A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Make

For the longest time, Cinderella was a film I hated to teach. I didn't remember much about the film, but I remembered that I didn't like it. And, after all, Cinderella is the most popular princess, so anything that's popular can't possibly live up to the hype. (It's this mindset that caused me to refuse to read Harry Potter for years. Whoops.)

But then I watched it a few years ago when a student wanted to write a really fascinating paper on gender transgression in the 1950 film. But when I read her proposal, I was skeptical: The King has a stereotypically feminine obsession with grand babies? And acts uber-masculine to make up for this transgression? I don't remember ANY of this.... So, I rewatched it. And promptly gave the student the go-ahead to write a really fascinating and unique argument. (To this day, it's still one of my favorites.)

The point is -- Cinderella is not what I remember -- and Cinderella (the character) isn't quite as passive and spineless as academic critics sometimes want us to believe. So I added it to my syllabus.

And re-watching pieces of it yesterday (three times) just made me think of something:

#1 -- Cinderella is actually pretty relatable. I mean...this is me basically every morning (just sub a dog and two tiny humans for the birds):

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#2 -- This may be the most unrealistic part of the whole movie. She sleeps on two braids all night and has magically beautiful wavy hair when she takes them out? Nope. Her hair would be kinked and frizzed all over the place. Now that's Disney magic.

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But then...