She is irresistible and if you have not seen the film recently: strong and virtuous. Cinderella is an object lesson in a good attitude toward outrageous fortune. Unrealistic story telling has caused us to forget the basic fairy tale truth: good things come to people who learn to be good without good things. We can rage again the machine and become an angry person nobody wishes to know or humble ourselves and find joy in simple tasks. Cinderella reminds us that no work is dishonest and that the life of the indolent is ugly.
If the prince had never come, Cinderella would have been better off than the step sisters whose looks match their souls. For those with good eyes, this is always true, but we are not taught to see well nowadays. The step sisters are drawn as they were, this is art not photography, and this is important to remember in dealing with Disney films.
They often express the inner reality in the outer drawing. The Wicked Queen in Snow White is superficially beautiful, but we can see traces of the Wicked Witch in her even before the transformation. Characterization in a Disney film matches the outer appearance to the inner reality.
If you love a princess movie, this is the movie you love because all other princess movies are just a version of this film. Cinderella proved that the Disney team had not lost the ability to produce magic since Bambi, just control of the studio during World War II.
What did Walt teach me?
Humility is a great virtue. The Greeks did not like it and moderns like it even less. Humility is not submission to injustice, humility is a refusal to allow injustice to make one angry. The humble man does even the most menial task with joy and to the best of his ability. The angry man preaches revolution and does more harm than good. The humble man preaches love for neighbor and enemy and changes hearts over time.
Cinderella is a great hero because she transforms drudgery to beauty. She makes mice and birds friends. Cinderella follows the “little way” of so many of the great saints. Because she is a woman, some see her as a symbol of sexism, but Cinderella was a universal story. Just as we are all the bride of Christ in Christian theology, we are all Cinderella in the fairy tale.
She wants more, strives to get more if she can, but she makes the best out of her bad situation. She is never bitter, angry, or ugly. What is not to like?
Endurance will produce greatness and Cinderella endures. She does not give up her dreams of justice because she understands that God remains in His Heaven. The Fairy Godmother helps save her in the tale and this is realistic, because, as Jane Eyre argues, the angels watch over all of us. They do not save us from harm or prevent humans from using their free will badly, but they mitigate evil and make as much good as is consistent with the human liberty.
There are worse things than being poor and put upon: you could become false, ugly, and base like the step mother and her daughters. Cinderella is happier than they are at the start of the film and would be happier if the prince had never come. Cinderella endures and so is saved on the inside. In the fairy tale she is also saved on the outside and lives “happily ever after” and this is also true for us all if we endure.
The Prince is coming. He will take his Bride and we will live, really live, utterly happy for ever after.
If you wish to be irritated, you can ignore the story and pretend that Cinderella is “helpless” and saved by “Prince Charming.” Cinderella was not rescued by the Prince, she was already good and noble. Instead, she made herself a princess and reality simply recognized the truth.
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