immigrants and their daughters in San Francisco. I had actually read an excerpt of the novel and was absolutely fascinated to the point where I just had to read the book. It was, and remains, one of my favorite books of all time. It’s heart warming, heart breaking, and everything in-between.

After that I decided to read her newest book The Valley of Amazement about a Chinese/American woman living and working in multiple courtesan houses. Now this book was incredible. I’ve mentioned before that a great book makes you feel as though you’re the character. That their pain is your pain, that their activities are your activities. That is exactly what happened here. I felt so connected with the main character that I actually took the book with me places so I could read while I was waiting for appointments or classes or whatever I had going on that day. I would literally break down in tears while in public reading this book. In fact, I was waiting for a class to start (I had two hours before it started) and decided I would buckle up and read the rest of the novel. I finished it in an hour and a half, and spent the next thirty minutes crying in the women’s restroom. It, too, was spectacular. Absolutely amazing, and gut wrenching at the same time.

Soon I had read nearly all of Tan’s books (I only have one of her books left! I’m saving it for the perfect time!) and was watching a documentary on olden days China on Netflix when I came across a documentary on Geisha girls in Japan. Oh my god was I fascinated. I was so fascinated that when I finished the documentary I immediately ordered Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden, who was featured in the film. I was so entranced by his novel that I actually ended up writing an entire essay based on Geishas and their customs. It took a lot of documentaries and a lot of books, but I couldn’t have been happier doing that research.

So, for me at least, finding a subject that I enjoy and want to learn more about means reading a ton of novels based on the topic. My sister and I even went to Boston and I saw a woman reading a book on the subway based on a Japanese family’s life over the span of something crazy like 100 years, and I took note of the book and author so that when we got home I could buy the book. That happened about 7 months ago. I was on this Asian kick for nearly a year. I was that obsessed.

Now, I’ve moved on to supernatural/fantasy novels, usually young adult. I’ve always loved this genre – I mean my blog name is based off of a line from Harry Potter! But last January when I read The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon, I began to slowly integrate fantasy novels into my repertoire, until it became all I was reading. I read books in the meantime (and I’ll admit some of them were about Asian culture – you never get rid of a love!) but I waited an entire year for the Bone Season sequel to come out. That was “my precious.” Then I finally got and read the sequel, The Mime Order, all I want now is for the next book. My next “precious.”

And this is where the dilemma begins. After reading such an wonderful novel, it’s so hard to find something similar that can live up to my expectations. So, I can either stick to my guns and continue reading supernatural/fantasy novels (I’m currently almost done with The Maze Runner by James Dashner) or I can reach out and find a new topic to hone in on. I was thinking of switching over to romance novels – I just bought One Day by David Nicholls, or perhaps a John Green novel… but then fantasy novels are just amazing, and so exciting to read! Dilemma, dilemma…

Let me know what you guys think. Maybe I’ll start taking some suggestions!

In the meantime, let’s get reading! Until next time.

Rachel