Cinderella the Saint? - [Spoilers]

I recently watched the 2015 live action remake of Cinderella.  I wasn't sure if I wanted to watch it due to some negative reviews I heard that said that the movie had a really bad message for young girls.  However, my sister convinced me to give it a shot.

It has been a very long time since I've seen the original 2D animated version, but my sister says this remake follows the original movie very well. I'm going to assume you know what the basic Cinderella story is and jump right into my thoughts.

Overall I thought this new version of Cinderella was fantastic!  I absolutely loved it!  Why?  Because the messages were so good and so strong.  I am a very big fan of movies with a morally sound messages and Cinderella was one of the best I've seen in a long time!  I'll explain this more in a minute.

I am also a big fan of fairy tale movies and while they usually have some good parts they also tend to have bad parts.  For example, Snow White and the Huntsman that came out in 2012 had some great moments, Snow White even prayed at one point which I thought was amazing for a modern movie.  However, the entire movie was ruined for me when Snow White killed her step mother.  If the step mother had been a symbol for sin and pure evil, such as many figures in the Old Testament I probably would have found this acceptable.  However, they actually made me sympathize with the Queen when they showed moments from her past which influenced her to become "evil."  After that I could not buy the idea the Snow White was somehow still pure and innocent after she killed the Queen.  She looked like a ruthless murderer to me. So that entire movie was ruined.

I was quite worried that something similar would occur in Cinderella.  However, I was pleasantly surprised when Cinderella actually forgave her step mother and step sisters despite how cruelly they treated her.  Her ability to forgive proved that her demeanor and personality throughout the entire film was genuine.  Had she cursed her step mother instead, or worse killed her, the entire movie would have lost it's creditably.

The Messages in Cinderella

Core Message

The most obvious message in Cinderella was the advice her mother gave her before she died.  It was advice she lived by.  "Have courage and be kind."

Cinderella did an amazing job and lived by this seemingly simple advice.  I say seemingly simple because courage and kindness have a huge amount of underlying implications when diving into and striving after them.

First of all, Courage, today we may think of courage simply as being brave when facing something that frightens us.  Such as mustering up the "courage" to squash a spider, or finally saying hello to someone we find attractive.  We sometimes think of these small things as courage, and in a sense they do take courage, but what we find in Cinderella is a type of courage that goes beyond overcoming our minor fears.

Cinderella's mother died early in the movie when she is a child.  She did not become gloomy, or depressed, instead she took to heart her mother's advice and tried to live in such a way that would make her mother proud.  Later her father died as well and she is left with her step mother and sisters who constantly teased her and treated her like a slave rather than a sister.  The basic needs of food, clothing, shelter, and love are withheld from her when left alone with her step family.  She is denied proper meals, she didn't receive a new one like her sisters, she is sent to sleep in the drafty attic and resorted to sleeping by the fire place in the kitchen instead, and she lived with three woman who demand much love, but gave none in return.  She faced all of this without a complaint and made due with her situation the best she could all the while she maintained poise and a hopeful attitude.  Her behavior went beyond courage and into the cardinal virtue of fortitude!  Fortitude gives us the strength to face obstacles in this life such as poverty and loss of loved ones, both of which is depicted in the movie.  Fortitude is the virtue that enables martyrs to choose death rather than deny their faith. To find our more about fortitude visit this page.

Secondly Kindness. I have been reading the book "The Hidden Power of Kindness" by Lawrence G. Lovasik and have been learning that kindness is not simply being friendly or likable, but encompasses a whole list of virtues such as avoiding envy, jealousy and gossip and instead recognizing that we do not have the full picture about another person's situation so we would do well to give them the benefit of the doubt and see their actions and behaviors in the best light possible.  Seeing their potential for good rather than focusing on their flaws.

Cinderella practiced this kindness throughout the movie.  She shared what little food she had with those even more impoverished than herself, the mice in the attic. She quietly performed all of the chores and duties the step family assigned her without complaint and did them the best she could. It would have been far easier for her to demand respect since she was the lawful owner of the house.  Or she could have done the tasks with a vengeful or spiteful spirit and purposely done them poorly so that the meals she made were burnt or under-cooked, and the laundry ended up with holes or wrinkles.  But, Cinderella remained kind,  a put her step families needs above her own.  After all she recognized that even though she had lost her mother and father, her step sisters had lost two fathers in a very short period of time and they had moved away from their own home to her farm which was not as nice as the home they had left, in their opinion.  This is a lot for anyone to go through and likely caused them all a good deal of stress and anxiety.

Cinderella's kindness in this situation, that was obviously quite difficult for her, reminded me of St. Monica.  Some years ago I read the book "The Life of St. Monica" by F. A. Forbes.  This book described the way Monica was forced to leave her own family through an arranged marriage to a pagan man.  She lived with her husband, his mother, the household staff, and eventually their three children.  Her mother-in-law did not like her and as a result neither did the household staff.  In order to gain favor with their mistress the staff would make us stories about Monica and all of her "faults."  On top of that her new husband was known for his explosive temper.  Monica however, faced all of this quietly, doing her best to perform her duties well, and not complaining.  Her wonderful, truly feminine, countenance disarmed her husband's attacks and he never raised a hand to her.  After many years of prayers and living virtuously in this difficult situation, she won over her mother-in-law, and her husband, who both converted to her Catholic faith and their hearts were transformed.  Her eldest son had grown into an out of line man with vices of his own, but Monica won him over as well and he, St. Augustine, became one of the most influential and famous Saints of the Catholic Church.  Seeing Cinderella's similarity to Monica showed me that those who had said this new Cinderella had a bad message for young girls was not true.  If girls today live by Cinderella's example in this movie they could become Saints themselves someday, which of course is what we all should be striving to become.

Other Messages

But what about the old fashioned and obviously silly message this movie portrays, that of a woman being whisked away from a bad situation by a handsome prince who saves the day by falling in love with her?  Surly this is not a good message for young girls, in this day and age, when woman are taught they don't need men to "save" them from their problems, they can do it themselves, of if not by themselves, then at least with the help of another woman. (Frozen I'm looking at you.) They don't need saved by a man that is deeming to a woman.

This modern idea couldn't be farther from the truth and it is the harmful idea not the other way around.

First let's look at the book of Tobit in the Bible. This story features Tobiah, Tobit's son, and a girl names Sarah.  Sarah is possessed by a demon, although she doesn't know that.  She has been married seven times, but the demon has killed each of her husbands on their wedding night.  She is in despair over this thinking that she is cursed and so she prays that God would end her life.  God hears her prayer and sends the angel, Raphael to help.  Raphael doesn't go directly to Sarah, but instead brings Tobiah to her.  He gives Tobiah a cure that will drive the demon away from her.  Tobiah falls in love with Sarah and marries her, on their wedding night he prays and uses the cure made of fish to drive away the demon.  Raphael then chases down the demon and binds him so he can not attack someone else. Tobiah and Sarah have a great party and as far was we can tell live happily ever after.

This story takes place in 721 BC it features a woman being saved from her problems by a man.  Or does it? From Sarah's point of view she has found a husband who doesn't up and die the first time they are alone together, this is her dream come true.  To her it may seem that a man has saved her, but in fact God sent the Angel who sent the man.  In Cinderella her problems are solved when the prince saves her.  Or did God send the deer that drew the prince and her together and then sent the Angel (aka Fairy God Mother) who enabled her to attend the ball?  Disney of course is highly unlikely to acknowledge this, but we are free to interpret the movie however we want and if I had children this is how I would explain what happened in the movie.  Why?  Because truly God is the one saves us all, from our sin and our problems, but he often allows others to participate in the saving.

But using the story Tobit still indicates that this is an old fashioned idea.  I prefer to call it a timeless truth rather than old fashioned.  A timeless truth is something that does not change with time because it was ordained by God.  This truth was worked into the vary fabric of how a woman was created and this truth is, that a woman longs to be saved by a man.  Not just any man, the God-man, the perfect man, Jesus Christ Himself.  Woman are created as the reflection of God's Church, the Church he founded and loved so much he died for.  Thus woman desire from a very early age to be loved so perfectly by their lover that he would die for her.  A child of course does not know she is the reflection of the Church and that Jesus died for her, but she senses her royal bloodline as a child of God, and dresses as the princess she is and dreams of a prince to wisk her away to a castle in the sky aka Heaven.

Men on the other hand are the reflection of Jesus himself and can only truly become a man when he is willing to put all of his own needs and desires in second place and be willing to valiantly die for his bride like a true man of victory and honor.  These truths are worked into the very beings of men and woman and of course they vary in degree and intensity from one person to the next and can even be obscured entirely by the influences of the world, but there is no denying that in general the majority of woman have a strong desire to be loved and men in general have a strong desire to destroy anything that would wish to harm the one they love; just as Jesus destroyed sin and death. This is why from 721 to 2015 we can find stories throughout all of history of men saving woman and woman being saved by men.  It is not weak for a woman to be on the receiving end, the one being saved, it is her natural and rightful place because when a woman receives she takes what she receives and creates new life!  Only a woman can bring new life into the world both physically and spiritually.  Woman take the love they receive from God and from man and spread it around to everyone they come into contact with.  Or at least that's what they should be doing.  This is the rightful mission of woman, to receive all that God would give her and share it with everyone so that all may be blessed and come to know God themselves.  This is not weak, this is strong, it takes a strong person to freely give what they have received, rather than fearfully hoard it or cling to it so that it sours and become pain and bitterness rather than the love and joy it was meant to be.

This brings me to the last message in Cinderella that I want to point out.  Cinderella shows us that true beauty come from within.

At one point Cinderella watched her step sisters fight over their new ball gowns and argue about which one of them will win the prince's heart.  Cinderella pity's them, recognizing that their petty behavior and jealousy spoiled their beautiful exteriors.  It is the state of the inner soul that adds to or detracts from outward beauty, and the girls lack of kindness and love made their physical appearance seem ugly.

Cinderella, although she was given a lovely dress, wins the prince's heart by her kind demeanor and joyful personality.  One of the sweetest moments in the movie is when the prince takes her to his secret garden.  While in other films this would be the moment when the couple decides is a good idea to degrade their own self worth and give into their temptations, in Cinderella this was the moment when Cinderella's innocence and self control shines through and the princes honorable manners enable them both to enjoy the beautiful moment in purity and love without taking advantage of each other.  This is so rare in today's films that I was pleasantly surprised and awed that such a new movie would feature two such lovely moment like this.

Cinderella's purity is far more attractive to the prince than all of the other girls who flung themselves at him hoping that their physical appearance, wealth, status, and boisterous behavior will snag his attention.  But men are not attracted to woman who flaunt themselves, after all if they flaunt themselves to one then how many others have they done the same to?  Men recognize their own unique self worth and that they deserve to be loved not by what they can do for a woman, but because of who they are.  Some boys will "play around" with the girls that cling to any man like a cat, but it's the pure dove that only has eyes for him that will win his heart.  After all, only she is a worthy bride worth dying for.