Cinderella (Disney character)

The script for the original film went through revisions by various writers, sometimes with different interpretations of the character. Maurice Rapf tried to make her a less passive character than Snow White, and more rebellious against her stepfamily. Rapf explained, "My thinking was you can't have somebody who comes in and changes everything for you. You can't be delivered it on a platter. You've got to earn it. So in my version, the Fairy Godmother said, 'It's okay till midnight but from then on it's up to you.' I made her earn it, and what she had to do to achieve it was to rebel against her stepmother and stepsisters, to stop being a slave in her own home. So I had a scene where they're ordering her around and she throws the stuff back at them. She revolts, so they lock her up in the attic. I don't think anyone took (my idea) very seriously."[2]

The character was animated by Marc Davis and Eric Larson,[3] but the two animators did not have the same perception of the character, accentuating the elegance of Davis and Larson's opting for simplicity.[4] As done with other Disney films, Walt Disney hired actress Helene Stanley to perform the live-action reference for Cinderella, that she before artists began sketching, playing the role of Cinderella in a particular scene,[5] and artists to draw animated frames based on the movements of the actress.[6] She later did the same kind of work for the characters of Princess Aurora (Mary Costa) in Sleeping Beauty and Anita Radcliff (Lisa Davis) in 101 Dalmatians.[6]

According to Christopher Finch, author of The Art of Walt Disney:

Disney insisted that all scenes involving human characters should be shot first in live-action to determine that they would work before the expensive business of animation was permitted to start. The animators did not like this way of working, feeling it detracted from their ability to create character. However, they understood the necessity for this approach in retrospect and acknowledged that Disney had handled things with considerable subtlety.[1]

Ilene Woods was the voice actor for the character in the original 1950 film.

In the original 1950 film, Cinderella is voiced by American singer and actress Ilene Woods.[7] In 1948, Woods was a young eighteen-year-old singer working as a radio personality at the time and hosting her own eponymous radio program The Ilene Woods Show.[8] While working at ABC Radio,[9] Woods would regularly be visited and approached by various songwriters who wanted the singer to perform their compositions, which is ultimately how she met and befriended Cinderella songwriters Mack David and Jerry Livingston.[10] Ultimately, David and Livingston "would play ... an important role in Woods's career."[8]

At the behest of David and Livingston, casually described as "a favor",[11] Woods agreed to record a series of demos of three songs that the songwriters had recently written for the studio's then-upcoming animated film Cinderella. Woods recorded the songs "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo", "So This Is Love", and "A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes",[12] which the songwriters then submitted to Disney himself. Upon reviewing and listening to the tracks, Disney, impressed, decided to contact Woods personally. Two days afterward, Woods received a telephone call from Disney, with whom she immediately scheduled an interview. Woods recalled in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, "We met and talked for a while, and he said, 'How would you like to be Cinderella?'", to which she agreed.[13]

Cinderella as she appears at Disney Parks.

At the start of the film, the titular character Cinderella is working as a scullery maid in her own home for her stepfamily. She is close friends with the animals around the home; specifically, the birds, the mice who also live in the manor house, including Gus and Jaq, her pet dog Bruno and her father's horse Major.

She prepares breakfast for the animals and for her stepfamily before beginning her regular chores. When the invitation for the ball arrives, Cinderella wants to attend. Her stepmother tells her she may only go if she finishes her chores and find something suitable to wear. Cinderella decides to wear her deceased mother's old party dress and hopes to fix it to make it more modern, but before she can do so, her stepfamily calls her downstairs to do constant chores to prevent her from attending the ball. Meanwhile, the mice and birds decide to surprise Cinderella by fixing the dress themselves. When they see Cinderella's stepsisters throwing down their old sash and beads, Jaq and Gus quietly retrieve them. Using the discarded items, the animals successfully fix the dress. By the time a carriage arrives to take the family to the ball that night, Cinderella has finished all her work but is despondent over having no time to fix the dress for the ball. She is overjoyed when her friends present her with the fixed dress. Cinderella hurries downstairs to join her stepfamily to go to the ball, but her stepsisters recognize their discarded items and accuse her of stealing their sash and beads. They tear the dress to shreds, leaving Cinderella behind, and she runs out to the garden, crying.

As she sobs over a stone bench, her Fairy Godmother appears to make her dreams come true and transforms her torn dress into a beautiful blue gown. Before Cinderella leaves, her godmother warns her that the spell will be broken at midnight. At the ball, Cinderella dances with Prince Charming and they immediately fall in love with each other. As twelve o'clock approaches, she hurries to leave, hoping to prevent the spell from breaking at the ball, which could cause her to get caught by her stepmfamily. In her haste, she loses one of her glass slippers on the staircase but fails to retrieve it in time. Cinderella hurries into her coach as it prepares to leave. Soon, the spell breaks and Cinderella's dress reverts to its ruined state. Reminiscing her dance with the prince, Cinderella thanks her godmother for her help.

The next day, the prince announces he will marry the maiden whose foot fits into the glass slipper. Lady Tremaine hears Cinderella humming the same song that had played at the ball and figures out Cinderella was the girl Prince Charming fell in love with. Cinderella is locked in the tower by her stepmother, who refuses to let her have the opportunity to try on the slipper, but her animal friends help her escape. She hurries downstairs to try on the glass slipper. Knowing the slipper will fit her, Lady Tremaine intentionally causes the footman to trip and shatter the slipper. However, Cinderella reveals that she has kept the other slipper. She tries it on, and it fits perfectly. She and the Prince are married soon after.[15]

Gus and Jaq, with help of the other mice, and the Fairy Godmother, set off to make a new book to narrate what happens after the ending of the previous story by stringing three segments of stories together, resulting in three individual stories: "Aim to Please", "Tall Tail", and "An Uncommon Romance". In the first story, Cinderella and Prince Charming return home and a party begins shortly afterward. In the second story, "Tall Tail", Cinderella works on planning to build up a festival. The mouse named Jaq in the previous film has become a human named Sir Hugh. And in the third story, "An Uncommon Romance", Cinderella helps her younger stepsister Anastasia reconcile with the baker, even though her stepmother Lady Tremaine has forbidden it. Near the end of the film, she reads the book that the mice made for her.[16]

In Cinderella III: A Twist in Time, Cinderella's hard-working ethics, optimism, and devotion are put to the test, when she is magically stripped away from her "happily ever after" by a vengeful and then magically-empowered Tremaine and is forced to jump into physical action to restore her happy life and relationship with Prince Charming. During these events, Cinderella is shown to be cunning, tactical, persistent, and a fierce rival to those who oppress her. With no magic, being forced to rely solely on her intelligence and fearlessness, Cinderella is able to defeat her stepmother, repair her relationship with a reformed Anastasia and retain her much-deserved life of happiness, proving both her independence and strong will.[17]

English actress Lily James played Cinderella in the 2015 film.

Lily James portrays the character, named Ella, in Disney's 2015 live-action version of Cinderella. Like in the original film, her father remarries after the death of her mother but after he dies as well, she then becomes the horribly mistreated servant of her stepmother Lady Tremaine and her two stepsisters, Anastasia and Drisella. They give her the nickname "Cinderella" when, one morning, she wakes up with soot on her face after sleeping near the fireplace the previous night. Unlike the original film, however, she meets the Prince (named Kit) before the ball while out in the forest. She is also shown to be more assertive when she actually stands up to her stepmother in the film's final act; Lady Tremaine attempts to blackmail Ella by only agreeing to let her try on the glass slipper if Ella will make her head of the royal household and provide suitable husbands for her stepsisters, but Ella rejects this idea, refusing to give Lady Tremaine power over Kit after the way she ruined Ella's life.

Cinderella appears as one of the Disney Princesses of Heart in the Kingdom Hearts series. In Kingdom Hearts, she is captured by Maleficent, who destroyed her world. The main character, Sora, rescues Cinderella, as well as the other Princesses, and she returns home. She is only mentioned in the sequel, Kingdom Hearts II. Her story prior to being captured takes place prominently with her home world, Castle of Dreams, in the prequel, Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep; she meets Ventus, who she mistakes for a mouse despite the obvious fact he's not, Aqua and Terra. In the Final Mix version of the game, her world is seen in the Realm of Darkness at the climax, Maleficent having destroyed it and captured her.

Cinderella appears in the Nintendo 3DS game Disney Magical World. Cinderella's world is one of the four Disney movie worlds accessible to the player in this game, and many characters and items related to the movie appear. Additionally, the player has the option of attending balls at Cinderella's castle. Cinderella also appears in Disney Magical World 2, though she now hosts balls at the Magic Castle.

Cinderella is a playable character in the world builder video game Disney Magic Kingdoms.[30]

She also appears in Disney Princess: My Fairytale Adventure,[31] Disney Princess: Enchanted Journey, Kinect: Disneyland Adventures,[32] Cookie Run: Kingdom,[33] Disney's Princess Fashion Boutique, Disney Princess: Cinderella's Castle Designer, and Disney Dreamlight Valley.[34]

Although the film has garnered critical acclaim,[35] Cinderella herself has attracted mostly mixed reviews in modern times.[36][37] Variety disliked the character, describing her as "colorless."[38] Calling her an "oppressed drudge," Empire panned Cinderella, describing both her and Prince Charming as "bland and colourless characters - particularly when compared to Beauty and her Beast."[39] The New York Times' Bosley Crowther similarly wrote, "The beautiful Cinderella has a voluptuous face and form—not to mention an eager disposition—to compare with Al Capp's Daisy Mae." However, criticizing her role and personality, Bosely opined, "As a consequence, the situation in which they are mutually involved have the constraint and immobility of panel-expressed episodes. When Mr. Disney tries to make them behave like human beings, they're banal."[40]

Film4 negatively described Cinderella as "one-dimensional."[41] Criticizing her design, Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote, "If there is an obvious difference between Cinderella and such predecessors as Pinocchio and Snow White, it's in the general smoothing-out of the character's appearances," concluding, "Snow White herself looked fairly bland, but the other characters in the first decade of Disney animation had a lot of personality in their faces. They were allowed to look odd. Cinderella seems to come right out of its time, the bland postwar 1950s," likening the character's flawless design to that of a "Draw Me girl."[42] Concerned about the negative effects Cinderella's passivity could possibly induce upon children, Nell Minow of Common Sense Media expressed, "Cinderella is the quintessential passive heroine rescued by a male character ... so discussions about her meekness might be in order."[43] About.com's Laurie Boeder simply described Cinderella as "blah."[44] Desi Jedeikin of Smosh included the character in the website's "8 Fictional Characters That Are Horrible Role Models For Girls" list, explaining, "I'm like so happy that Cinderella found true love with a rich stranger who rescued her from her horrible life. But wouldn't it have been better if she did it for herself?"[45] Additionally, critics have also expressed favoritism towards Cinderella's supporting cast of animal characters, particularly the comic interaction and dynamic between her pet mice Jaq and Gus and her stepfamily's pet cat Lucifer, often preferring them to Cinderella herself while noting ways in which the heroine is constantly being "upstaged."[46]

Among Cinderella's positive reviews, Michael Scheinfeld of TV Guide drew similarities between the character and Belle from Beauty and the Beast (1991), writing, Cinderella holds up better because the heroine seems timeless in her courage and resourcefulness, a closer cousin to Belle in Disney's Beauty and the Beast than to other fairy tale protagonists."[47] Hailing Cinderella as "the most famous and beloved princess of all time," HowStuffWorks' Vicki Arkoff defended the character, writing, "highly sympathetic Cinderella is endlessly kind, patient, hard-working, and unassuming -- no matter how cruelly she is treated by her exaggerated, cartoonish foes." Arkoff elaborated, "Unlike Disney's passive, naive Snow White, Disney's Cinderella is a princess who decides to take charge and change her life for the better, rather than just wait for things to happen that might solve her problem."[48] Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes' general consensus reads that, in addition to "The rich colors, sweet songs, adorable mice," the "endearing (if suffering) heroine make[s] Cinderella a nostalgically lovely charmer."[35] Jennifer Lee, Disney's chief creative officer, said in 2023 that the character helped her in times being bullied in middle school recalling, “I had a very, very difficult three years, and I would come home and put Cinderella on when I would do homework, because to me, it seemed like she was so mistreated and she held on to herself” while also adding, "For anyone who’s gone through that, it’s hard. You believe the noise, and she never did."[49]

Woods herself has collected widespread acclaim for her performance. Variety wrote, "Ilene Woods, as Cinderella’s voice, uses a sweet soprano."[38] Craig Butler of AllMovie opined, "Ilene Woods makes a marvelous Cinderella, her voice a combination of girlishness and sophistication; she also possesses a serenity and assurance which makes one feel she is more in control of her life than might be guessed by her surroundings."[50] At the time of Woods' death, animation critic and historian Charles Solomon told the Los Angeles Times, "one of the things about her performance is the warmth she gave the character. As soon as she began to speak, her voice meshed with Marc Davis' animation to create a heroine you liked instantly."[13]

Lily James' portrayal as Cinderella in the live-action film adaptation was generally well-received by critics. Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal commended James for her performance.[51] Los Angeles Times' Betsy Sharkey wrote that James makes the character "seem as if the sweet and spirited young maiden is infused with an inner glow."[52] Richard Corliss of Time said that James created a version of the character that is "both classic and modern."[53] Lawrence Toppman of The Charlotte Observer wrote that James played the character, "with the right mixture of composure and pluck."[54] The Hollywood Reporter's David Rooney wrote that James brought "unaffected sweetness" to the role and also had "lovely chemistry" with her co-star Richard Madden, who played the Prince.[55]

Cinderella has since become one of the most famous, recognizable and popular princesses, both fictional and non-fictional, of all-time.[56][57] According to the San Antonio Express-News, Cinderella is one of the ten most famous princesses of all-time.[58] In 2013, Cosmopolitan ranked the character the ninth greatest Disney Princess.[59]

In 2003 Woods received a Disney Legends award for her role as the voice of Cinderella. In 2010, she died at the age of 81 of Alzheimer's disease.[60] In an interview with Starlog in 2006 Woods said, "I love the idea that after I’m gone, children will still be hearing my voice [as Cinderella].”[61] In 2013, Film School Rejects recognized Woods as one of "7 No-Name Actors Who Had Iconic Roles", ranking the actress first and writing, "Woods ... really set the bar high, as she managed to audition for the part of Cinderella without even realize she had done it."[62]

Lily James' performance as Cinderella in the 2015 live-action film earned her nominations for the Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Actress – Sci-Fi/Fantasy and the award for "Favorite Movie Actress" at the 2016 Kids' Choice Awards.[63][64] She also won the 2015 Breakthrough Award at the Harper's Bazaar Women of the Year Awards.[65]

Culturally, Cinderella has had a profound influence on the fashion industry. According to Sarah Osman of Young Hollywood, "Cinderella’s gown in this film is so iconic that it's become canon that Cinderella wears a light blue dress to the ball."[66] To coincide with the release of the diamond edition of Cinderella in 2012, French footwear designer Christian Louboutin created and designed a contemporary rendition of the character's iconic glass slipper. In an interview with The Express Tribune, Louboutin said that Cinderella is "not only an iconic character when it comes to beauty, grace and fairytale love, but also shoes." The shoes are described as "made of delicate lace [instead of glass] to give them a look of transparency, and adorned with butterfly designs at the vamp and atop the Swarovski-crystal covered heel," completed by Louboutin’s signature red soles. Only twenty copies of the shoes were manufactured.[67] In 2014, Entertainment Weekly ranked Cinderella tenth in its article "Disney Princesses: Ranking Their Hairdos -- and Don'ts!", writing, "The lowly maid's typically rage-inducing bangs somehow develop an almost stately character once the rest of her follicular baggage has been swept into an updo closely resembling a perky butt."[68]

At the 86th Academy Awards in 2014, Kenyan actress and Best Supporting Actress recipient Lupita Nyong'o donned "a light blue Prada gown."[69] Subsequently, the media responded by drawing similarities between Nyong'o's dress and Cinderella's ballgown. Cosmopolitan wrote that Nyong'o "took a cue from Disney with a blue iridescent gown and matching headband a la Cinderella,"[70] while the Daily News similarly opined "channeled another Disney princess for her Oscars gown."[71] Acknowledging the comparisons, Nyong'o's stylist Micaela Erlanger described the actress' appearance as "Lupita + Cinderella=Lupitarella."[72] Additionally, several critics have deemed Nyong'o's success a "Cinderella story."[73][74] According to MTV, several other Academy Award attendants wore similar outfits that were reminiscent of Disney characters in addition to Nyong'o.[75]

The iconic "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo" musical sequence in which Cinderella's Fairy Godmother magically transforms the character's tattered rags into a beautiful ball gown has garnered widespread critical acclaim, receiving positive reviews, accolades and recognition from several entertainment critics. AllMovie described the sequence as "splendidly done,"[50] while HitFix deemed it the film's best moment.[76] According to Disney.com, the transformation of Cinderella's dress into a ballgown remains a common favorite and "one of the most iconic pieces of Disney animation because of what it means for the titular character."[77] StyleCaster wrote that the scene is responsible for introducing the common "movie makeover," writing, "Ever since Cinderella ditched those rags and threw on a ball gown and a pair of glass slippers, movie audiences have fallen for the beloved transformation storyline."[78] Featuring Cinderella in its list of "13 movie makeovers that still totally rock our socks off", Glamour summarized the scene's role in the film as "The movie makeover that sees a merry band of rodents help Cindera[sic]lla to make the perfect dress, eventually go to the ball and ultimately win the heart of a prince."[79] Oprah.com also included Cinderella in its "Favorite Movie Makeovers" list, accrediting the film and Disney with "first introducing us to the head-to-toe makeover," concluding, " Unrealistic expectations are born."[80]

Likewise, both the sequence and Cinderella's magical transformation have been featured on several "best movie makeover" countdown lists. On Stylist's list of the "50 Best Movie Makeovers", Cinderella placed first, with the magazine labeling her the "Recipient of the original makeover." Additionally, Stylist coined the list's other candidates "Cinematic Cinderellas," alluding to the character's legacy.[81] InStyle ranked Cinderella second on its list of "The Best Movie Makeovers", writing, "Cinderella’s fairy tale transformation is the stuff that many a little girl's real-life makeover dreams are made of."[82] Hailing it as "[The] makeover of makeovers" and "the movie that started it all," The Independent Florida Alligator ranked Cinderella first in its list of "The best of movie makeovers".[83] Style Blazer also ranked Cinderella second on its list of the "Top 11 Favorite Makeover Movies of All Time", concluding, "Cinderella and her pauper to princess makeover have already gone down in movie history as one of the best transformations."[84] Calling Cinderella the "Original Fairy Godmother ... makeover," Total Beauty ranked the character fifth in its article "11 Best Movie Makeovers".[85]