Original Cinderella vs. the Modern Cinderella

Cinderella

While growing up as a young girl to an adult, fairy tales have always been incredible. Fairy tales are astonishing, enjoyable and always brought forth-interesting concepts of love, hatred, jealousy and bravery. The key element of each fairytale was always a happy ending that caught the audience’s attention. The Grimm Brothers version of Cinderella was indeed, remarkable to read and watch. When fairytales were first introduced, the public appreciated the fairy tales for their happy endings and was enjoyed the most by young girls. The perception of Cinderella in the past pertained to a girl finding her “Mr. Right” and getting married and living happily ever after. Nowadays, people conceive Cinderella in numerous other ways. The two version of Cinderella, the original “Cinderella” by Grimm Brothers and the retelling of “A Cinderella Story” directed by Mark Rosman both express cultural and societal differences.
The setting of the Grimm Brothers version was different from the new version of Cinderella called “A Cinderella Story.” In the original Cinderella story, the birds pecked the evil sister’s eyes out while they would walk out to the church to make them realize their horrible deeds they have done with Cinderella (Grimm). In contrast, the retelling of Cinderella did not have such thing to make the evil sister’s realize their mistake. In fact, they were just homeless because of the deeds they have done. In A Cinderella Story, the mother was more evil than the sisters and the sisters were not so clever. The step mother would use her smartness and make her daughters do as she says. The retelling of Cinderella is shown in a modern way where the princess forgot her iPod and then mimicked the original story by leaving the shoes behind. The setting for both the stories differs from each other. In the original story, the princess is cleaning like a maid and not in studies, whereas the new one portrays Cinderella as a college student who has to worry about her tuition fees and finish additional work from her step mother. The times have changes over the course of years and thus, the movie production has modernized the role of Cinderella to fit the audience.
Similar to the modernization, the writers of both the stories have focused on different themes of the Cinderella story. Crowley and Pennington have noted that the feminist retellings need to negotiate with the world as it becomes modern day by day than following the same structure of Cinderella and other type of fairy tales that are related to Cinderella (300). The retelling of Cinderella abides to that because it incorporates technology to step up to the changing world. In the original, the writer shows that Cinderella has no clue of her prince, but in the new version, the movie directors show that the writer shows that Cinderella is in contact with her prince from the start. Both the stories have similar story plots but with few changes to minor details, the authors attempt to adapt to the changing world.
Lastly, the tone of the characters displays their attitudes towards other people around them which play a key role in the development of fairy tales. In fairytales, the good person is always linked with nice, innocent and pretty whereas the bad guy is shown rough, big, in power, and mean. Cinderella was always characterized as pure, nice, innocent and beautiful young girl and the sisters were given ugly and mean characteristics to play the negative role. “An orphan is mistreated by a cruel surrogate family. The orphan is Special, however, and with the interventions of kind and magical parental substitutes, rises to dizzying heights and achieves a happy ending” (rose 142). If the roles were to switch and the tone displayed in the stories exchanged, then the story plot of both the stories would alter drastically. Both the stories portray Cinderella and other characters differently with their personality which causes the tone of the characters to also differ.
The Grimm Brothers version is different from the retelling movie of A Cinderella Story due to change in setting, tone and the story plot due to modern changes. The storyline of Cinderella compared to Harry Potter is very similar but just masculine. The original story was more decent than the retelling of Cinderella because it was PG-13 and not acceptable to watch by all ages of kids. The retelling of Cinderella snatches a lot of main concepts of fairytale such as its innocence. The point of Cinderella was mainly to convey to the young kids the message of being nice and generous as they grow up. The original version of Cinderella by Grimm Brothers and the retelling of Cinderella by Mark Rosman both compel the society to think differently and become more modern as the world continues to adapt to its changes.