First posted May 2019.

I feel like I’m stating the obvious by saying Cinderella’s been on my mind a lot lately. Cinderella is on my mind more often than not. I’ve mentioned before (not here on Patreon, but on my blog) that Cinderella’s my favourite fairytale type and is the type of which I’ve read more versions than any other. But it’s been on my mind more than usual of late for a number of reasons.

Perhaps the easiest reason is that the school where I currently work just put on a production of Cinderella. I didn’t have a hand in the production myself, but I did see the tail end of a few rehearsals as well as the full dress run yesterday afternoon. It’s a version entitled “The Return of the Glass Slipper,” specifically geared at middle-school performers (years 6 through 9, for my UK pals). It’s not terribly nuanced, but—and I’m not sure if this was a scripted choice or a character decision—I thought it worth noting that the Cinderella of this version isn’t really very sympathetic as a person. Her situation evokes sympathy; the step-family are still horrible. But Cinderella herself is impatient, angry, and bitter. I absolutely loved her, but it’s a remarkable departure from the image of Cinderella we usually see.

For a similar reason, I love the moment in Kenneth Branagh’s 2015 film adaptation when Ella falls over sobbing, “I tried to have courage and be kind and I can’t do it anymore.” It’s an acknowledgement that Cinderella’s kindness and patience are not qualities she comes by naturally. Kindness is a choice. Patience takes work. It would be easier for her not to put the effort into being a good person that she does, but it is important, if not vital, to her story that the person she is is a result of conscious choice. We mitigate the importance of her kindness if we say it is something inherent to her nature. It matters that she is deliberately kind and patient; it matters that, when it would be easier not to be, she is kind on purpose.

Part of my ongoing campaign to prove Fairytale Princesses Are Good Role Models Actually is wrapped up in that fact of choice. It would be understandable for Cinderella to be bitter. It would be valid for Snow White to distrust everyone around her. It’s the fact that they choose to be kind, that they choose to give the benefit of the doubt even when they have no evidence that people could be good to them that makes those choices in the face of their awful situations so admirable.

It’s been almost a year since I had to leave home, expecting to be back by Christmas. Over the past year I’ve gone back to customer service, performed at a renaissance festival as a dancer, and started teaching middle school: all positions that require a great degree of kindness, or the appearance thereof, and miles of patience and perseverance. It’s another reason Cinderella specifically has been on my mind. I’ve been so unhappy and stressed, and it is unspeakably difficult to keep choosing patience with people who don’t deserve that patience, to choose kindness in the face of people who are unkind to me.

But that is the point of fairytales and their heroines. If their stories were easy, they wouldn’t inspire us. If they didn’t struggle, they wouldn’t speak to us. Life is hard both for us and for heroines in fairytales. Sure, life is easier when you start out as a princess, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t aspects of these stories to which everyone can relate. While I don’t think anyone’s tried to say the struggles our heroines face are negligible, their choices in response and the ways they shape themselves into good, kind, loving people are not as recognised. If it were easy to choose to act well, fairytales wouldn’t have stuck with us for thousands of years. If their decisions carried no real weight, the story would have no emotional payoff. We love to see Cinderella get her happy ending every time, because she has gone through such horrible things and struggled to remain patient, brave, and kind. Her life was a battle, and she always emerges victorious. It not only inspires hope, but inspires us to choose as wisely as she did. No matter what our own personal struggles are, we can always choose to have courage and be kind.