Fairytale research: Cinderella

The 1950 Disney film is based on Charles Perrault's original version, "Cinderella or The Little Glass Slipper," written in 1697. This sees a beautiful young woman who's is enslaved by her evil stepmother but gets a chance at happiness when her fairy godmother transforms Cinderella's ragged attire into an elegant gown so that she can attend a royal ball and meet Prince Charming. Her magical reprieve only lasts until midnight, however, and she flees, leaving behind one of her glass slippers. The prince finds it and goes looking for the mystery woman who's enthralled him. Cinderella's two evil stepsisters try on the slipper but their feet are too big. The shoe is just right for Cinderella, and she marries the handsome prince.

However, the Grimm version "Aschenputtel" penned in 1812, has a nasty twist which sees the evil stepmother hand a knife to the eldest of her two daughters; the nasty stepsisters cut off parts of their own feet in order to fit them into the glass slipper hoping to fool the prince.

“Then her mother gave her a knife and said, “Cut the toe off; when thou art Queen thou wilt have no more need to go on foot.” 

The prince is fooled and rides off with her, until two talking pigeons alert him to her blood-soaked shoe, that then proceed to peck out the stepsisters’ eyes. They spend the rest of their lives as blind, lame beggars while Cinderella lives in luxury with the prince.

Although Cinderella is a well known tale, it may be difficult to find a suitable location for this type of narrative. Some of the best parts of the tale, such as the transformation of Cinderella from a maid to a potential princess will be hard to pull of in terms of editing, and the twisted original tale would look too gory and unrealistic. We feel that having gory imagery fits more closely with the Rock genre and there are less subtle references to 'coming of age' that we can make throughout the video if we use this tale.