(B)adaptations Script: Cinderella

J: Hello everyone and welcome to our YouTube channel, Badaptations. Today, we’re covering the development of the Cinderella story through its many adaptations over the years. Isn’t that right, Bailey?

B: Yes, we are, Jenna. We’re starting with the 1812 Brothers Grimm version, although there were many versions before this one, dating back to ancient Greece in 7 BC.

J: That’s wild. This story is literally ancient, and the original is a lot darker than the Disney one that everyone is familiar with.

B: Definitely. There’s a lot of gore, and a lot of blood. Maybe we can start with a short synopsis of the original Grimm version for anyone who’s not familiar with it.

J: Good idea.

B: So, a quick synopsis: it starts out with Cinderella’s mother giving her very Christian advice to be godly and pure, then dying. The dad remarries, and Cinderella gains a stepmother and two stepmothers who are described as beautiful on the outside, but ugly on the inside. Everyone, including the dad, is neglectful and abusive towards Cinderella, forcing her to sleep in front of the fire, hence the nickname.

J: It’s interesting that the father’s neglect isn’t even a shocking or even important aspect of the story, since a father’s role in child rearing was so small at that time. This kind of neglect might have been considered normal in this time period.

B: Yeah, that’s very true. So, as we continue in the story, there is a magical wishing tree at her mother’s grave which grows from a branch that she asks her father to bring her back from one of his business trips.

J: Cinderella is portrayed as a humble and unmaterialistic person; when her sisters ask for gold and jewels, she just asks for a branch that hits his hat.

B: Yes, and we know Cinderella understands that this is an enchanted tree because she asks it for help, and it sends birds to assist her with tasks around the house. So it’s this tree that is her guide in this story, as if her deceased mother is her “godmother” guiding her from beyond.

J: What I find interesting about this original version is that the family doesn’t even make active attempts to keep her from the ball, or “balls” since there are three nights of them. They just assume that she’s too ugly, dirty, and “deformed” to go, so they just leave her. I find that both sad and hilarious.

B: Me too. And for each night of the ball, Cinderella asks the tree for a new dress and each night it gives her a nicer one than before. Not blue like the cartoon, but gold and white. Classy colors.

J: For sure, for sure. Each night the prince sees her, dances with her, and even walks her home, but each time she runs into the chicken coop, or the tree, or around the house so he can’t see where she lives—even though they literally walk to her house, so I don’t know why she did that or who it’s helping.

B: I know, right? On the third night, the prince gets smart and lays down tar so she’d stick to the steps, but she ends up escaping, leaving only her shoe. So the next day, he takes the shoe to her house. Since he knows where she is, he at least has the sense to go straight there instead of trying the shoe on every woman in town.

J: At this point it starts to get a little bloody, so brace yourselves, everyone. The stepmother tells her daughters to cut off various parts of their feet, their toes, their heels, to fit the shoe, using the reasoning that queens don’t have to stand. It works at first, but then the birds tell the prince that

there’s blood in the shoe, so they don’t get away with it. After the prince meets the first two daughters, he asks if anyone else is living in the house. The father says something along the lines of, “Oh, I had another daughter with my first wife but she’s deformed so it’s probably not her.”

B: But, lo and behold, it’s her. They get married, and the step daughter’s eyes are pecked out by pigeons.

J: Yep, there you have it, the Brothers Grimm Cinderella. Now let’s start comparing, assuming that everyone watching this has seen Disney’s Cinderella and doesn’t need a synopsis for both.

B: Sounds good. I think the biggest overt difference between the original and the Disney adaptation is that the original has a moral to it—if you’re ugly on the inside, you get punished, but if you live a pure Christian life you’ll get the guy. The Disney version of Cinderella is nice, but instead of a religious focus we see an idealistic female perception of the women that existed in the 50’s: quiet, beautiful, gentle, cleans, doesn’t make a fuss.

J: Very true. I also think that evil is represented in an archetypal way in the Disney version, with a single super evil character with her goofy henchmen. Only the mother is seen as vindictive and evil, and that’s all we see of her, making her the only personified villain of the story instead of the entire family sharing that place in the story. Disney makes this extra clear by focusing the evil stereotype on the stepmother and eliminating the father figure, which may have confused viewers in how he treated her.

B: Of course, another difference is that there’s only one night of a ball, and there is an actual godmother who makes her dress and her carriage and everything.

J: And no one is maimed in this version. The bad guys just lose and Cinderella wins.

B: Very true. So this is the Disney version that most people base their knowledge of Cinderella on, but there have been many other adaptations before and since this one. For example, Roger and Hammerstein’s cinematic adaptation in 1997 features many cultural icons of the time: Brandy, Whitney Houston, Whoopi Goldberg, Bernadette Peters, Jason Alexander, and other huge stars.

J: This live-action film was huge. It was super visually captivating with new songs and new dance numbers, and it was also pretty progressive for the time. It featured multiple characters of color starring in main roles, including Brandy as Cinderella, Whitney as the Godmother, Whoopi as the queen, and even a Filipino prince.

B: And more than that, the characters and storyline were deeper and more developed than both of the prior adaptations from 1812 and the 1950’s. Brandy wasn’t just a nice and pretty girl who cleaned the house. She was shown to have a genuinely kind heart, and we also get to know the prince and his family life better. The godmother is more than just a means for a dress and a ride; she gives guidance and support to Cinderella as a motherly figure. Overall, the characters are more multidimensional, although the “evil” characters are still pretty silly and obviously bad like in the 50’s adaptation.

J: Yep, Bernadette does a wonderful job of playing a kooky evil stepmother, doesn’t she? There are so many more adaptations than just the two we talked about. The most recent is the most recent live-action that Disney just made, but there are hundreds more.

B: It shows how impactful and clearly relatable the Cinderella story is. It’s encouraging, it promotes achieving your dreams, it celebrates justice, and it teaches that if you want something bad enough, you’ll get it. We all want to see the bad people lose and the nice people win.

J: Yes, it really speaks to the victim in us all. We all love to feel like the sweet, kind, innocent Cinderella who has everything against her and gets her justice in the end.

B: For sure. So, in all, the adaptations have stayed true to the story over time, maintaining the best of the story while discarding unneeded violence and religious ties that it previously had.

J: Well, that’s all for now. Come back next week for a new episode, and don’t forget to subscribe.