Difference between Brothers Grimm Cinderella and Disney Version

Textual Artifact

The glass slipper is a plot device used in Disney’s Cinderella to make it so that the prince can find the girl, whose foot will fit the slipper perfectly. It is like a tracking device that mirrors as a sign of Cinderella’s poise and gentleness. It is also completely unrealistic and different from the slipper in the actual fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm. In their tale, “the bird threw down a dress of gold and silver, and a pair of slippers embroidered with silk and silver.” In other words, it is not made of glass but is a regular slipper that is just elegantly designed. A slipper made of glass would shatter if someone tried to run in it or stomp around a room in it—but Disney’s Cinderella wears it with perfect poise and gentleness and thus it never breaks, thus emphasizing the kind of unrealistic femininity that Friedan criticized in The Feminine Mystique. It is a symbol of her grace and charm, but disconnected from the Grimm story, which is much uglier. The fact that her step-sisters hack off pieces of their flesh to try to get their big feet into the slipper shows how harrowing the old “Cinderella” actually is.

Yet, the story of Cinderella has in a way been taken over by the corporate step-sisters, who have churned out artifacts like this glass slipper, which is for sale on Amazon. This glass slipper is much more like a high heel, not really something that one could walk it. It is more sensual and more ornate—meant for eye pleasure and nostalgia—like much of what Disney did with its take on the old fairy tales. The tale published by the Brothers Grimm is not really all that lovely and is far more horrifying than the one told by Disney—but it is the Disney tale that everyone remembers, and so this shoe, for sale on Amazon, represents the artifact of nostalgia and prettiness now associated with Cinderella. It does not really support the story by the Brothers Grimm; instead, it updates it so that it carries a Disney-like air of fantasy—a “dream come true” type of happy ending that is divorced from the other awful aspects of the story—such as the step-sisters getting their eyes plucked out. But the point is that nostalgia and prettiness sell, and eyes getting plucked out is not something one can readily commodify. So this artifact also represents the way in which fairy tale symbols are commoditized in our day and age—sold to people not for the moral or lesson that go with them but because they represent something from their youth that echoes with fun or innocence. Yet any real connection to the uglier elements of fairy tale are scrubbed away.