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@princesssarisa
why do you think the Disney fandom is filled with so many bad takes? is it due to the nature of fandoms in general, or Disney's massive popularity? i grew up with the 'princesses are bad role models' takes, but these about Quasimodo or Aladdin are just as weird and cynical. Who would be the ideal Disney hero for these people? they're never satisfied.
I agree!
It could be backlash against Disney's massive popularity, but maybe it really is just that fandoms are never satisfied.
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There’s freakin discourse over quasi now? Uhhh wow the last time I was in the HOND fandom I was a teenager. I was thinking about him again and thinking about looking on tumblr and other places but on second thought I think I am gonna avoid the fandom I don’t want to see my boy get hate. They are missing the point of his arc which is social acceptance
I know.
I have no idea where it comes from. Maybe ableism. Maybe victim-blaming for his emotional scars from Frollo's abuse. Maybe difficulty accepting a male hero as sensitive and vulnerable as he is. Or maybe they’re so eager to defend Esmeralda and Phoebus from fans who insist that Quasi should have “gotten the girl” that they feel the need to paint Quasi as more flawed than he is and frame him as a “bad choice.”
As it happens, the other day when I was reading posts about Star Wars, I saw one post that complained about how some fans to insist that Anakin's love for Padmé is just a toxic obsession from the start, rather than a true and beautiful love tragically doomed by his wrong choices and fall to the Dark Side. The OP pointed out that whenever Anakin expresses any desire for himself and Padmé to live happily together, those fans say "You see? He's selfish! If he loved Padmé the right way he would only care about her happiness, not his own!" As if wanting mutual happiness with your spouse weren't natural.
That reminded me very much of some of the bad takes I've found about Quasimodo – or specifically, one. It was a YouTube video analyzing "Heaven's Light" and "Hellfire," which argued that by singing about how Esmeralda has made him happy and filled his tower with "heaven's light," Quasi is "only thinking of how she benefits him, not unlike Frollo." This supposedly contrasts with Phoebus and how he focuses on helping Esmeralda, which is supposedly why Phoebus is the "good choice" for her while Quasi and Frollo are both "bad choices."
As if when Quasi sings that song, he hadn't just helped Esmeralda in a huge way, by helping her escape from her imprisonment in the cathedral, even though it means saying goodbye to her and not knowing when or if he'll see her again! As if it weren't only natural for a lonely, abused, self-loathing person, who's never had a human friend before and thought he never would, to be overjoyed that a caring friend (who also happens to be a beautiful woman whom he's infatuated with) has come into his life! How is such a thing remotely comparable to what Frollo expresses in "Hellfire"? And I'm pretty sure that the only reason why we don't hear Phoebus thinking of how Esmeralda "benefits him" (as they put it) isn't that he's so incredibly selfless, but just that he doesn't have a song about her!
I don't get it.
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Okay, here's another Cinderella-themed poll to deal with earthquake anxiety.
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)?
Where should a Cinderella adaptation or version start?
With her parents before she is born
Depicting life with her parents
Depicting life with just her father, but not showing the mother at all
With her meeting her step family for the first time
At the moment of her father's death (only if he dies in that version of course)
With the dynamic with her step family already established
When the invitation to the ball arrives
Other (write in the comments)
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
@ariel-seagull-wings
This is a tricky question. I actually like the variety of different starting points that the different adaptations give us: they all bring something different and interesting to the story.
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.
Personally, if I were to adapt the story, I might start with Cinderella already orphaned and in rags, but then feature flashbacks showing bits and pieces of her old life with her parents and of the process by which her stepfamily reduced her to servitude. That way, everything she's lost would get its due, but without having to flesh out every detail.
I think with this poll being done, once again many people are bringing great points into the conversation. It is true like @princesssarisa says, that the beginning can be tricky to balance right. In that I think that it's very interesting how some adaptations choose to do this. The 1931 Aschenbrodel that resurfaced not that long ago, has her become a servant in her own home the same day that the invitation for the ball arrives. That kind of reminded me of how in season 6 of Once Upon A Time we see that her step family renames her Cinderella literally after the invitation for the ball, also the Marcella Plunkett version has the stepmother marry the father so they can get invited to the ball. Even in The Ugly Stepsister they have the invitation to the ball arrive almost immediately after the father dies and before Cinderella becomes a servant. It's definitely tricky with different runtimes to also determine where the story beats fit.
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).
For example, for me her relationship with her mother (think of Disney's 2015 version) is crucial because it showcases where her system of beliefs and principles might come from. This is very classic of Grimm's adaptations (and also why I like the 2010 Aschenputtel a little bit more over the 2011 version for instance). And someone did mention that the beginning is also determined by analyzing if it's an adaptation of any specific version or not.
These plot variations also create an interesting and important difference between versions:
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).
That difference can create a very different impression both of Cinderella’s character and of the story in general.
Me looking a the Star Wars tag, reading both “pro-Jedi” and “Jedi critical” posts:
“This is interesting. Both sides make valid arguments.”
A pro-Jedi post:
“The Jedi, and the Buddhists who inspired them, don’t advocate suppressing your emotions. That’s a misconception. That’s not what they mean by ‘letting go.’ On the contrary, the key to managing your emotions in the Jedi way is to acknowledge and accept them…”
Me:
“This is very good. As someone who identifies with prequel-Anakin much more than I wish I did and has always felt almost personally shamed by the theme of ‘He went to the Dark Side because he felt too much and loved too much’ (an oversimplification, I know), I like this better than the standard ‘Conceal, don’t feel’ interpretation.”
The post continues:
“…and then be indifferent to them.”
Me:
“I’m sorry, you just lost me. I may not be great at emotional regulation, but I think I know enough about it to say that ‘choosing indifference’ doesn’t sound healthy. If you had said, ‘Acknowledge your emotions, accept them, and then choose how, or whether, to act on them,’ that would sound healthy. But ‘Acknowledge them, accept them, and then be indifferent to them’ just sounds like repression with an extra step added to it.”
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Quasimodo is Romani? Do anyone Ever confirm that but then again it's possible after all considering how Romani woman being victim of rape no wonder quasimodo just happen to have Lighter skin tone
I actually created a poll once about the possibilities of his origins:
Maybe his mother and her apparent husband (the man who holds her protectively when Frollo arrives to arrest them) are both his biological parents, and his light coloring is just a fluke of nature, like his deformity.
Maybe his biological father was a white man (either from a previous relationship or, as was all too likely, by rape), which would make him ethnically half-Romani.
Or maybe he was born to white parents, but they either died or abandoned him, and the Romani couple found him and adopted him.
Who knows?
bad takes about Quasimodo are swimming in the fandom again. they're going around saying that Esmeralda is the true hero of Hunchback, saving Paris, while Quasi stays all day "whining" and singing in the bell tower. And that he's "racist" for not liking that Esmeralda chose Phoebus over him (?)
What the actual heck?! How does any of that make sense whatsoever?
How can they accuse Quasimodo of whining when he almost never complains about anything? Yes, he expresses sadness, yearning, etc. – though only when he's alone, for the most part – but just expressing emotion isn't the same as complaining and certainly isn't whining! Can they just not handle a male hero who isn't stoic?
His songs aren't whining either: they're not even laments. If these people are talking about "Made of Stone" from the stage musical, that's not whining at all: it's rage, despair, and self-loathing because Esmeralda is about to die and it's all his fault. As for "Out There," it combines yearning with ecstatic joy at imagining life in the outside world, and "Heaven's Light" is about the affection and joy Esmeralda has brought into his life.
And criticizing him for not leaving the bell tower to fight against Frollo? That's (a) ignoring his character arc, and (b) victim-blaming. Quasi has been emotionally abused by Frollo all his life, yet at the same time sees Frollo as his father figure and only protector. His character arc in the Disney version is to gradually learn to see Frollo for who he is, overcome the fears and self-doubt that Frollo has instilled in him, and break free. It sounds like these people are criticizing him for having a character arc instead of being a flat paragon from the beginning – and while they're at it, victim-blaming him for having realistic psychological scars.
As for Esmeralda, I love her and admire her too, but how is she more of a "real hero" than Quasimodo? Yes, she stands up to Frollo at the festival, but afterwards she spends the rest of the film mostly running and hiding from Frollo and his soldiers, not doing anything more to stop them except discretely saving Phoebus's life. Quasi is the one who saves Paris in the end, by overpowering Frollo's soldiers in the battle at the cathedral, and then indirectly causing Frollo's death. (Or in the stage version, killing him outright.)
And as for calling him "racist"... where to begin?! In the first place, Quasi belongs to the same ethnic group as Esmeralda: he's Romani too, he's just lighter in coloring. But even if he weren't... WTF?!?! Is there some new rule that if you're a light-skinned person and you have romantic feelings for a person of color, then you're not allowed to be sad if they choose someone else, and if you are sad, that means you're racist?! There's no logic in that! No logic at all!
I'm starting to think these "fans" are really just trolls. Either that, or they're from other planets.
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Disney Romance: Storyline versus Subplot
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!
What do you think?
I agree with most of this.
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.
But it is interesting to realize that while the three Walt-era Princesses are stereotyped as "needing a man" more than their later successors, their movies' main plots are much less centered around romance than those of many of the Renaissance and post-Renaissance heroines.
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When people talk about Rhodopis they usually simplify her to just "The First Cinderella" and don't talk about the fact that she was a sex worker or the other parts of her life as told by Herodotus, such as:
One of her fellow slaves was Aesop
Her freedom was bought by Sappho's brother, and Sappho admonished him in one of her poems, presumably for wasting so much money on her
Her career as a courtesan actually made her considerably wealthy
She wanted to leave a memorial of herself in Greece, so she spent a tenth of her wealth to send iron beef spits (for some reason) to Delphi. Herodotus says that these lie in a pile in a temple in Delphi
Since Rhodopis seems to have been a real person, and the sandal story + her marriage to the pharaoh likely never happened, it's so fascinating how such a random story about her may have snowballed into one of the most famous tale-types in the world, sharing almost nothing in common with the real woman who inspired it, yet becoming the dominant lens through which we view her.
Yes, it really is fascinating.
I don't tend to think of her as "the first Cinderella" myself, since all she really has in common with the Cinderella we know is the story of the lost shoe which leads to a royal marriage. I think of her as more of a proto-Cinderella, while the real "first Cinderella" was China's Ye-Xian.
I would love to learn the historical details of just how the legend of Rhodopis traveled from Egypt and/or Greece to China and evolved into the tale of Ye-Xian and other tales like it.
I just realized that of the adaptations of Cinderella that begin before or with her father's remarriage, very few have Cinderella actually attending her father's wedding.
Most of these versions tend to have him marry the Stepmother abroad, and then bring her and her daughters home to meet his daughter. The stepfamily's arrival at the house in a carriage, where Cinderella meets them for the first time and we instantly see how different their personalities and lifestyle are from hers, is a fairly common adaptational trope. The 1940s Let's Pretend radio version, the 1955 and 1989 German films, Ever After, Ella Enchanted, the 2010 Märchenperlen version, and the 2015 Disney film all feature it.
The only two versions I can think of where she attends the wedding are the 1950 Spanish animated film Érase una vez... and the newly-rediscovered 1931 German film.
When should a "Snow White" adaptation start?
Before her birth, with her mother wishing for a child
With her birth, her mother's death, and her childhood
When her father first brings home his new bride, the Queen
With her father's death
With her life in the castle under the Queen's rule
With the Queen at the magic mirror learning that Snow White is the fairest
Other
Inspired by @therapeuticfairy's poll about when an adaptation of Cinderella should start, here's the sam question about Snow White.
Okay, here's another Cinderella-themed poll to deal with earthquake anxiety.
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)?
Where should a Cinderella adaptation or version start?
With her parents before she is born
Depicting life with her parents
Depicting life with just her father, but not showing the mother at all
With her meeting her step family for the first time
At the moment of her father's death (only if he dies in that version of course)
With the dynamic with her step family already established
When the invitation to the ball arrives
Other (write in the comments)
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
@ariel-seagull-wings
This is a tricky question. I actually like the variety of different starting points that the different adaptations give us: they all bring something different and interesting to the story.
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.
Personally, if I were to adapt the story, I might start with Cinderella already orphaned and in rags, but then feature flashbacks showing bits and pieces of her old life with her parents and of the process by which her stepfamily reduced her to servitude. That way, everything she's lost would get its due, but without having to flesh out every detail.
In honor of the block’s 35th anniversary, what’s your favorite 90s Nicktoons?
Doug (1991-1994)
Rugrats (1991-2004)
The Ren and Stimpy Show (1991-1996)
Rocko’s Modern Life (1993-1996)
Aaahh!!! Real Monsters (1994-1997)
Hey Arnold! (1996-2004)
Kablam! (1996-2000)
The Angry Beavers (1997-2003)
CatDog (1998-2005)
Oh Yeah! Cartoons (1998-2002)
The Wild Thornberrys (1998-2004)
Rocket Power (1999-2004)
I left out SpongeBob since:
1. It’s still going
2. Ran out of spots so it was between that or Rocket Power (funny how there were 13 Nicktoons shows produced in the 90s)
3. I get the feeling if I had left SpongeBob in, it would’ve dominated in this poll. 😅
It wasn't easy to choose, but in the end I had to pick Rugrats.
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el mundo maravilloso de solita: la cenicienta
Fairy tales aren't just ooey gooey fluffy princess stories or grim scare em straight morality tales. A lot of them are Adventures and Funny.
