Happily ever after? Not even close. Disney's Cinderella pulls from a long line of bizarre and messed up tales, and none of them are rated G.
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00:00Happily ever after? Yeah, not even close. Disney's Cinderella pulls from a long line
00:05of bizarre and messed-up tales, and none of them are rated G.
00:10If you're expecting some French version right off the top, buckle up. We're going way back
00:15for the first Cinderella story.
00:17The Roman account of Rhodopis, the Egyptian courtesan, was written as part of a quote-unquote
00:22light reading compilation for 3rd century Romans, as in A.D., so we're way back in time.
00:29It's not quite a bedtime story we tell today, but it is indeed a charming little yarn.
00:33Here's the breakdown. Rhodopis is a Greek slave whose sandal gets snatched up by an
00:38eagle while she's taking a bath and carried away to Memphis. Hate when that happens. There,
00:43the sandal is dropped into the lap of a pharaoh. Struck by both the shoe and the peculiarity
00:48of the event, he dispatches minions throughout Egypt to find the shoe's owner.
00:52Short story short, Rhodopis gets brought to him, he marvels at her beauty, and they get
00:56married.
00:57The single-paragraph narrative was first translated into English in 1666, and is widely touted
01:03as the first version of the Cinderella story. Obviously, there are no singing mice or magic
01:07pumpkins in the story, but the central idea is there — a young woman, plus shoe, plus
01:12royal guy.
01:14That might not be the only Cinderella origin story. Written around 860 in China, though
01:19a few hundred years later, Ye Shan isn't exactly a carbon copy of the tale, but a lot of recognizable
01:25elements show up. It has a girl whose father dies, a mean stepmother, a magical protector,
01:30and the whole lost shoe and marriage-to-a-king thing.
01:34As the story goes, the spirit of Ye Shan's mother sends a fish to be her friend and guardian
01:38— at least until the oppressive stepmother kills the fish and cooks it for dinner. After
01:43that, Ye Shan gets a visit from her ancestral spirit, who helps her conduct a magic ritual
01:48using the fish's bones to invoke the power of its wish-granting spirit. She wishes her
01:53way into a beautiful dress and golden slippers at a New Year's festival, but ultimately races
01:57away when her stepfamily recognizes her, leaving one of her slippers behind. And, well, you
02:02know the rest.
02:03And they lived happily ever after.
02:07At least they lived happily ever after. Stepmother and stepsister get killed when their house
02:11collapses — but they probably thirped.
02:15Researchers have identified at least 345 different Cinderella variants across Europe, but two
02:21in particular stand head and shoulders above the rest in terms of impact. And we're not
02:25to the grisly one, yet. We're building up to that. Worth the wait, trust me.
02:30In this first version, an Italian governess, who is the stepmother of a girl named Zedzola,
02:35transforms her into a rag-wearing servant, and dubs her La Gatta Cenerentola — that's
02:40Cat Cinderella for our non-Italian-speaking watchers. That's her second stepmother, because
02:45in this version, Cat Cinderella murders her first stepmother at the behest of stepmother
02:49number two.
02:51The governess then marries Zedzola's father and becomes her new guardian, but he's just
02:55as mean as the first. No worries, though — the king marries Cat Cinderella in this one, too.
03:00In case we're not clear, she's not really a cat.
03:03Three years later, in 1637, French author Charles Perrault published The Beloved Tales
03:08of Mother Goose, which contains the story of Cendrillon, which is the version of Cinderella
03:13that we all know. This story introduces ultra-specific elements like a fairy godmother, a pumpkin-transformed
03:19into a carriage, mice who turn into horses, and the whole glass slipper bit. Perrault
03:24left out the magic fish and the murder, so in a way, he more or less Disney-ified Cinderella
03:29over 300 years before Disney.
03:31Okay, you've waited long enough. Let's get to the violence. And that means it's Brothers
03:36Grimm time. That's Aschenputtle, who drew on the previous stories to make their own
03:41grindhouse-like version in 1812.
03:44In Aschenputtle, Cinderella mourns her dead mother so keenly that her tears grow a tree
03:48from the soil. When she prays to the tree, white pigeons show up to grant her wishes.
03:53Much of the story plays out the way you know it, but when the prince makes the rounds to
03:57find the girl who fits the slipper, the wicked stepmother orders one of the stepsisters to
04:01cut off a toe, and the other a chunk of their heel. In the end, Cinderella gets her man,
04:06and the birds peck out the eyes of the stepsisters at the wedding.
04:10Granted, leave it to the Brothers Grimm to terrify her up Cinderella.
04:15Oh, listen to the doves. Cinderella is your true love.
04:21Ready to tap into the minds and wallets of youngsters everywhere? The studio likely chose
04:25Cinderella because of its parallels to Snow White. Think about it. A young and mistreated
04:30heroine, an oppressive matriarch, funny little companions, a prince to the rescue, and so
04:35forth.
04:36Plus, Cinderella gave audiences a proverbial happy ending in a blissful marriage. Everything
04:40falls into place perfectly for the kind and noble people, and the mean stepmother and
04:45stepsisters are sort of just hand-waved and forgotten.
04:48Of course, the prudes over at Disney didn't include any toe-chopping or bird-blinding
04:52stepsisters in its version. And don't even get us started on the fishbones or cat Cinderella.
04:57But it's entirely possible that if Disney hadn't cleaned it up for families and added
05:01a few catchy songs, Cinderella wouldn't have become the enduring tale it is today.
05:06We're not sure the Brothers Grimm would approve of the lack of divine retribution, but at
05:10least kids like it.