There's your typical Disney Cinderella
Origin: According to wikipedia, Cinderella may have had it's origins in the first century B.C. *Another version of the story, Ye Xian, appeared in Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang by Tuan Ch'eng-Shih around 860. Here, the hardworking and lovely girl befriends a fish, the reincarnation of her mother, who was killed by her stepmother. Ye Xian saves the bones, which are magic, and they help her dress appropriately for a festival. When she loses her slipper after a fast exit, the king finds her slipper and falls in love with her (eventually rescuing her from her cruel stepmother).
Another version of the story, which is similar to the Chinese version, exists in the Philippines. The story is known as "Mariang Alimango" (Mary the Crab). In this version, the spirit of her dead mother reincarnates as a crab, hence the title, and serves as her "fairy godmother".
Several different variants of the story appear in the medieval One Thousand and One Nights, also known as the Arabian Nights, including "The Second Shaykh's Story", "The Eldest Lady's Tale" and "Abdallah ibn Fadil and His Brothers", all dealing with the theme of a younger sibling harassed by two jealous elders. In some of these, the siblings are female, while in others, they are male. One of the tales, "Judar and His Brethren", departs from the happy endings of previous variants and reworks the plot to give it a tragic ending instead, with the younger brother being poisoned by his elder brothers(*taken from wikipedia).
There have been many, many versions of Cinderella after that, it became a well known fairy tale, told and retold with generally the same outcome. Generally there is a beautiful peasant girl who is slave to her evil stepmother and ugly stepsisters.
Why it is so well loved: Little girls everywhere dream of being saved,(whether or not this is good thing is up for debate)so in this story there is a damsel in distress who is saved from her misery by a handsome prince who whisks her off to become a princess. Who WOULDN'T want to be a princess!? I mean honestly, getting waited on hand and foot and having a hunky-hunk guy who's madly in love with you?! COME ON! Who would say no to that? There is also the element of underdog here--Cinderella is the underdog. She is in no position of power, she has no way out and she is still loving, beautiful, kind and hard-working. You automatically want her to win. Everyone, no matter how hard you try, is attracted to that. Putting aside all of the sexism, and her being a 'helpless woman'; people are attracted to this story on a superficial level.
What does having a "Cinderella Story" imply? The thing I truly find sad is the fact that there are teenagers everywhere that still want a "Cinderella Story"(saying you want a Cinderella Story is almost as bad as saying you want to be Romeo and Juliet...newsflash: Romeo and Juliet kill themselves in the end). Frankly, I don't want to have a really shitty life and then have a man come and "save" me. No, I want an equal love. Now, I am not saying I don't enjoy the story of Cinderella, and I am not wanting to dash little girls dreams--because I wanted that at one point as well. But, I had a moment in my life when I realized, wow, while I still love those romantic notions, while i will always have that side of me that wants to be "saved" I would rather save myself and be a capable person. I'd like to think I'd stand up to the bitches that were called my "step family" and just run away. I really hope other little girls have that realization too, or at least something a long those lines so they don't grow up to be woman who think men control their fate and their lives. That mindset could not only lead to an abusive relationship later in life but is also just an unhealthy way to live.
What was Cinderella thinking? "A dreams a wish your heart makes when you're fast asl-shit, I am a fucking slave!" I feel like Disney may have gotten it a little wrong. So how old is Cinderella in the Disney movie? Eighteen? Maybe Nineteen? What eighteen or nineteen year old girl would be waking up singing when she knows she is a slave? Also, the girl is obviously pretty hysterically lonely...she talks to fucking mice for God's sake! I do love the movie Cinderella...it makes me smile every time. But if you think about it, I don't think any girl would be that okay with cleaning all day(herein lies some of Disney's obvious sexism). She's content with dreaming of freedom while cooking, cleaning and pretty much being her step-family's bitch. And she never acts on her dreams. If Cinderella had been real I bet she would have been thinking, "Damn, this really sucks. I want to GTFO." She'd probably have moments of: "Forever alone." (and that would be right around the time she starts talkin' to the mice). All in all, the "real" Cinderella would have probably been a lot angrier than the Disney Cinderella. She maybe even would have attempted to escape--like a normal human.
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