2 sides of Cinderella

In the movie Cinderella, there are several positive lessons that children can take away after watching this film. However, there are also some potentially negative messages that children might take away instead.

One of the positive messages this movie portrays is finding happiness in the little things when life isn’t going as planned. Cinderella portrays this message when she makes friends with the mice and birds that live at her house. She talks to them and sings with them as she does her chores every day. Cinderella is very good at appreciating what she has, even though it is not much compared to her step sisters. She realizes that instead of complaining about having to do chores, she will make the most of her situation instead. This also teaches children that hard work pays off and hard times won’t last forever. She is always patient with her step mother and sisters and remains positive.

On the other hand, children may not take away the positive messages if they are focused on the negative. For example, in this film the step mother and step sisters are evil, so a child with step siblings or a step parent might assume that all step mothers and siblings are evil as well. Cinderella’s step mother forces her to do all the chores in the house and basically treats her like a slave. In addition, her step sisters are constantly making fun of her and putting her down. Cinderella does not receive the same opportunities as her step sisters so it’s much harder for her to try to find a way out. When she puts on her mother’s old dress to go to the ball, her step mother and sisters rip it to shreds and forbid her from attending. Also, when the prince comes by to find his true love and return the glass slipper, her step mother locks her away and tries to forces her daughters on the prince.   Although there is a happy ending for Cinderella, the step mother and sisters never change their attitudes toward her, so for a child with a new stop parent or step siblings this movie may have problematic messages that override the positive ones.

This issue, however, would only be applied to a child with step parents or sibling, so it wouldn’t have any effect of a child without step parents or siblings. Parents of step children would have a much harder time deciding if this movie would leave negative message for their child, but the majority of parents would see this as an innocent child friendly film.