It's All About the Shoes...
Tuesday, April 26, 2011 at 10:00AM 
On Easter The Boyfriend and I had brunch with two of our favorite people and their daughters. Like so many other little girls (and boys), they love Disney Princess movies so I had to ask the eldest, who is suddenly chatty, which was her favorite? The question rendered her completely shy, like nobody had ever asked her to embrace her inner film critic (though I find this hard to believe since her dad is a huge movie buff and awesome enough to school me on occassion). I had given up hope of an answer, reverting my attention to the food when she shouted "CINDERELLA" at the top of her lungs over her waffles. "But why" I say? This answer came much more swiftly, like it was the silliest question any adult had ever asked her.
The glass slippers.
She didn't add "duh" but it was right there, loud and clear, in her squeal of laughter.
Cinderella, Disney, Overheard, animated films, shoes
Reader Comments (8)
Nothing like little girls. My daughters have been in love with each Disney Princess to varying degrees, but they will usually both say Ariel when questioned.
chicks and shoes...
i will never understand it
par3182 -- i think it's all about the options. SO MANY OPTIONS. If men had style and clothing options as vast as women, maybe they'd be more obsessive about it, too?
Nathaniel, a quick lecture: if you look at western/European history, men were just as clothes-conscious as women. Perhaps more so. I'm referring mainly to the upper classes of Europe - but even you look at "native" cultures, or pre-western civilizations, men generally have more elaborate tattoos, headdresses, make-up, jewelry and adornments of all sorts. Men had higher status, and clothes reflected that very powerfully. (Hence the existence of "sumptuary laws" throughout the Middle Ages, dictating what the lower clases could and could not wear - lace, cloth of gold, ribbons, etc etc all being forbidden at various times.)
The late 18th century brought simplification to male dress, particularly in England and America, where life revolved around the country and not the court; then came the French Revolution and the marks of aristocracy - wigs, stockings, makeup, silks - were suddenly verboten. Things might have reverted back - think of Napolean and dandies like Beau Brummel - except for the Industrial Revolution and the rise of the middle class. Instead of married couples working together to run their households, with some overlap in division of labor, men were expected to go out and work outside the home, to be "producers", and women were expected to stay entirely at home, to be the "angel of the household" and create an environment where men could escape the harsh rigors of the world, and women would (supposedly) never be subjected to it. All nonsense, of course.
But women were also expected then to be the "consumers", to purchase what the men produced, as well as to reflect the status of their husbands in what they wore - to be decorative to the world and to reflect their "buying power". Again, a lot of it nonsense, but it became accepted anyway. Men took on plain black suits and that was that. (The "hippie movement" was not so much an anomaly but an attempt to revert to the older ways.)
It's probably a bit more complicated than that - but look at some books on the history of costume (or just painting in a museum) and you'll see what I mean.
this actually reflects back to the article you linked to the other day from the New Yorker discussing Pretty Woman vs. Thelma and Louise. Another essay I read in college in a film journal pointed out the fact that the film is also a trajectory of gender roles; it starts with the man a "consumer", a buyer of other corporations (the company he runs doesn't "make things" as Gere's character complains later), as well as of sex and affection with a hooker. Whereas Vivian (Roberts) must give up her role as "producer", as supplier (of sex) and accept her role as agent, as consumer and shopper (in a series of scenes that make a fetish of shopping.) Those are supposed to be the "proper" roles for men and women, the film implies - again, nonsense. But it's part of the disconnect between what people think they ought to be and the reality, IMO.
Pretty Woman? Pretty Ridiculous and Pretty Stupid. The Grifters was funnier, and that's a movie that ends with John Cusack and Annette Bening DEAD.
I love her answer! I love that each child or adult alike that watches movies have their own interpretations, favorite scenes and reasons for watching! I say more power to her. While I was all about the Prince I must admit I looked for glass slippers for my Cinderella themed wedding!
http://thatsawrapconfessions.blogspot.com
shoes...
don't care about it too much
Yes, those glass slippers were magical. I think I always wondered how easily they'd break in real life if I were to get myself a pair (well, not heels, but actual shoes).