Ever After, More or Less
The movie Ever After: A Cinderella Story is on Disney+ now, and I watched it for the first time in twenty-something years today.
I’ve seen all the damsel in distress jokes made by the feminists of Twitter. And there’s certainly a point to be made about how Sleeping Beauty couldn’t consent to that kiss. How Beauty and the Beast was really a story about Stockholm Syndrome. And Snow White’s stepmother was just a garden variety narcissist.
Today, though, I was struck by how real the villains are in the Cinderella retelling. Just classic abuse staring me straight in the face. I didn’t pick up on it at all then.
Ever After came out in 1998, when I was 18, and I think the reason I liked it so much is because it was a retelling of Cinderella where the Prince acknowledged he was a jerk and Cinderella saved herself. Coupling welcome but not required.
That message was kind of novel to me in my 20s, and the empowerment of it was likely the reason I didn’t mind watching the movie weekly.
I’d come home from work on Fridays and order a delivery pizza from Papa John’s. (Hey, delivery options were limited back in the day.)
Then, being an introvert before being an introvert was cool, I’d treat myself to watching the VHS I purchased on eBay. (There were several months I couldn’t afford cable and didn’t have a TV antenna.)
True story: I watched EA so much I had to replace the VHS more than once.
Anyway, watching Ever After today was restorative, helping me reconnect and see again that not everything about the early aughts was awful.
The thing about relying too heavily on dissociating and compartmentalizing is that it can get out of hand. Takes out the baby and the bathwater, so to speak.
I’m better today than I was yesterday.