My garden of musings

Hello! No bother at all! I'm a little unsure what counts as lesser known since I don't have the thumb on what is pretty well known in other places but I'll basically try to stay away from the big ones I think (disney, 1997, ever after, the cinderella story series, ella enchanted )

Right now I'm really into the godmother from popoluška

I think she's beautiful and love her veils (especially when they are a soft accent to the fact that she's magical). She's extremely warm and affectionate to popoluška; hugging her, teaching her to curtsy, gently helping her with her veils/outfits, and just being so enthusiastic around her. and very clever! She thinks of putting scarves to guide the way home and zeroes in on the stepmother putting the key she knows unlocks the door for her god daughter (she stays sharp!)

Its not new but I do like that she is also close to the prince's sphere as if to help BOTH of them by stepping in.

But also has a sense of humor when she laughs at him getting dunked on.

She's clever, charming, and warm. not a joke but not stoic, and active at multiple points in the story

And you can tell that she's fulfilling things popoluška wishes her stepfamily had done for her as well when they have fun with magic and dresses

The glass slipper caper from fairy tale police department might not have the most unique design BUT I do love that she's literally there at the steps of the palace with cinderella, gently reminding her, holding hands, wishing her an evening and waiting for cinderella to actually make it up to the ball ^^ it reminds me of the good habit * of making sure someone u dropped off makes it to their destination. Being worried and excited for her, I like the VA its very grandmotherly

Zolsuhka (1979)

Like this is an example of I'm sure its well known elsewhere but for me?

This fairy god mother is ethereal and I adore it for leaning into the fae otherworldly aspect and the wispy way she sways to assert she is also magical yet here with a gentle mission. She's so beautiful! Magical! I'm just not immune to being reminded that yes ! She is magic too!

The slipper and the rose isn't...unknown i think because it does have a pretty decent tag but this godmother as being a character who is involved with other stories besides cinderella gives her a real experienced and ancient air in general (and busy!) but despite having so much on her plate she never fails to be gentle to cinderella

Cinderella 1965 (r&h)

I do count both of the R&H cinderella's before 1997 lesser known despite the events they were simply because most seem to have grown up with 1997 in particular

But for this one I do love how she comes directly to cinderella when she's despairing that she lost her chance to be with the prince and encourages her cinderella to use her kindness as the bit of strength she needs to reunite them, the gentle way she and cinderella sing in the carriage just cementing that she will be there at many points to nudge her cinderella to happiness: beautiful, sweet but firmly believes in magic and kindness

On that note I'm also unsure where faerie tale theatre lands on lesser known because well...i mean come on i feel like that's something a lot of people must have grown up with.

But I do feel kinda ok bending the ask for her because she's also not usually a first choice for general audiences

The way that godmother has a sharp sense of humor that cinderella isn't afraid to shoot back at her and they scoop the pumpkin together and gets invited to the wedding which wasn't even a question to her. Godmother actually being treated like she's family! With a relationship that reflects it

Tuhkatriinu (1986)

Godmother who is very affectionate to her cinderella who seems almost touch starved at points, freely letting her have whatever hugs and closeness she wants

But I really love how she commands their respect at the end as the one who brought them together, a sense of respect for who she is.

The lost shoe / der verlorene shuh

I simply have to give her the flowers for straight up bumping into the prince and making a big show just so cinderella can get away 😭freaking comedian [she's an absolute force of nature throughout but this moment cracked me up]

_____

I wish i had the picture books to tell you if any stood out there but I'm just in the middle of updating and scouring and can't think of any rn !

Thank you so much for the ask :D

I'm glad to see some love for the Fairy Godmother in Der verlorene Schuh – as I've written about her, she's "a seemingly ordinary, kindly old woman," but one "who casts her spells with the wild and mystical verve of a witch."

Another underrated portrayal is Estelle Winwood as Mrs. Toquet in The Glass Slipper (1955).

Where do you feel a Cinderella version or adaptation should start the story at in order for it to really aim at what's important to the story (moments, character dynamics and development, themes and symbols)?

Different famous adaptations have very different takes on this. The original 1950 Disney version, has some elements of some of these moments but ultimately starts with the dynamic with her step family already established. In the 2015 Disney version, it starts depicting life with her parents. Rodger's and Hammerstein's famously starts with "The prince is giving a ball", a case of the story starting with the invitation to the ball. Ever After never shows her mother, just the relationship with her father. The Ugly Stepsister starts with her meeting the step family for the first time.

@princesssarisa

I know that you, @therapeuticfairy, prefer for the story to start with Cinderella’s early life before her mother’s death, or at least before her father’s remarriage, so that we see and feel the tragic loss, first of her parents (or at least her mother, if her father is kept alive) and then of her entire identity and life as she knew it. You’ve written that adaptations which start with Cinderella already orphaned and enslaved by her stepfamily feel as if they’re starting in the middle of the story. I definitely appreciate that viewpoint.

But at the same time, IMHO, showing the whole process of Cinderella’s reduction to servitude can be difficult. Make her give in to her stepfamily's demands too easily and she can potentially become too passive to like or root for. Yet show her receiving too much spirit-breaking abuse onscreen and it can become too disturbing for a family-friendly fairy tale. And if her father is a sympathetic character, as he usually is to at least some extent, then how can we believe he would marry the likes of the Stepmother in the first place, and if he doesn't die, how can we believe he would let his daughter be enslaved? Starting with her already in rags is the easier choice for an adaptation, because it lets the audience imagine how it all came to be.

Ultimately I feel everyone's answer depends on how they approach the Cinderella story and even what you consider the main character's journey to be. If it's more about character development, you'll definitely want the story to start earlier, seeing her relationship with her parents and how they relationship with the step family is built. If it's more of a romance, you'll probably want the beginning to already be established and instead make more time for interactions with the prince. If your approach is more cinematic and about the visuals, it could even start with the invitation arriving like Into the Woods or Rodger's and Hammerstein's. I also like the approach of it starting in the middle and having flashbacks to how the situation came to be like that (prime recent example is Bridgerton).

Just how long Cinderella has to live as a servant.

In some versions, like Disney's animated version, Ever After, or the 2010 Märchenperlen version, she's trapped in that situation for about ten years or so, starting in her childhood.

In others, she's already a young woman when her father remarries, and her servitude is either a few years (e.g. in the 2011 Sechs auf einen Streich version, where she mentions that it's been five years), just one or two years (e.g. in Disney's 2015 live action remake), just a few months (e.g. in The Slipper and the Rose, where her father dies in the winter and the ball takes place the following spring), or even just a few days or a few weeks at most (e.g. in the 1931 German film).

101 Dalmatians Roger & Anita Limited Edition Dolls 🐾

Folding fan with an image of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

c. 1870

France

While love at first sight is considered a romantic trope, I feel like it's usage in some pieces is for cutting out the need for a relationship arc. Ergo, I kind of feel like, since a lot of Disney movies that feature romantic leads use this trope and don't devote more than a scene or two to the couple by themselves and being romantic, I don't see those specific movies as Romance Movies.

The plot line of Cinderella is "Cinderella needs to get out of this house and has to be really careful about it because her abusers are evidently capable of physical violence," the prince is the means by which Cinderella jumps straight from suffering into comfort (and politics, which is a whole other can of worms, but hey). Luckily the audience knows he's meant to be a good person to go with his good looks.

The plot line of Snow White is mostly "Snow White needs to survive" and it's mostly devoted to displaying the kindness and friendship between her and her allies, the dwarves and the animals (how come no one blames Disney for making them think it's easy to make ride-or-die friends?). The Prince represents her hopes for the future and is a reward for her hardship, on top of being the deus ex machina that saves her from her fate.

The plot line of Sleeping Beauty is "the three good fairies try really hard to save a young princess from an evil curse" - best foster parents ever BTW, given the fact they had no experience whatsoever with the entire situation they jumped into, and still successfully raised a good kid with healthy attachment (quite a feat given the isolation)

I'd say the more modern movies like The Little Mermaid and Tangled are more romance movies because both heroines have a pre-existing dream, but both movies are devoted to showing the relationship progression between the two leads. Heck, Tiana was actually being encouraged to give up the dream she'd been holding onto with her fingers dug in, and go for a True Love relationship with a man she's known for days and actually got her into this mess through manipulation, but he changes for the better so it's fine.

Mulan is more like Hercules where going on a Hero's Journey helps you find your place in the world as the central theme. The romance adds to it, but like the early princesses, both Mulan and Hercules seem to experience at least attraction, possibly love at second sight (given that the actual first sight was part of a distracting stressful incident), and they have a handful of touching, meaningful moments with their love interests.

In Beauty and the Beast, survival is initially (she loses a lot of her fear through the duration of her imprisonment in a gilded cage) Belle's goal, while the Beast is actually being forced to try and find true love - which is a really rough deal, especially considering that Aurora needed to true love to break her curse but remained unaware of the time limit on it until it was too late and apparently the good fairies never even knew she had a soulmate in Philip. But I still consider Beauty and the Beast a romance movie, if not the definitive Disney Romance Movie, because most of the plot is Belle and The Beast learn to love each other.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading my unedited rambling!

I’d say that The Little Mermaid is less of a romance than some of the movies that came after it, because the main plot is “Ariel wants to be human and her father needs to learn to accept it,” while Prince Eric is mainly a means to that end, although their romance is more fleshed out than those of the Walt-era Princesses and Princes.

I also think Hercules is slightly more of a romance than Mulan. Even though it's mainly about the hero's journey of Hercules, his romance with Meg intrinsic to that journey, because his self-sacrifice for Meg is how he ultimately proves himself a true hero – and yet he chooses to give up the reward he's been striving for all alone, of becoming a god, to stay on earth with Meg instead. Whereas for Mulan, Shang mainly matters as her captan and comrade-in-arms – their attraction to each other is only subtext, not relevant to the actual plot, and romance is still just a future possibility in the end.