People are expecting a lot more from their royals these days.
In a world where the role of women in cinema is shifting daily, one of the most important areas of representation is children’s films – as we all know, children are the future, and the way in which those children, in particular young girls, are seeing themselves represented on screen is one of the areas that deserves the most criticism. The traditional princess story has been a cinematic staple since the first years of cinema, and it’s one that’s still alive and well. Take Frozen, for example. (I know, you’re sick of hearing about it. Me too.) Despite being full of flaws beneath its frothy exterior, the film was critically lauded, adored by its audience, and creating a somewhat irritating The X Factor audition staple in the form of ‘Let It Go’. Frozen suddenly had people talking about what it means to be a princess in the 21st century, and the film was praised for its very literal ‘sisters before misters’ message and its ability to put girls, messy, loud, prince-shunning whiny teenage girls, at its forefront, giving a valuable corner of the market something slightly more realistic to admire alongside a solid helping of comedy snowmen. For all their shortcomings, Elsa and Anna are far from the Disney princesses of the classics, and that’s something that’s glaringly obvious when compared to director Kenneth Branagh’s new live-action Cinderella.
The unshakable fact here is that Cinderella is, on the surface anyway, an old-fashioned story, and the adaptation of the 1950s classic is, well, a little 1950s: unlike recent postmodern spins on fairy stories like Into The Woods and Maleficent, Cinderella sticks to its roots, creating a film that in part feels a little too antiquated to succeed in a world of empowerment. It isn’t a bad movie – Cate Blanchett is endlessly watchable if only for being Cate Blanchett, it’s lovely to look at, certainly makes positive improvements on its predecessor and is an enjoyable way to pass the time. Everyone loves an underdog, especially one played by the pleasant screen presence that is Lily James, and it’s easy to agree that its heart is firmly in the right place. Cinderella is not an awful character, either – young Ella has a lot more agency than her cartoon counterpart, and finds a far more compatible prince (with a name!) in the form of Richard Madden’s Kit. Her motto is “have courage and be kind”, which despite sounding a bit like a cat poster and being very far from the battle cries of Katniss Everdeen, is far from bad advice to be doling out to those flooding to see the film. (As a side note, here’s an interesting and wholly valid alternative interpretation of the Cinderella story).
There’s lots more coming from the Disney adaptation machine, too: Emma Watson, unsurprisingly, has been cast as Belle in an upcoming Beauty and the Beast, one of Disney’s ‘renaissance’ features featuring a female lead that’s much more positive. More importantly, a recently announced reworking of Mulan has already begun debates over whether the studio will continue a popular Hollywood tradition of whitewashing its more diverse stories. Initial unconfirmed and increasingly unlikely rumours of the role being given to Scarlett Johansson, star of recent ‘I Don’t Think A White Girl Should Play That Part!’ castings such as the live-action Ghost In The Shell production (the source material is an animated Japanese franchise, and ScarJo, neither Japanese nor particularly animated, is entirely inappropriate), broke almost as soon as the announcement of the film. It was greeted with a firm response: no. An online petition protesting any racially incorrect casting has over 50,000 signatures to date. Based on this incident alone, it’s clear that what Disney should be asking itself is if ‘be kind’ is the only advice they should be giving out, and if a slightly uninspiring array of beautiful women being put on liquid diets so they can fit in their corsets is what should pass as inspirational – especially to the easily-influenced minds of seven year old girls.
The problem doesn’t so much lie with princesses (who can be strong as hell) but with Disney and the film industry itself; rebooting Cinderella is a choice that doesn’t reflect the changes taking place in the world, and is emblematic of how far cinema still has left to come in regards to its treatment of women. Feminism is constantly evolving, and the stories we tell our daughters should reflect those changes, but it doesn’t seem like any time soon we’ll be watching the story of a lesbian princess, a transgender princess, a plus-size princess, or a princess that’s all three of those things. As is often pointed out, the most recent princess of colour Tiana in The Princess and The Frog, should have been a fantastic opportunity for representation, but instead she spends over half the movie in the form of the title’s amphibian. While stories like Cinderella will remain classics, all the evidence suggests that much like action heroes, superheroes and the like, princesses simply need and deserve more – they need to be just as unique as any girl, and representative of the many kinds of girls that go to see these films, regardless of whether a handsome prince is involved. The kind of princesses people can respond to and relate to. Simply put, they need to be real characters, not hand-drawn, well-dressed outlines of what outdated stories thought women should be. It’s one thing being nice, it’s another just being nice, and being told ‘nice’ is the only trait worth having. Kind, obedient. Nice. Let’s face it: ‘nice’ isn’t going to cut it anymore.
Words by Lara Peters