Speaker 1: On the beck Dog Cast. The questions asked if movies
Speaker 1: have women in them? Are all their discussions just boyfriends
Speaker 1: and husbands? Do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef invest
Speaker 1: start changing it with the beck del Cast. Ten minutes
Speaker 1: ago we started the zoom call and we logged in
Speaker 1: with Internet audio. Can pick it up, Caitlin, I have
Speaker 1: no idea what songs. I wanted to record the Beck
Speaker 1: Dol Cast because that is my job and it is fun.
Speaker 1: It's a podcast. It's okay, I need to stop. Um.
Speaker 1: I was really banking any picking up the song at
Speaker 1: some point. Welcome to the Bechtel Cast. Uh, my name
Speaker 1: is Jamie. My name is Caitlin Darante. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: I don't know this movie north these songs well enough
Speaker 1: to join in. Oh my gosh. I was like, I
Speaker 1: it's it's one of those like I wouldn't have guessed
Speaker 1: that I knew every single word to this musical, but
Speaker 1: as I was watching back, I was like, oh, I
Speaker 1: very much Wait which song was that ten minutes ago?
Speaker 1: And there dancing? Okay? Wait? Is it the one where
Speaker 1: he was like yeah? And then they see each other
Speaker 1: and they're like, I met you ten minutes ago. But
Speaker 1: I'm ready to put my life on the line for
Speaker 1: this love that we've discovered right when it's going down, right,
Speaker 1: it's so, I mean, you're you're I'm like, okay, so
Speaker 1: this is you know, fuck it, I'm in. I'm all in, right,
Speaker 1: It's going to be really hard for me to plot.
Speaker 1: I just there. We're covering Brandy Cinderella today on the
Speaker 1: Bechtel Cast, and I mean we we should say what
Speaker 1: the Betel cast is, but we were just saying off Mike,
Speaker 1: I truly like getting ready for this episode was so
Speaker 1: good for my mental health. This is the feel good
Speaker 1: est movie in the world. It's feel great movie. I
Speaker 1: love it, So I feel great movie. Yeah. So let's
Speaker 1: let's skim over what the Bechtel Cast is so we
Speaker 1: can just get right into talking about Cinderella. Um. This
Speaker 1: is our podcast that analyzes movies from an intersectional feminist lens,
Speaker 1: using the Bechtel test simply as a jumping off point,
Speaker 1: and that, of course, is a mediumetric created by queer
Speaker 1: cartoonists Alson Bechtel, sometimes called the Bechtel Wallace test, in
Speaker 1: which our version two people of any marginalized gender have
Speaker 1: to speak to each other. They have to have names,
Speaker 1: and they have to talk about something other than a
Speaker 1: man for at least two lines of dialogue. So, for example,
Speaker 1: maybe Brandy and Whitney Houston talk about a pumpkin, whether
Speaker 1: mice can become horses. I could just I'm like, I'm
Speaker 1: going to be on the brink of just bursting out
Speaker 1: into song for the entire episode, sing and I can't
Speaker 1: even sing, so don't hold back. This is but God, yes,
Speaker 1: that's what the Bechtel cast is. And I'm just so,
Speaker 1: I've had three cups of coffee this morning, and I've
Speaker 1: seen Brandy Cinderella, uh five thousand times in the past
Speaker 1: two days, because I just I was fully prepared for
Speaker 1: the episode, and then I just kept going, it is
Speaker 1: so okay before okay, let's actually let's bring our guests
Speaker 1: in before I start ranting about how it's a crime
Speaker 1: that there's no official soundtrack to this movie. Oh wow, Okay. Yes,
Speaker 1: our guest is a journalist and actor, author of the
Speaker 1: book The Pretty One on life, pop culture, disability, and
Speaker 1: other Reasons to Fall in Love with Me, And you
Speaker 1: remember her from our Cadet Kelly episode on our page.
Speaker 1: Treon are a Matreon. It's Keio Brown. Welcome back, Thank
Speaker 1: you for having me back. I'm so pumped to talk
Speaker 1: about this movie. And it's literally truly one of only
Speaker 1: three Cinderellas that I acknowledge, and it is number one.
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, Wait what are the other two? Just out
Speaker 1: of Curi so ever after? Which is the Drew bring
Speaker 1: More adapt and then the third one is duff one
Speaker 1: where they're like in high school a Cinderella story for
Speaker 1: the Road story, the Chad Michael Murray one. Yes, I
Speaker 1: have to revisit that one that I remember. I just
Speaker 1: I remember saying that movie, I don't know when it
Speaker 1: came out, like middle school or something, and and finding
Speaker 1: it so funny that like Hillary Duff was wearing actually
Speaker 1: the tiniest mask, and Chad Michael Murray is like, who
Speaker 1: is this woman? Literally he's in the dinner every day
Speaker 1: and he's like, yeah, I have no idea. Great. Well,
Speaker 1: that's a common theme throughout all Cinderella stories where like
Speaker 1: suddenly she u's on a nice dress and they're like,
Speaker 1: who is this woman I've never seen before and it's
Speaker 1: like her family has no idea who she is, just like, oh,
Speaker 1: he's great. Um, Kia, tell us a little bit about
Speaker 1: your history with this spoofy. I grew up with it,
Speaker 1: like watching it. I think he was like, what straight
Speaker 1: d V A dress V A dressice, And so I
Speaker 1: like watched it constantly. Me and my sister would just
Speaker 1: sit in front of the TV and sing the songs
Speaker 1: to the top of our loves and I just was
Speaker 1: like obsessed with the idea that Brandy was this princess
Speaker 1: that this really cute guy also loved. And I was like,
Speaker 1: that's gonna be me one day. Like I had all
Speaker 1: these ideas of how I would just become a princess
Speaker 1: because I love it. So I've really grown up with
Speaker 1: that movie. I own two DVD copies because I lost
Speaker 1: one and then I bought another one and find the
Speaker 1: old one. So I watched it whenever I need like
Speaker 1: a little bit of comfort. That's my go to conflict
Speaker 1: movie for sure. Absolutely, it's perfect. Love it, Jamie, what
Speaker 1: about you? Well, I'll go next, because mine's my history
Speaker 1: is sad, well not sad, but it's just that I
Speaker 1: don't have one. Okay, have you have you not seen
Speaker 1: this one? Beore? I have never seen this movie before.
Speaker 1: This is my first time watching it. That's so magical
Speaker 1: for you. I'm so proud, Thank you so much. I know,
Speaker 1: I feel like, to me, watching this movie was the
Speaker 1: equivalent of just putting on a gown and going to
Speaker 1: a ball and just having the night of my life.
Speaker 1: I didn't know obviously, I knew that Brandy and Whitney
Speaker 1: Houston were in it. What I didn't know was that
Speaker 1: Victor Garber was in it, or Whoopi Goldberg or Jason
Speaker 1: Alexander or Bernard at Peters. So I'm just like, wow,
Speaker 1: I'll star cast. What a fun romp. The costumes. What
Speaker 1: are the costumes? Yo? Like, Like, it's just a lot
Speaker 1: of color, and for some reason it makes so much
Speaker 1: sense to me, Like it's just every color possible in
Speaker 1: every piece of every outfit. And I'm like, yep, that
Speaker 1: tracks makes sense. So many just shapes. It was so
Speaker 1: I feel like anytime the nineties was all about these
Speaker 1: just like let's insert a shape into an existing garment
Speaker 1: and the boy or there are a lot of just
Speaker 1: random shapes throwing outfits. I love it. Yeah, So it
Speaker 1: was quite an experience for me seeing it for the
Speaker 1: first time. Um, I think I just like Cinderella is
Speaker 1: kind of I mean, I don't like fairy tales, and
Speaker 1: this is like one of the ones that I I'm
Speaker 1: just like, what's the point of this story? But this
Speaker 1: version of it, I'm like, I'm on board. So it
Speaker 1: really does. Um So, Jamie, what's what's your relationship with it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we had it on VHS. We were always watching it.
Speaker 1: I this is definitely like my top Cinderella adaptation of
Speaker 1: all times, Like there's no really conceivable reason why it
Speaker 1: would not be. It's the best one. I remember, like
Speaker 1: my cousins and I were watching this movie all the time.
Speaker 1: And then once there's been three different adaptations of the
Speaker 1: Rogers and Hammerstein Cinderella, and I remember my mom was like,
Speaker 1: let's watch the one from when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: and we watched two minutes of it and we're like,
Speaker 1: fuck this, get like, bring ours back. It's the greatest.
Speaker 1: And similar to you, Caitlin, I, I mean I had
Speaker 1: no idea who all these like iconic character actors were
Speaker 1: when I like, I knew whenne Houston, Brandy and Whoopie
Speaker 1: Goldberg would probably be the three people I'd recognize as
Speaker 1: a kid, But I was like, I didn't know what
Speaker 1: Seinfeld was so it was nice to go back and
Speaker 1: be like, oh, I know who like everyone is in
Speaker 1: this movie. It's so good um, And I was really
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed learning about the production history of this
Speaker 1: movie too. It has like this this really interesting story,
Speaker 1: so I'm excited to talk about it. Yes, because this
Speaker 1: is a Disney property. I also went back and watched
Speaker 1: the Disney animated one from nineteen fifty, which I think
Speaker 1: I've only seen like once before as a child. It
Speaker 1: was like not in my Disney rotation movies as a kid,
Speaker 1: and I realized why now, because it is the most
Speaker 1: irritating movie I've ever seen in my entire life. It
Speaker 1: is simply boring. It is so boring. I literally saw
Speaker 1: this one with Brandy before I saw that one, and
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, like I guess, yeah, there's no
Speaker 1: reason there. It's so it's deeply infurious. There's like twenty
Speaker 1: five minutes of just like mice exposition and like a
Speaker 1: cat chasing mice around, and they all have like really
Speaker 1: annoying voices, and like Cinderella is barely on screen for
Speaker 1: the entire movie. It's like way more of a focus
Speaker 1: on what the mice are doing and it's just like, sure, okay,
Speaker 1: it's really the mice story. Yeah. And also that movie
Speaker 1: is like seventy minutes long, but it feels like four
Speaker 1: hours so long, so long, Yeah, because it's like nothing
Speaker 1: has happened. I don't know. I'm like, it's a it's
Speaker 1: a problematic, but it's not a boring story. But that
Speaker 1: movie makes it boring. Yeah, but the Brandy no notes.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm just like, I don't know, five nipples,
Speaker 1: Let's get out of here. Like it's perfect, Yes, it
Speaker 1: really is. Oh my god. I just I think about
Speaker 1: how much Brandy has done in her career and literally
Speaker 1: how I would have to fight to be like the
Speaker 1: best thing ever was Cinderella five and moment be like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I'm sorry, I'll not give you a second.
Speaker 1: I just like, do you know what you did when
Speaker 1: you did Cinderella? Like, has anybody told you? I hope
Speaker 1: she knows. I hope she probably did. Like it would
Speaker 1: be watching the I I went and I watched the
Speaker 1: like what because it's like aired on TV originally and
Speaker 1: they did like those um like half hour behind the
Speaker 1: scenes documentaries where it's just like a bunch of berol
Speaker 1: and it's Bernadette Peters hosting it, and she's being very
Speaker 1: Bernadette Peters and she's like, so, how do you make
Speaker 1: a movie about a princess? And it's just like all
Speaker 1: this but it's like eighteen year old Brandy and she's
Speaker 1: so like excited and she's so it's it just it
Speaker 1: made me cry. And then especially her and Whitney together
Speaker 1: recording together, it's just great. It's beautiful. Should I do
Speaker 1: the recap and we'll go from there. Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 1: So we open on Whitney Houston singing about Cinderella stuff,
Speaker 1: for example, pumpkins turning into carriages, glass slippers, and she's
Speaker 1: saying that nothing is impossible. Then we cut to the
Speaker 1: stepmother that's burned at Peter's, who has two biological daughters,
Speaker 1: Minerva and Calliope, and one stepdaughter, Cinderella, who of course
Speaker 1: is Brandy. They are out shopping in the village because
Speaker 1: women be shopping. It looks it looks very like Beauty
Speaker 1: and the Beast. The way that the village looked. I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, yeah, yeah, fun fact. This movie was
Speaker 1: shot on the same lot that The Wizard of Oz
Speaker 1: was and that's made me all emotional. And everyone was like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know. Every fact I learned
Speaker 1: about this movie made me love it even more. Is
Speaker 1: that cool? They like that was like Munchkin Land, and
Speaker 1: then they turned it into Brandy Cinderella Land. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: So Cinderella is not so much part of this family
Speaker 1: as she works for them, as I serve the classic
Speaker 1: Cinderella narrative is here. Then she sings a song about love,
Speaker 1: and then we see a man played by Paolo monto
Speaker 1: Ban in the village, also singing the same song about love,
Speaker 1: and they do a duet for a while, right next
Speaker 1: to each other, somehow, not noticing the other person, they
Speaker 1: walk So it made me laugh because I forgot how
Speaker 1: close together they are, because it's like it must just
Speaker 1: be a small set, but they're like three inches away
Speaker 1: from each other. But then they do finally cross paths,
Speaker 1: and this man is smitten with Cinderella, but her evil
Speaker 1: stepmother interrupts and drags her away, and that's like the
Speaker 1: moment where you find out I don't know. I really
Speaker 1: like the adaptation changes that this movie made because they
Speaker 1: add in these like little like feminist moments for Cinderella
Speaker 1: where he's literally chasing her around, which is not ideal.
Speaker 1: But she has like this moment where she's like, what
Speaker 1: are you doing? And then she says she wants to
Speaker 1: be treated with kindness and respect and it's not normal Cinderella. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't know, like I feel like Cinderella is not
Speaker 1: known for standing up for herself or stating her values,
Speaker 1: but Brandy Cinderella does. Like when he inserted it, yeah,
Speaker 1: when he inserted that she wanted to just be treated
Speaker 1: like a princess, and she was like no, because yeah,
Speaker 1: it's to be treated with kind respect. And that's why
Speaker 1: I also love the Drew barry More one, because she
Speaker 1: is much of the same where it's like I'm not
Speaker 1: going to let you like speak for me or think
Speaker 1: that you know what I want. And I just loved that.
Speaker 1: It's so good and it's like and and I love
Speaker 1: I like that they add in like the I don't know,
Speaker 1: like you understand why they like each other. You never
Speaker 1: understand why the people like each other. In the Princess Movie,
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, I want independence and I want like,
Speaker 1: dare I say more than this provincial life? That and
Speaker 1: was getting some very strong Disney's Aladdin vibes, because what
Speaker 1: we're about to get is a big reveal that this
Speaker 1: man is actually the prince in this kingdom, Prince Christopher.
Speaker 1: But he has a habit of dressing as a commoner
Speaker 1: and going out into like the kingdom to dare, I say,
Speaker 1: escape the pressures of palace life, much like Princess Jasmine does.
Speaker 1: I mean, at least Jasmine attempted a disguise. He really
Speaker 1: is just walking around, Like, how does it everyone not
Speaker 1: recognize him? I'm going to talk about shirt that middle.
Speaker 1: It's like I'm going to not wear purple and my
Speaker 1: shirt and still be a very hot prince walking around.
Speaker 1: I don't have any problem with it. I love it.
Speaker 1: It's hilarious. So Prince Christopher returns to the castle and
Speaker 1: then this guy Lionel played by Jason Alexander, who I
Speaker 1: don't really know exactly what his job is. He's like
Speaker 1: maybe the royal advisor or something. His part was also
Speaker 1: added it's not in the original and he only did it,
Speaker 1: I guess they said because he didn't want to do
Speaker 1: a role that was so closely tied to Seinfeld that
Speaker 1: he only agreed to do. What if it was going
Speaker 1: to be completely different? I guess I love that. It's
Speaker 1: like I need to get out from the sheer cultural
Speaker 1: weight of George Costanza. Yeah, and part of that is
Speaker 1: that he's doing I could not place what accent he's
Speaker 1: trying to do. God, but it's something like vague European accent.
Speaker 1: And he's the only one who has it. Yeah, somebody
Speaker 1: else tries it, access He's just like, it's me, I'm
Speaker 1: doing it and nobody else is committing fried. I love
Speaker 1: Jason Alexander. I always kind of forget. I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: he's just like a full on theater kid, like the
Speaker 1: most theater kid energy it's possible. Loved it. So then
Speaker 1: Prince Christopher goes to meet with his mother and father,
Speaker 1: the Queen and King a k A Whoopi Goldberg and
Speaker 1: Victor Garber, and the Queen is like, by the way,
Speaker 1: I'm throwing a ball tomorrow so that you can meet
Speaker 1: a woman and marry her and produce an air. And
Speaker 1: Prince Christopher is like, don't do that, because I want
Speaker 1: to marry for love and I don't want you to
Speaker 1: throw this ball. But the Queen kind of goes behind
Speaker 1: his back and announces this ball anyway, and then there's
Speaker 1: this whole Jason Alexander song about it. It's so good,
Speaker 1: it's great, it's so good, it's great. I love it.
Speaker 1: Christopher does he say, Christopher Robin, that can't be right,
Speaker 1: but I think it's okay. Then it's mostly just a list.
Speaker 1: Oh God, I cannot resist. So then we cut back
Speaker 1: to the stepmother and Minerva and Calliope, who learned about
Speaker 1: the ball and are very excited, and they start to
Speaker 1: make preparations to go, and then Cinderella is like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: all women in the kingdom are eligible to go, so
Speaker 1: can I go? And the stepmother is like l O
Speaker 1: L no, yes, and she's like anyways. Meanwhile, the prince
Speaker 1: confronts his mother about the ball, and he's like, okay,
Speaker 1: I'll go to your damn ball, but if I don't
Speaker 1: find anyone there who I like, you'll let me find
Speaker 1: love my own way. And she's like, fine, I guess.
Speaker 1: So then the stepmother and stepdaughter's head off to the ball,
Speaker 1: and Cinderella laments that she is not able to go.
Speaker 1: She sings a song about it, but then who shows
Speaker 1: up but Whitney Houston as her fairy godmother, and she
Speaker 1: does the whole fairy godmother thing. She turns the pumpkin
Speaker 1: into the carriage and the mice into some horses, and
Speaker 1: then with some of the most iconic nineties TV movie
Speaker 1: effects are taking place in this scene, she just I
Speaker 1: love like Whitney. When he Whitney isn't casting the spell,
Speaker 1: she just like expels this series of like clip art.
Speaker 1: It looks like it does look like clip art. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then they make her like the effects when she's
Speaker 1: flying next to the carriage. It's it's lucky she's Whitty
Speaker 1: Houston because it looks real weird it perhaps it's not
Speaker 1: great that one's horribone we drink episode. Yeah, and then
Speaker 1: she don's Cinderella in a beautiful blue dress, and of
Speaker 1: course the glass slippers, and the fairy Godmother is like,
Speaker 1: don't forget this. Magic only lasts till midnight. So when
Speaker 1: the clock strikes twelve, you gotta get out of there.
Speaker 1: So Cinderella heads off to the ball. Cut to the
Speaker 1: ball where Prince Christopher is dancing with a bunch of
Speaker 1: different women, but none are appealing to him, especially not
Speaker 1: Minerva or Calliope. But then Cinderella arrives and Prince Christopher
Speaker 1: sees her and he goes wouga, who's that? Oh my god.
Speaker 1: Victor Garber also goes a wugas like, if I was yugger,
Speaker 1: if I was like pous younger, it's great. I was like, wow, Victor,
Speaker 1: I forgot Vigor Garber gets horny in this movie. Interesting, yes,
Speaker 1: So then Prince Christopher and Cinderella start dancing, and everyone's like,
Speaker 1: who's that And even cinderella stepmother and stepsisters do not
Speaker 1: recognize her. Neither does the prince, even though they've met
Speaker 1: in the village already, and it is unclear if she
Speaker 1: recognizes him, but she appears not to because she doesn't
Speaker 1: have any reaction. So again, if you if if as
Speaker 1: soon as you put on more expensive clothes, you become
Speaker 1: unrecognizable to every luxury clothing. She put her hair hairs,
Speaker 1: so that was the real game changer, and he kind
Speaker 1: of swooped his hair to the side, So there's some
Speaker 1: major differences. Um. So they they're dancing together, they're hitting
Speaker 1: it off. The stepsisters are spying on them in the background,
Speaker 1: and they sickly singing the boy is Mine, and then
Speaker 1: the Queen asks Cinderella who her family is, thinking that
Speaker 1: she must be from some like aristocratic family, and Cinderella
Speaker 1: is like, oh no, they're going to find me out,
Speaker 1: so she considers bailing, but then the fairy Godmother's like, no, stay,
Speaker 1: everything's going to be fine. And then the Prince is like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, I can't believe how much I love you.
Speaker 1: But then the clock strikes midnight, so she has to
Speaker 1: run off as her clothes turned back to rags and
Speaker 1: her carriage turns back into a pumpkin, but she leaves
Speaker 1: behind the glass slipper and the and the Prince has
Speaker 1: no idea who Cinderella is or what her name is,
Speaker 1: so he wants to go around to every woman in
Speaker 1: the kingdom so that they can all try on the
Speaker 1: glass slipper to figure out who it belongs to, who
Speaker 1: it fits, and so he does that it doesn't fit anyone.
Speaker 1: He goes to Cinderella's house, but she has been locked away.
Speaker 1: The step sisters are trying to cram their foot into
Speaker 1: the glass slipper, and then finally Cinderella, she's like outside
Speaker 1: dealing with the horses for some reason, and then Prince
Speaker 1: Christopher is like, wait a minute, it's you put on
Speaker 1: the slipper, and she's like it's me, and then they
Speaker 1: kiss and then Whitney Houston flies again. It is I
Speaker 1: love that, Oh it's me. I love that red touching
Speaker 1: on what happens. I just and that is the story.
Speaker 1: Let's take a quick break and then we'll come right
Speaker 1: back to discuss. And we're back. Where should we start
Speaker 1: talking about this incredible movie? Well, Jamie, do you wanna
Speaker 1: did you have a context corner for like the production
Speaker 1: and stuff. There's truly so there's so so, so so much.
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm going to sprinkle it throughout our
Speaker 1: discussion because it, um yeah, there's just like so much there.
Speaker 1: There was a really really good um oral history published
Speaker 1: about this movie a couple of years back, I think
Speaker 1: for the twentieth and diversory on Shonda Land. Let me
Speaker 1: figure out who compiled it, because it was amazing. Kendra
Speaker 1: James um just talking about kind of how this movie
Speaker 1: came together, the kind of resistance to getting it made,
Speaker 1: and how um you know, Brandy was like the first
Speaker 1: black Disney princess. So I mean, yeah, I guess let's
Speaker 1: start talking. I guess the thing I didn't realize going
Speaker 1: into this is that this movie was um produced by
Speaker 1: Deborah Martin Chase and that she was like this huge
Speaker 1: driving force. So Debora Martin Chase, We've covered a lot
Speaker 1: of her work, but I don't know if we've ever
Speaker 1: really talked about her in depth. But she is an
Speaker 1: iconic producer of children's media who is really been pushing
Speaker 1: for representation in media for a really long time. She
Speaker 1: was Whitney Houston's producing partner for a while. They met
Speaker 1: when she was producing The Preacher's Wife, but she went
Speaker 1: on to like be the driving force of Cinderella. She's
Speaker 1: the driving force for the Princess Diaries movies, She's the
Speaker 1: driving force for the Cheetah Girls movies. Like she like
Speaker 1: basically single handedly constructed millennial childhoods. And it was really
Speaker 1: cool seeing like just kind of her and Whitney Houston's
Speaker 1: driving this project and you know, not taking no for
Speaker 1: an answer when there was pushed back on black Cinderella,
Speaker 1: on having a very diverse cast, and yeah, So the
Speaker 1: story of how it was made I thought was so lovely.
Speaker 1: It is. I mean, all I know is that first
Speaker 1: Whitney wasn't even trying to do it, but Brandy only
Speaker 1: agreed to do it if Whitney was her very godmother,
Speaker 1: which I just think it's the absolute sweetest thing. Like
Speaker 1: she was like, I'm not going to do what it
Speaker 1: was You're my favorite godmother, and Whitney was like, I'll
Speaker 1: do it. It's so not like I didn't realize. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I guess when this project was conceived, Whitney was
Speaker 1: going to be Cinderella, and then production was stalling, and
Speaker 1: I guess also it was really hard for people to
Speaker 1: Whitney Houston was just like busy and what was not
Speaker 1: emailing people back or not whatever phone because nineties so
Speaker 1: literally three years passed and then I think and then
Speaker 1: Whitney essentially is like I think I am now too
Speaker 1: old to play Cinderella. And so Whitney it was Whitney's
Speaker 1: idea to cast Brandy Um. She called Brandy and like
Speaker 1: I was like, let's do this, and Brandy was so
Speaker 1: excited and it was so nice to like they. I guess,
Speaker 1: like Whitney Houston was Brandy's hero growing up and like
Speaker 1: was the biggest like musical influence of her life and
Speaker 1: like motivated her to want to be Brandy in the
Speaker 1: first place. And then when this movie started, Whitney Houston
Speaker 1: kind of became her like real life mentor um, which
Speaker 1: I don't know, it makes me cry to think about.
Speaker 1: And and Whitney Houston talked about in interviews how like
Speaker 1: she was mentoring Brandy, she also mentored Monica and because
Speaker 1: she had been mentored when she was a young artist
Speaker 1: by Dionne Warwick and was also a relative. Yeah, Like
Speaker 1: it just warmed my heart to look at footage of
Speaker 1: Brandy and Whitney for this is like so good, um
Speaker 1: so yeah, And it was like the most expensive TV
Speaker 1: movie ever made at the time. There was a little
Speaker 1: bit of pushback from Disney where this this made me
Speaker 1: like roll my eyes back into my head. Uh. There
Speaker 1: was a Disney executive who everyone very kindly refused to name,
Speaker 1: even though I'm like, what was their name? But once
Speaker 1: it was clear that Whitney was going to be the
Speaker 1: fairy Godmother, there was a producer who was like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, maybe we should have a white Cinderella.
Speaker 1: Maybe we should ask Jewel. It was like, maybe we
Speaker 1: should ask Jewel, um so, but the entire production team
Speaker 1: was like, absolutely, are absolutely not even speaking to Jewel
Speaker 1: or thinking about her. Um that would have been so
Speaker 1: weird given everybody else, like if if everybody was the same,
Speaker 1: except for it would have been so weird. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: she makes this movie so yeah, it's uh. And then
Speaker 1: all the all the casting from their kind of like
Speaker 1: fell into place. One fact that I found very just
Speaker 1: like huh was that they ran out of money on
Speaker 1: the production, and Disney was like, we're not going to
Speaker 1: pay extras anymore. So what Pie Goldberg gave away like
Speaker 1: two days pay to pay extras? I was like, fucking Disney,
Speaker 1: what is wrong with them? They were really they had
Speaker 1: to have been just upset that it was being made
Speaker 1: right like that. That that had to be a lot
Speaker 1: of it, and them being like, no, we're not paying
Speaker 1: the extra because there were a lot of extras. So
Speaker 1: I just can't imagine being like, we're not paying all
Speaker 1: these people for their time and energy. So especially it's
Speaker 1: like what do you want a reverse shot that's empty?
Speaker 1: Like what are you even saying? Um? I also the
Speaker 1: the other I guess background thing that I thought was
Speaker 1: you know, encouraging because this movie is still ultimately written
Speaker 1: and directed by guys um, which is like you do
Speaker 1: hate to hear it as far as the writing goes.
Speaker 1: I at least found it somewhat encouraging for like in
Speaker 1: this oral history, the writer of this movie, Robert Friedman,
Speaker 1: talked about the elements that he wanted to add to
Speaker 1: kind of update the story for the nineties, and I
Speaker 1: thought it was a really um you know, I was
Speaker 1: like not to be out here giving men credit, but
Speaker 1: I but I liked how he talked about adapting and
Speaker 1: updating the character because he literally just says he spoke
Speaker 1: to women in his life of what they would like
Speaker 1: to see in a Cinderella, which is truly, uh where
Speaker 1: you start? Um? But I want to find a quote.
Speaker 1: Do you have a quote from him? Do? Okay, go
Speaker 1: for it. Yeah. I was reading that he made a
Speaker 1: deliberate attempt to modernize the Cinderella character. Who again, if
Speaker 1: you're comparing it to earlier renditions of the character, you
Speaker 1: know there's a lot of room for updates. So he
Speaker 1: would like personality. It's like she's no personality, She's barely
Speaker 1: on screen. Um, So he wanted to ensure that she
Speaker 1: was a stronger, more active character and to provide her
Speaker 1: with kind of her own story arc beyond waiting around
Speaker 1: to be rescued by a love interest. And I have
Speaker 1: a quote from him, quote I'm not saying that it's
Speaker 1: the most feminist movie you'll ever see, but it is
Speaker 1: compared to the other versions. And I was like, you
Speaker 1: know what, you're not wrong, And I like, I mean
Speaker 1: the elements that he adds to Cinderella's character, because it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, he's not really if we're adapting the story,
Speaker 1: there's only so much you can do. But I thought
Speaker 1: that what he added to Cinderella and to the Prince too,
Speaker 1: like really did work. And so my understand was the
Speaker 1: elements he added was that whole exchange with them at
Speaker 1: the beginning, UM was pretty significantly altered because Cinderella has
Speaker 1: never previously said that she wants love in respect or
Speaker 1: wants really anything, and so adding that element to her character, UM,
Speaker 1: adding like what a huge imagination she has, Like her
Speaker 1: goal is not to get married, it's too like live
Speaker 1: happily UM. And And I like how the conversations between
Speaker 1: Cinderella and her godmother are tweaked a little bit where
Speaker 1: the godmother tells her like, you know, I'm trying to
Speaker 1: remember the exact exchange, but like it was within you
Speaker 1: the whole time, and like you can do whatever you want,
Speaker 1: and it's a very like nineties feminism message, but it
Speaker 1: like it really hits in this movie. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: because it does. It doesn't. At the end um when
Speaker 1: they meet each other again, she's leaving. She she had
Speaker 1: a stuff cap, she had a bag and everything and
Speaker 1: on a little stick or whatever. Oh that's why she's
Speaker 1: you know, getting hassled by the horses, which is not
Speaker 1: really the most effective lay but norma um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: she was leaving. She was like, I'm not gonna take
Speaker 1: this anymore. I'm gonna go. So it wasn't like she
Speaker 1: was like I'm going to run in the castle and
Speaker 1: see if he remembers me. She was like, I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna reave and not come back. So that's what it
Speaker 1: was the thing, and I love that too, where it's like,
Speaker 1: I just think it's really good that they made a
Speaker 1: movie where her whole goal wasn't to fall in love
Speaker 1: and meet the prince. It was that she wanted to
Speaker 1: get out of the life that she was currently living,
Speaker 1: which makes it that much more speeder. When the step
Speaker 1: mom and the stepdaughters are lit to be outside the
Speaker 1: gate at the at the castle like we love you
Speaker 1: like and she's like, where was that energy for the
Speaker 1: rest of our life prior to that. But Okay, it's
Speaker 1: great because in other versions, I think she forgives her
Speaker 1: step family, like oh yeah, you horribly mistreated me, but
Speaker 1: you know, I'm I'm so nice. Everyone has flaws, You're like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: because there's like a Cinderella too, right in the Disney one,
Speaker 1: the like there's a second Cinderella movie and it's like
Speaker 1: Cinderella to back in time. And here's why I know that,
Speaker 1: because like, here's what I know. Even I hated the
Speaker 1: other one. Um, it's because the step sister gets the
Speaker 1: redemption arc. One of the step sisters met to Baker
Speaker 1: and realizes that shears me have to be trashed. Um,
Speaker 1: it's just the choice that she was making. And and
Speaker 1: I only know that because of the Internet. Well I wonder,
Speaker 1: I feel like I probably because that was like a
Speaker 1: straight to VHS sequel vibe. I don't remember seeing it,
Speaker 1: but I'm sure I did, Like I know I saw it.
Speaker 1: I saw it once, But I know for a fact
Speaker 1: that like that's what happens because people talk about it
Speaker 1: on Twitter. I don't know why, I truly don't, but
Speaker 1: they do. I feel people love to talk about Disney
Speaker 1: straight to VHS stuff on Twitter, like no exaggerate the
Speaker 1: like do you want to pop in and talk about
Speaker 1: you know, v tapes, let's do. I've definitely seen a
Speaker 1: threat or two about like The Little Mermaid too, which
Speaker 1: oh yeah, because it's just they truly were like what
Speaker 1: if we had Ariel but with Eric's hair? And then
Speaker 1: also we did Ursula except Geese shorter, like that's that's
Speaker 1: the movie. But yeah, I really like in this version
Speaker 1: of Cinderella, the movie attempts to establish that Cinderella and
Speaker 1: the Prince have something in common, um, which again is like, well,
Speaker 1: it's very I don't know if it's like necessarily borrowed
Speaker 1: from Aladdin, but it's like they both live sheltered lives
Speaker 1: and they wish they could just kind of escape and
Speaker 1: like live their own lives. And because like, the thing
Speaker 1: that really bothers me about a lot of romantic storylines
Speaker 1: in movies is that, like no attempt is made to
Speaker 1: show why the two characters are compatible. So I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we have some compatibility here. That's nice. I love that
Speaker 1: they have the same conversation at the end of the
Speaker 1: movie as they do in the in the beginning when
Speaker 1: they're in the village, and I'm just like, ah, this
Speaker 1: is nice. I also appreciate that you see representation of
Speaker 1: a man like loving love and like wanting to marry
Speaker 1: for love and who's like he's like constantly swooning. His
Speaker 1: whole arc is like let me feel my feelings, mom
Speaker 1: and dad. It's beautiful. It's beautiful because that that like
Speaker 1: hopeless romantic characteristic is like not a trait that is
Speaker 1: normally ascribed to men. So I like really enjoyed what
Speaker 1: felt to me like a pretty big subversion that, Like
Speaker 1: he was like I love love and I can't wait
Speaker 1: to be in love and find the woman that I love.
Speaker 1: And um, right, yes, I agree. I think that it's
Speaker 1: it's smart too, because even when they were at the ball,
Speaker 1: he was just like smitten with her immediately and he
Speaker 1: was like, what's the song is like, um, do I
Speaker 1: love you because you wonderful? Or are you wonderful? Anyway?
Speaker 1: The point is it's just like he's still yes, right,
Speaker 1: So he's just so ready to be romantic and be
Speaker 1: up and I just love that he was like I
Speaker 1: want to lock it down, Okay, I've never Yeah, that
Speaker 1: change is so effective because I feel like normally we
Speaker 1: see princess who I just don't want to get married,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden they do. Um, and
Speaker 1: we don't really know why because the people they married
Speaker 1: and are just women that don't have any personalities, that
Speaker 1: also only want to get married. But it's like his
Speaker 1: defining characteristic is he is ready to commit. All of
Speaker 1: a sudden, the plot works a lot better and like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I also love that the dynamic and I think this
Speaker 1: is maybe just something that was in the original musical too,
Speaker 1: but the dynamic between um, the King and Queen is
Speaker 1: so loving and like fun. Right they don't hate each other? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't, And just like I don't know Whoopi Goldberg
Speaker 1: and Victor Garber's chemistry is like they're just adorable to guy,
Speaker 1: I just love them. I will because they throw Jason
Speaker 1: Alexander off the ladder like rampled so many times in
Speaker 1: this movie. Um, and that's a class issue major, There's
Speaker 1: there's a whole class conversation to be had about this
Speaker 1: just kind of story in general. But we'll get there.
Speaker 1: But I wasn't quite as I mean, as much as
Speaker 1: I love Whoopi Goldberg and d Garber and also we're like,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, this movie came out in late nineteen seven,
Speaker 1: wasn't this also the exact moment that Titanic was coming out?
Speaker 1: I have an anecdote about that. There's in this I
Speaker 1: swear like everyone, I highly recommend this oral history. It
Speaker 1: put me in the best mood, um because they got
Speaker 1: to talk to I mean pretty much everyone except unfortunately
Speaker 1: Whitney Houston, but like everyone else didn't interview for this,
Speaker 1: and so you just get all these great anecdotes where
Speaker 1: I guess, like Paolo mantle Bond was like, yeah, when
Speaker 1: we were shooting this was shot after Titanic because it
Speaker 1: was a TV movie, so it was shot like pretty
Speaker 1: close to the time it came out. Um, But he's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Victor on the set was like complaining
Speaker 1: that he had had to shoot this movie in like
Speaker 1: this huge water tank in Mexico for six months and
Speaker 1: he wasn't sure if it was going to be any
Speaker 1: good and it went way over budget. And he's like,
Speaker 1: it turns out he was talking about Titanic like ship
Speaker 1: so god. Um, but yeah, I mean the way and
Speaker 1: this isn't like the biggest gripe, but I felt the
Speaker 1: way mothers were represented in the movie was a little
Speaker 1: like I'm not sure about this because like Whoopie is
Speaker 1: characterized as being like very overbearing and meddlesome and like
Speaker 1: obsessed with her son's romantic life. And then there's this
Speaker 1: moment where she's talking to Prince Christopher and she's like,
Speaker 1: your father and I were just talking about you, and
Speaker 1: Victor Garber's like, well, your mother was talking. I was
Speaker 1: listening because you know, women be talking too much, but um,
Speaker 1: and then there's a whole other separate conversation to be
Speaker 1: had about like the stepmother and the step sisters. But
Speaker 1: I wanted to quickly go so I guess overall, like yeah,
Speaker 1: I like, you know, the king and queen dynamic, but
Speaker 1: I'm also just like I feel like some kind of
Speaker 1: like trophy things were being employed there. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's hard. It's hard because it's like I totally agree.
Speaker 1: And then that's also so cooked into Cinderella that it's
Speaker 1: the way that because I mean, and and I guess
Speaker 1: there would have been there, it wouldn't have been hard
Speaker 1: to make it less that like the dad gets it
Speaker 1: and the mom is being overbearing in the same way that.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know, does any woman over like
Speaker 1: thirty five gets a raw deal in these stories where
Speaker 1: it's you know, especially in the fairy Tales, they are
Speaker 1: like jealous, or they are vengeful, or or they're just
Speaker 1: kind of I don't know, acting maliciously towards anyone younger
Speaker 1: than them that they see as a threat. I guess,
Speaker 1: I mean, and that's definitely a conversation with the stepmother.
Speaker 1: I think my only defense is I like Whoopi Goldberg,
Speaker 1: and I like Victor Garb, and so I was like, actually,
Speaker 1: when I was I I watched um, the Julie Andrews
Speaker 1: version of this musical, and the problems stuck out way
Speaker 1: more because I was not emotionally attached to the cast. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that makes sense. It's true. When you get Whoopy in there,
Speaker 1: you get Victor Garber, you get Whitney Houston, you're just
Speaker 1: she's any behavior. And I think my only defense of
Speaker 1: the earlier party that movie is again when they were
Speaker 1: at the ball and he makes the clip about how
Speaker 1: if he was like fifteen years younger than he's, like,
Speaker 1: I'd just be younger, dear like to try to play
Speaker 1: off the fact that he was like, Oh, she's up,
Speaker 1: she's a snack. But my defense of that was it
Speaker 1: was like how he said something about how they reminded
Speaker 1: him how they fell in love. So it made me
Speaker 1: feel better in the context because I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: so he's not just like annoyed with how much she
Speaker 1: talks or like how overbearing she is, because he just
Speaker 1: remembered how they fell in love. So they're just like
Speaker 1: parts of who she is. That like he just loves anyway.
Speaker 1: I like that they're actually in love, like kings and
Speaker 1: queens are never in love for real. Now, even in
Speaker 1: the Drew Barrymore One, the parents hate each other, like
Speaker 1: they say in the movie multiple times, like oh, our
Speaker 1: marriage was arranged, and like she just looked disgusted the
Speaker 1: fact that her husband is the way hate he is.
Speaker 1: And even though Drew Barrymore's character falls in love with
Speaker 1: their son and their marriage is obviously going to be
Speaker 1: happier than his parents, it's just like a constant comedy
Speaker 1: thing where like the older couple or the other couples
Speaker 1: you see within a fairytale like that I don't like
Speaker 1: each other. So they're still in love. They're holding hands.
Speaker 1: It's right, it's sweet, I don't know, holding hands, walking
Speaker 1: over what's his first Jason Alexander. There we go. It's
Speaker 1: what a true I really love that shot because it
Speaker 1: goes on like a little bit too long for some reason,
Speaker 1: where they throw j is An Alexander off the ladder
Speaker 1: and then they both like turn in Unison and they're like,
Speaker 1: oh well, and then they just stroll away. Oh another okay.
Speaker 1: Another fun fact about this is almost everyone in this
Speaker 1: movie is wearing costume jewelry, obviously because it's a TV movie.
Speaker 1: But Whoopi Goldberg refused to wear a costume jewelry. She's like,
Speaker 1: if I'm playing a queen, I'm going to wear Harry
Speaker 1: Winston jewels. And she called I guess she had a
Speaker 1: hook up at Harry Winston. And so everyone's wearing costume
Speaker 1: jewelry except for any shot Whoopy Goldberg's and she's wearing
Speaker 1: literally five million dollars worth of jewels. Thought was, it's
Speaker 1: so great, Like if you're gonna make if we're gonna
Speaker 1: take a stand, let it be that one when you're like,
Speaker 1: you know what, No, I want, I want the real thing.
Speaker 1: I don't want costume jewelry. If I'm not dripping in diamonds.
Speaker 1: Then I'm not playing a queen. I can't get into
Speaker 1: the role. Like I just thought it was so fun
Speaker 1: because it once once I knew that, and I rewatched
Speaker 1: with that knowledge. Everyone else's jewelry looks aggressively fakes are like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah that is a ruby. Wow, what a flex um.
Speaker 1: I know, it's so good. I wanted to go quickly
Speaker 1: back to Prince Christopher because one of the things that
Speaker 1: I think is maybe is now pretty dated and like
Speaker 1: very obviously dated to us, is that he one of
Speaker 1: the reasons he likes her is because she's not like
Speaker 1: the other girls, which he likes, literally says several times.
Speaker 1: He's like but it's like, okay, so here's here's this.
Speaker 1: I just kind of want to break down. One of
Speaker 1: the initial conversations they have where they meet in the village.
Speaker 1: He's talking about, oh, how does a stranger get to
Speaker 1: be in your good graces and like get to know
Speaker 1: you better? And she's like, well, does this stranger know
Speaker 1: how a woman wants to be treated? Ka, you already
Speaker 1: I think mentioned like brought up part of this conversation,
Speaker 1: and he's like, like a princess and she says no, oh,
Speaker 1: like a person with kindness and respect. And he's like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're not like the other girls, are you? And she
Speaker 1: says what do you mean? He says nothing, I don't
Speaker 1: mean to offend you. And it's just like, no, you
Speaker 1: just offended an entire gender of people. That's all you did,
Speaker 1: Christopher um. And then later the queen is like, you're
Speaker 1: not going to find her, so just like think about
Speaker 1: choosing one of those other girls from the ball and
Speaker 1: he's like, the girl was not like the others. She's
Speaker 1: different from any other girl I've ever met. And then
Speaker 1: Whoopy is like, how can you know that after one night?
Speaker 1: And we're like, yeah, that's a great question, Whoopy. I
Speaker 1: mean ideally that's what I was like when like I
Speaker 1: know myself watching it in a much it was brandy
Speaker 1: that's that's you know. But yeah, that is like a
Speaker 1: very like of the time sentiment for what a romance
Speaker 1: is based in. It's like, oh, well, I like her
Speaker 1: because she's not like other girls, because other girls are
Speaker 1: boring or other girls don't read, like that's usually yes,
Speaker 1: so like she has a book, so it's pretty low
Speaker 1: bar to clear, and like this might just be a
Speaker 1: good old fastened misogyny just casual. Um, I mean speaking
Speaker 1: of other girls, let's talk about the step Sisters. Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: can I go first? Yes? Please? Okay? Said that? All right?
Speaker 1: So the Stepsisters were terrible, but also I loved that,
Speaker 1: Like I don't know if it's because the one who
Speaker 1: played is it Minerva just passed away? Yes? Yes, rest
Speaker 1: in peace to a real one. Um, but I loved them.
Speaker 1: They were such a mess. I love the little quirks
Speaker 1: about how one of them laughed too loud and the
Speaker 1: other one it's herself when she was nervous, and like
Speaker 1: the hat thing was so funny to me, like a
Speaker 1: little bit where they're like who looks better than this hat?
Speaker 1: And she's like, I don't think it finds either of
Speaker 1: you and they're like, what do you know? It's a
Speaker 1: terrible Like it's because it's such a bad hat and
Speaker 1: they're such a bad people. But when they sing the
Speaker 1: song at the ball, that's like, um, how can I
Speaker 1: for I love a girl like her, a girl who's
Speaker 1: Mary lovey? I'm like, yes, I mean I would be
Speaker 1: like I would be a hater as well, you know,
Speaker 1: I would hate. I would hate for the guy that
Speaker 1: I love for no reason at all, like know nothing about,
Speaker 1: but like I love him because it's a prince and
Speaker 1: I want to be a princess. And I just liked
Speaker 1: I think that they worked really well together, those actresses,
Speaker 1: and I just think about them in terms of, um,
Speaker 1: one of my favorite songs in the movie is in
Speaker 1: My Own Little Corner when she's like talking about how
Speaker 1: she's just their little servant and they're like send they're
Speaker 1: all of warm milk and and um, Cinderella hot water,
Speaker 1: and Cinella is just over it, like they're just so
Speaker 1: rotten to her and they're terrible. But but I feel
Speaker 1: like I liked it because you see how insecure they
Speaker 1: actually are, like they don't really have anything going for it,
Speaker 1: so like oh when Nervous speaks big Latin, but like
Speaker 1: who cares about And it's just like they're like we
Speaker 1: love you, like and you don't really love her, You're
Speaker 1: just just jealous and hoping to get some of her scraps.
Speaker 1: And I felt like that was played really well. So
Speaker 1: I think about them often in terms of, like, it
Speaker 1: must be hard to have a sister that like slaps
Speaker 1: so hard and you know that you don't and you
Speaker 1: just have to live with the fact that you will
Speaker 1: never have what you has, especially when your mother is
Speaker 1: like drilling these really wild notions into your head about
Speaker 1: like don't ever show your flaws until after you're already married.
Speaker 1: It's the best wine the whole day, I sing song
Speaker 1: and at least once a week likes, and then my
Speaker 1: sister will go. And so after the wedding, I thought
Speaker 1: it was really injo like I because there were like
Speaker 1: some I don't know, Okay, So I guess there's a
Speaker 1: bunch of different ways of looking at this step family,
Speaker 1: and um, as with everything with this movie, I'm going
Speaker 1: to kind of a bunch of slack, but I do.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like, on one hand, I feel like
Speaker 1: the step sisters, no matter what adaptation, they're always cast
Speaker 1: to be older than Cinderella, and they're always cast to
Speaker 1: just have like different body types than Cinderella. And so
Speaker 1: I feel like that is like not the greatest shorthand
Speaker 1: in terms of being like, well, this is like a
Speaker 1: woman that we don't think is like the movie is
Speaker 1: telling you, like they're not as attractive as Cinderella is,
Speaker 1: and so that's never a good message. And that's true
Speaker 1: across the board in Cinderella adaptation that choice is always
Speaker 1: made without fail. What I like that this movie does
Speaker 1: to kind of like mitigate that for the stepsisters. And
Speaker 1: the stepmother was like, you're just saying, like that song,
Speaker 1: I feel like is helpful in like contextualizing them of
Speaker 1: like they're not just like evil because they are really insecure,
Speaker 1: And I liked that. Um, I guess that the stepmother
Speaker 1: doesn't have a song in the original musical, and they
Speaker 1: were like, but we cast Bernadette Peters, so like, let's
Speaker 1: find one. And I love the song they picked for
Speaker 1: her because I feel like it gives you. It's not
Speaker 1: the greatest you know, I guess context for that character,
Speaker 1: but it's one of the only attempts at like really
Speaker 1: giving a stepmother character some sort of like this is
Speaker 1: where she's coming from, even though she's obviously an unrepentant asshole,
Speaker 1: like but by giving her that song of like she's bad,
Speaker 1: Like all that song is basically saying is like I've
Speaker 1: fell in love like with love, but I fell in
Speaker 1: love once for actual love and it blew up in
Speaker 1: my face. And we live in the question Mark century
Speaker 1: where like for most women, marriage is going to be
Speaker 1: the only way to acquire any level of security. So
Speaker 1: fuck love and let's go, you know, trick a prince
Speaker 1: into marrying us. Like it is definitely not the most
Speaker 1: feminist message in the world, but but it is like
Speaker 1: one of the only like I prefer an attempt to
Speaker 1: contextualize where she's coming from. Then just be like she's
Speaker 1: mean because she's over thirty five and like Brandy is
Speaker 1: younger than her, right, because I think that for me,
Speaker 1: like that song, first of all, it's catchy. Second of all,
Speaker 1: the thing that made me think about her character with
Speaker 1: that song is that, like, so the person she fell
Speaker 1: in love with for the first time was obviously supposed
Speaker 1: to be Brandy's dead and he just up and and
Speaker 1: now she's like that don't mean the sounds like he
Speaker 1: just died. So now she's taking care of you know,
Speaker 1: she's on her own. They don't have really I don't
Speaker 1: know how they have the house. Maybe he left it
Speaker 1: to them, but like, she has no more prospect now
Speaker 1: that he's gone, because she's over a certain age and
Speaker 1: nobody wants to remarry her. She's taking care of her
Speaker 1: two stepdaughters, who she wants to make sure they're secure
Speaker 1: before she goes because the only way for security is
Speaker 1: to have a man. But she's angry at Brandy in
Speaker 1: part because Brandy reminds her of what she lost in
Speaker 1: her father. Yeah, and it's like that's it's and it's
Speaker 1: like her motives are always going to be like but
Speaker 1: but but it is like I I appreciated that kind
Speaker 1: of attempt and the Brandt Peter's performance is really good, right,
Speaker 1: but there's just so much you forgive because the people
Speaker 1: are because the people who were playing, you're like, yeah, sure, fine,
Speaker 1: I can make that work. I love how that number
Speaker 1: ends where at the end they come out and they're
Speaker 1: like ridiculous dresses and then they're just like they sing
Speaker 1: the last note as their carriage is taking off and
Speaker 1: you're like yeah sure. And there's also there's like a
Speaker 1: weird statue of the step sisters outside of the house.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, I did not notice that. Yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: right in the front, lam like they're like spitting water
Speaker 1: at each other. It's really funny. And then there's an
Speaker 1: other song when um they come back from the ball
Speaker 1: and she talked about how she followed and then Brandy
Speaker 1: tips her home and that's when she realizes I like
Speaker 1: that that they have that because in the other adaptions
Speaker 1: I've seen, the mom never realizes it until they come
Speaker 1: with the slippers, so or I guess it's different than
Speaker 1: Drew Brammer one. But again that's why these two attract here.
Speaker 1: But in every other Cinderella adaption, the mom doesn't realize
Speaker 1: it until like the way later. But I mean literally,
Speaker 1: as soon as she bows her head, Brenada Peters makes
Speaker 1: this face like, oh my god, it was you. And
Speaker 1: then she's like, well, how could a prince love you?
Speaker 1: But you already know the labs like she already knew
Speaker 1: by then that that that it was held that the
Speaker 1: prince loved and I loved that they had a little
Speaker 1: moment in there at the end of that song. Yeah. Same. Um,
Speaker 1: let's take another quick break and then we'll come right
Speaker 1: back to go back quickly to what you were talking about, Jamie,
Speaker 1: with like the because the step sisters, like, they are
Speaker 1: famously known as like the ugly step Sisters, So there's
Speaker 1: always an attempt in the adaptations to show them as
Speaker 1: being undesirable or unappealing in some way, and I feel
Speaker 1: like with Minerva particularly, I think the movie is trying it,
Speaker 1: like wants you to think that because she's fat, that's
Speaker 1: one of the things that makes her seem unappealing, especially
Speaker 1: because there's that scene where like the stepmother is like
Speaker 1: dramatically trying to like tighten her corset, and then there's
Speaker 1: a lyric in one of the songs later on that
Speaker 1: she says, why can't a guy ever once prefer a
Speaker 1: solid girl like me? And I feel like that was
Speaker 1: like the movie's attempt to be like, well, because she's fat,
Speaker 1: that's one of the things that makes her unappealing, and
Speaker 1: you know, that's not great the end. Yeah, And that's
Speaker 1: definitely like one of for for a movie that is
Speaker 1: generally very inclusive, that is life like one of its
Speaker 1: like kind of glaring shortcomings. That would have been easy
Speaker 1: to like they they didn't have to do that, but
Speaker 1: they didn't, but they did. But fortunately, um, Natalie to
Speaker 1: Sell was amazing. The chemistry between the sisters really is great, right,
Speaker 1: And that's the thing that I think helps is that
Speaker 1: she played her so well. I just think that, like
Speaker 1: a lot of her work went um underappreciated because in
Speaker 1: this movie and in Baps and in that short lived
Speaker 1: TV show that Eve was the star of that was
Speaker 1: called even though her character was named something else entirely.
Speaker 1: I don't it's fine, um that she had a really
Speaker 1: good way of making even the strangest of character splash
Speaker 1: people makes sense like you really felt for them. And
Speaker 1: I feel like even before she passed me she rest
Speaker 1: in peace. I'd watch a movie back and be like,
Speaker 1: I wonder if they would have ever, you know, did
Speaker 1: a sequel with Minerva or something, because part Calliope Bless
Speaker 1: her Heart, Calliope was just sort of like, to me,
Speaker 1: the annoying one, and Whenever was sort of just caught
Speaker 1: up in trying to both please her mother and find
Speaker 1: a love that would help her validate who she is
Speaker 1: as a person. I mean, I've really sad and thought
Speaker 1: about this movie way too much, But I'm just saying,
Speaker 1: like I think I think that, Um, what Natalie did
Speaker 1: was really make her to me more redeemable in a
Speaker 1: way by just allowing us to see that like, she
Speaker 1: wants what is best for her and what her mom
Speaker 1: wants for her, and she thinks that love will give
Speaker 1: her that thing. Yeah, And I mean I guess I've
Speaker 1: I've never like thought of like the step sisters are
Speaker 1: definitely me like Cinderella's whole family unquestionably cruel to her, unacceptable.
Speaker 1: Not in my house would we treat Cinderella in that way. Um,
Speaker 1: But but it is, Um, I don't know, especially how
Speaker 1: the sisters play it in this movie. Sometimes you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: they're also being like constantly emotionally berated by their mother,
Speaker 1: who is also a deeply insecure person, and it's I
Speaker 1: don't know. I'm like, this is a this is a
Speaker 1: very complicated family, because there's no time where Bernadette Peters
Speaker 1: is not like even though it's like the stepsisters are
Speaker 1: the daughter she quote unquote likes like she's never not
Speaker 1: criticizing them and like never not telling them they need
Speaker 1: to alter their appearance, they need to like repress their emotions,
Speaker 1: they need to do this, this and this, and so
Speaker 1: it's like, uh, it's just a very unhappy household. Don't
Speaker 1: be what does she say? You mustn't let the prince
Speaker 1: know how clever you are. Men can't stand to be
Speaker 1: around smart women, which I mean men are often very
Speaker 1: intimidated by smart women. So kind I like that. I
Speaker 1: like it too, because it felt like they did it
Speaker 1: on purpose, like to just show how ridiculous she is,
Speaker 1: and you're thinking, I mean, at least maybe I'm giving
Speaker 1: them too much credit, But it really did feel like
Speaker 1: they were saying it, like, look, how ridiculous this woman is.
Speaker 1: She believes because that's what she was taught, that men
Speaker 1: don't like clever women. And it's the idea that oh,
Speaker 1: Brandy as Cinderella is so clever and so smart. She
Speaker 1: reads and the reason she has she's Cinderella because she
Speaker 1: likes to watch the cinder flies and her face gets
Speaker 1: mudged and like she's all these things that brought it up. Peters,
Speaker 1: as her stepmother was told men aren't supposed to like right,
Speaker 1: And I think it goes back to that thing that
Speaker 1: we talked about a lot, which I think this movie
Speaker 1: does more to contextualize than most stories, where like the
Speaker 1: reason if women are ever kind of like cruel to
Speaker 1: each other or jealous of each other, just like in
Speaker 1: life and real life, is because we've been conditioned to
Speaker 1: think that we have to compete with each other for
Speaker 1: the like you know, limited resources and limited opportunities that
Speaker 1: are forwarded to women. And in this case, they're like
Speaker 1: literally competing over the love of a prince who will
Speaker 1: give them, you know, like financial security and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: And in this adaptation of like just the Cinderella narrative,
Speaker 1: the step mom and stepsisters, while still very cruel to Cinderella,
Speaker 1: their cruelty seems to be coming less from a place
Speaker 1: of like they're behaving this way because they're pure evil,
Speaker 1: which is like how those characters are depicted in the
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties Disney animated Cinderella, and it's coming more from
Speaker 1: a place of they're behaving this way because they're desperate,
Speaker 1: Like they're a household of women with few options in
Speaker 1: terms of access to financial security, so they lash out
Speaker 1: at Cinderella, who they feel threatened by because they perceive
Speaker 1: Cinderella as being someone who's like more likely to gain
Speaker 1: access to that type of security that they are desperately
Speaker 1: after because she's so beautiful, and that's what men have
Speaker 1: historically been conditioned to value in women, is like physical beauty. Right,
Speaker 1: So I might be like reaching or kind of projecting here,
Speaker 1: but again, it felt to me like those characters are
Speaker 1: less like evil for the sake of being evil and
Speaker 1: more just like acting out of desperation, right, Yeah, And
Speaker 1: it's like the idea that like abused people sometimes abused people,
Speaker 1: And it's not to like justify their behavior, but it's
Speaker 1: just the idea that, like, when you really think about it,
Speaker 1: it makes sense that. But that Peter's character, I know
Speaker 1: she has a name, but I don't know what it is.
Speaker 1: I don't know if she has one, And I think
Speaker 1: it's just Stepmother is just stepmother. Okay. Stepmother grew up
Speaker 1: being told you have to be all these things, and
Speaker 1: so she trying to pass that on to her daughters
Speaker 1: because she thinks being all those things is what Land
Speaker 1: is her Brandy's dad. But once Brandy's dad dies, she's like, well,
Speaker 1: what do I do now? You know, like they just
Speaker 1: I think that a part of their abusing of Cinderella
Speaker 1: is because they lose that high society life life they
Speaker 1: had when her dad was about so they're using her
Speaker 1: to still feel like they're above someone because of that.
Speaker 1: And I think that a part of what I've always
Speaker 1: seen in the movie is just that they're abusing her
Speaker 1: because they think that it's like a thing they have
Speaker 1: to do, and or maybe because they were also at
Speaker 1: one point abused. But again, Stepmother also abuses the children
Speaker 1: that she supposedly likes. Like you said, so it's a
Speaker 1: it's a weird cycle that movie, and and just even
Speaker 1: in the idea of Cinderella in general, it's a weird cycle. Yeah, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's definitely I mean the stepmother, I think the
Speaker 1: stepmother Trump is definitely come up on the show before.
Speaker 1: In addition to thinking this is a perfect movie, I
Speaker 1: just I appreciated an attempt to try to address the trope,
Speaker 1: because you can't really Cinderella, the story can't happen without
Speaker 1: a stepmother. Um, So I appreciated the the attempt to
Speaker 1: um to try at least and give it some some
Speaker 1: kind of context, because yeah, because it's like worst case scenario.
Speaker 1: We're just seeing like women are irrationally jealous of each
Speaker 1: other based on age and how like attractive society perceives
Speaker 1: them to be. And it's like, you know, a trope
Speaker 1: that's been used forever to make it seem like women
Speaker 1: are just baselessly petty against each other when there is
Speaker 1: like there is a context for it, and there's a
Speaker 1: context for it in this story. So yeah, an attempt
Speaker 1: was made. I appreciate it. Yeah. And the thing is,
Speaker 1: like I think, I think for me, it's like it's
Speaker 1: so important to PROTICTI things that we love because you
Speaker 1: know they can be better. And for me, like, this
Speaker 1: movie is perfect to me in every way. It has flaws,
Speaker 1: but it's still perfect because I think whenever I have
Speaker 1: this nostalgia attached to it, but also I just feel
Speaker 1: like it was brilliantly done for the time that it
Speaker 1: was done, and it doesn't feel like, you know, everybody's like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, color blind, crastic. This was just like
Speaker 1: but and I think of like Britain, which they're not
Speaker 1: really connected at all, but I think about how in
Speaker 1: parts of Britain spoiler alert, the only time race is
Speaker 1: brought up is when the black people are doing it,
Speaker 1: and the white people never examine the dynamic between like
Speaker 1: say Daphne the white woman and Simon the black man,
Speaker 1: and what that what that is like in reality. For
Speaker 1: when something to me that happened that was really gross,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to say what it is, but there's
Speaker 1: a thing that happens in Britain and they don't explore
Speaker 1: the dynamic between her being a white woman and doing
Speaker 1: that thing and then him being a black man, and
Speaker 1: then they don't address at all what she did as
Speaker 1: the abuse that it was and I think that with
Speaker 1: this movie in particular, it wasn't like they brought it up,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't like it was this thing that they
Speaker 1: were like wanting to be champion four ward. It was
Speaker 1: just like, oh, look, there's a step daughter that it's
Speaker 1: black on a step daughter that's white, and Brenda Peters
Speaker 1: is white, and the dad is white, and Wippy Goberg
Speaker 1: is black, and the Sun is like of Asian descent,
Speaker 1: and then there's just Brandy who was a black woman.
Speaker 1: I just I felt like, for me, this movie was
Speaker 1: ahead of its time in terms of the idea of
Speaker 1: color blind casting because it wasn't anything that they wanted
Speaker 1: to make a big deal out of. They just were
Speaker 1: a part of this fairy tale that was that and
Speaker 1: you were going to deal with it. And there was
Speaker 1: no explanation about why someone looked the way they looked.
Speaker 1: It was just like, no, we're telling the story. These
Speaker 1: are the people who populate this world and blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: Where I think some times what happens um and any
Speaker 1: type of movie, but particularly in fairy tales, is like
Speaker 1: if they want to modernize that, it's like, okay, let's
Speaker 1: talk about why this person is of color, and let's
Speaker 1: make a clip about how hard it is for them
Speaker 1: to be of color, and let's do this and let's
Speaker 1: traumatize them this way. And so for me, I just
Speaker 1: really think about this movie in terms of just being
Speaker 1: able to feel good while watching it from beginning to end. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because part of what the color blank casting does is
Speaker 1: just simply allows us to see a black woman as
Speaker 1: a princess in this like classic princess narrative and just
Speaker 1: like go through all the motions of that story without
Speaker 1: any other kind of trauma. I mean, she still experiences
Speaker 1: trauma at the hand of like her step family, but
Speaker 1: it's not like racial trauma, which is so nice because
Speaker 1: it's still so rare, Like we're in and it is
Speaker 1: so rare to watch. It's like still be my which
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with this, I'm sorry, but it's
Speaker 1: like the idea that we can have issues without it
Speaker 1: always being about race. And I think that the way
Speaker 1: this movie did this ahead of the time and in
Speaker 1: the nineties was just amazing to me because it allowed
Speaker 1: what girls like me to dream, you know, like obviously
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be a princess for real, and
Speaker 1: like I'm queer and Cinderella is not, but she could be.
Speaker 1: Though update we need for Cinderella's Let's make her queer,
Speaker 1: let's make her like please. But I just think that
Speaker 1: it allowed me. I have such a close um tied
Speaker 1: to it because it allowed me to dream and feel
Speaker 1: like it was possible for me. And I think that
Speaker 1: is obviously the magic of representation, but also a story
Speaker 1: well I told where I don't feel like I have
Speaker 1: to go through mountains and mountains and mountains of racial
Speaker 1: trauma just to get my own happy. Oh. Another thing
Speaker 1: this movie does too with its casting is I don't
Speaker 1: think we've talked about this a whole lot on the podcast,
Speaker 1: but there is a long history of de sexualization of
Speaker 1: Asian men in media, where Asian men are rarely or
Speaker 1: never seen as romantic interests in love stories or just
Speaker 1: in general at all. Ever, so that the like handsome
Speaker 1: Prince Charming in this movie is played by an Asian
Speaker 1: man is pretty groundbreaking, right. And he's gorgeous. I know
Speaker 1: that that's not the point, but he is. He's really handsome.
Speaker 1: The crush the entire world had on that man, like
Speaker 1: it just we all loved him. I hope he's well
Speaker 1: responded to one of my sister's Instagram commers a couple
Speaker 1: of months ago, and she blost that she was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god. I was like, what areaked out for her?
Speaker 1: Because first of all, he's aged well, second of all
Speaker 1: just a man of my childhood, Like truly wow. Shout
Speaker 1: out Paulo. I just I didn't get super into this earlier,
Speaker 1: but I just wanted to give another shout out to
Speaker 1: Whitney Houston and like her, she was pretty explicit about
Speaker 1: like it was her and Deborah Martin Chase who made
Speaker 1: this movie happen, but Whitney specifically said like I want
Speaker 1: to make this movie for my daughter, which is so
Speaker 1: like it just comes through and there's like pictures of
Speaker 1: Whitney and Bobby Christina on the set of the movie,
Speaker 1: and uh, and Deborah Martin Chase says in this um
Speaker 1: oral history, like to have a black Cinderella is just
Speaker 1: really something I know. It was really important for Whitney
Speaker 1: to leave this legacy for her daughter. And what Bigldberg
Speaker 1: says something similar about being, I mean so hyped to
Speaker 1: do the movie that she literally gave up part of
Speaker 1: her salary so that it could get finished because she
Speaker 1: wanted this movie for her grand kids, and like just
Speaker 1: it was I don't know, really cool to know how
Speaker 1: first of all, I mean, unfortunately, how hard it was
Speaker 1: to get this movie the way that they wanted it
Speaker 1: to be, but also like how determined everyone was to
Speaker 1: like get it right and too just like have Cinderella
Speaker 1: and not like boll it down with everything. With that
Speaker 1: you were just saying, Kia, and like how intentionally it
Speaker 1: was done, and like I mean it kind of as always,
Speaker 1: how like frustrating it was with Disney to get it
Speaker 1: done the right way. But that was the power of
Speaker 1: like Whitney Houston in like talk about using your powers
Speaker 1: for good, Like she was like the fairy godmother of
Speaker 1: this entire production. Yeah, which is fun because there's still
Speaker 1: all these stories about how like she was never like
Speaker 1: she was never on time, and she, like Whitney Houston,
Speaker 1: was like grinding to get this movie done for years
Speaker 1: and years and years and then they were like, okay,
Speaker 1: so when can you shoot and she's like, I can
Speaker 1: give you four days, which is well no, that's so
Speaker 1: that's so cool though, because I think about those pictures
Speaker 1: of her on set with Brandy or even the videos
Speaker 1: of them seeking impossible. And then I think about how
Speaker 1: she was on set wherein Hathaway for the Princess Diaries movies,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, there's so much that she did that
Speaker 1: like has come out now that she's gone, but that
Speaker 1: I wish we would have been able to give her
Speaker 1: her flowers for a while she was still here, because
Speaker 1: she was a part of so many of like at
Speaker 1: least my major childhood movie moments, like I loved the
Speaker 1: Princess Diary movie. I love this movie. I love like
Speaker 1: like she just was a part of so many things
Speaker 1: that I think helped making me the person that I am.
Speaker 1: That it's wild when you think about how hard she
Speaker 1: had to do, how hard you had to work just
Speaker 1: to make them all happen. Yeah, yeah, and like and
Speaker 1: what a big like impact, like all of them, like
Speaker 1: Debor Martin Chase, I feel like I didn't. I I've
Speaker 1: seen her name so many times, but I never like
Speaker 1: fully put together and like, wow, this woman is really
Speaker 1: the architect. Like yeah. And then her all of her
Speaker 1: collaborations with Whitney like just produced these amazing stories, always
Speaker 1: about women, often about a diverse group of women. And
Speaker 1: then it was always really fucking good I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just like I am. I about to write her
Speaker 1: fan mail could be also shout out to the diversity
Speaker 1: in the background actors as well. I feel like this
Speaker 1: is something we don't see very much where even if
Speaker 1: a movie will feature probably not as much diversity as needed,
Speaker 1: but they'll be like, Okay, we've got, you know, one
Speaker 1: black lead and that fills the quota, right, and then
Speaker 1: every other person in the movie is white. But like
Speaker 1: in this movie, there's so much diversity in the background actors,
Speaker 1: and like in the Village there's and the ball It's
Speaker 1: like I knew about the like pretty mixed cast of
Speaker 1: the main characters, but I was like, I was surprised
Speaker 1: to see how much diversity do it there was just
Speaker 1: in the background, and it doesn't like seem like it
Speaker 1: would be that big of a deal. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: they're you know, they're ext they don't have lines, but
Speaker 1: it is, yeah, and it's funny because it's like, if
Speaker 1: they can do that, why can't they do it now
Speaker 1: they're doing there? I do have I don't know. I know,
Speaker 1: like I understand why this was a TV movie because
Speaker 1: Rogers and Hammerstein like the tradition of this musical was
Speaker 1: it was always a TV movie, but there's a part
Speaker 1: of me that was like, and I think, if I'm
Speaker 1: remembering right, I think Whitney Houston was pushing for this too.
Speaker 1: It should have been a theatrical release like this. It
Speaker 1: is also really I know that people talk I've seen
Speaker 1: people talk about it pretty frequently, but it's also really
Speaker 1: weird to me that this movie isn't on Disney Plus. Like,
Speaker 1: fortunately it's on YouTube for free, but why the funk
Speaker 1: is it not on Disney Plus? Like it's cannon is it?
Speaker 1: Ager Hammerstein writes thing like what is it? I think
Speaker 1: that's what it is. I read somewhere that that's what
Speaker 1: it is that they can't and that's also why they
Speaker 1: can't do They could never release the soundtrack because they
Speaker 1: did it, they recorded it really stuff, but they can't
Speaker 1: release it because of the Riders and Hammerstein's thing. And
Speaker 1: I think it's because Riders and Hammersteins also already has
Speaker 1: a version of it on Apple Music, but it's sung
Speaker 1: by all white people, so it's not it's not the
Speaker 1: one from the movie, so that for some reason can't
Speaker 1: get clearance to do the one from the movie, even
Speaker 1: though it's already recorded. And that's literally whenever I want
Speaker 1: to hear the song from the movie and I don't
Speaker 1: feel like Roger in the movie, I have to go
Speaker 1: to YouTube to do it. Same did that on my
Speaker 1: walk this morning. I was like, all right, so frustrated
Speaker 1: because it's like if it it exists, it makes me
Speaker 1: so sad that it exists and we are not allowed
Speaker 1: to have it. Um, Yeah, the last thing I wanted
Speaker 1: to talk about. So there's a there's a message in
Speaker 1: this movie that is not present in I think a
Speaker 1: lot of other versions of this story where Cinderella like
Speaker 1: wants to escape her abuse of home life. This is
Speaker 1: like part of her drive and part of her motivation
Speaker 1: as a character, and the Fairy Godmother comes and it's like,
Speaker 1: I can give you some tools to help you with that,
Speaker 1: but ultimately it's something that you have to do on
Speaker 1: your own, which I feel like can be read a
Speaker 1: couple different ways, where if you're looking at it from
Speaker 1: like a feminist perspective, it's like, okay, So the Fairy
Speaker 1: Godmother is basically encouraging Cinderella to have agency over her
Speaker 1: own life and to make active choices and be in
Speaker 1: charge of her own outcome and that's great and we
Speaker 1: love to see that. But then if you look at
Speaker 1: it from like a class perspective, it's sort of like poor,
Speaker 1: Yeah you're poor, but if you just pick yourself up
Speaker 1: by your bootstraps and work a little bit harder than
Speaker 1: you'll magically get out of poverty. And that's just classic
Speaker 1: American start a small business, like even happen? How hard
Speaker 1: could it be? They got a load start as change
Speaker 1: your life? Like, okay, we just covered enchanted. I'm like,
Speaker 1: that's literally the ending of enchanted. She's like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I guess what's feminist? What's more feminist than starting a
Speaker 1: small business? And like, I guess, but yeah, that is
Speaker 1: definitely Like again, it's like I feel like that's when
Speaker 1: the nineties is kind of showing a little bit, when
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, we were not we were very much
Speaker 1: not questioning pull yourself up by your bootstraps mentality. I
Speaker 1: think the only thing that um I was really appreciative
Speaker 1: was that nobody at any point in the movie excuse
Speaker 1: the abuse. Like at no point Diod with me as
Speaker 1: a fairy godmother be like, oh, you know that you're
Speaker 1: going through a lot, like she was just like she
Speaker 1: was just like, no, there are gonna be people in
Speaker 1: your life who don't something poppycock and twaddle whatever that whatever.
Speaker 1: That part of the song was where she was talking
Speaker 1: about how like you're gonna run across people who don't
Speaker 1: believe that the impossible as possible, but it's possible, and like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it sucks that. That's all she said. There's really no
Speaker 1: word for her to get outation that to help. But
Speaker 1: I liked the idea that like nobody was making excuses
Speaker 1: for the abuse that she had went through, because I
Speaker 1: find it oftentimes someone says something, even in My Beloved
Speaker 1: Drew Barrymore one, at one point one of the steps
Speaker 1: sisters was like, you should have known that she would
Speaker 1: have went off, like if you said something to her
Speaker 1: like that. And there's a point where like she gets
Speaker 1: beat by the step mom and and the sisters like, well,
Speaker 1: why did you do that? Of knows you would have
Speaker 1: been that way. And I really appreciated that that didn't
Speaker 1: take place in this movie in particular, because it happens
Speaker 1: all the time, whether it's Cinderella or not. Don't make
Speaker 1: an excuse for someone's terrible behavior. Yeah, and the and
Speaker 1: and I forget um, I forget which of us said it,
Speaker 1: But the fact that she doesn't forgive them at the
Speaker 1: end is like, it's so it's weird because it's with
Speaker 1: with modern fairytale adaptations. It's so like it makes my
Speaker 1: head hurt because sometimes I'm like, if you address the
Speaker 1: problem to aggressively, the story feels completely different. And if
Speaker 1: you like go into the story Cinderella of like we're
Speaker 1: going to really examine this from a class perspective, it's
Speaker 1: it's not going to really be the same story. And
Speaker 1: so the change is made to address it are very
Speaker 1: subtle and probably like you know, it doesn't address class,
Speaker 1: you know, completely responsibly, but the source material definitely doesn't.
Speaker 1: But the little, like the subtle changes that this movie
Speaker 1: goes for well, I mean just the fact that she
Speaker 1: doesn't say, like it's okay, I get it, Like, no,
Speaker 1: she was abused. No matter how damaged the stepmother and
Speaker 1: stepsisters are as people, it doesn't justify the abuse, and
Speaker 1: she doesn't forgive them. M h. It's a star. And
Speaker 1: that's so important too, because a lot of times, for
Speaker 1: a lot of years anyway, it's been like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: of course you should forgive like you don't have to
Speaker 1: forgive somebody for a being like, you just don't have
Speaker 1: to do it. I think that's why I like it
Speaker 1: so much. That one ending ray on one, which I'm
Speaker 1: sorry that I keep bringing it through, but I'm just saying,
Speaker 1: I guess you'll just have to come back on the
Speaker 1: podcast and cover that one with us. Yes, we I
Speaker 1: just liked that that that they don't they're not like, Okay,
Speaker 1: well you know they're gonna There was no reason to
Speaker 1: try to rehabilitate them throughout the movie, which I found
Speaker 1: refreshing because sometimes when movies do that, they're like spending
Speaker 1: too much time trying to rehabilitate the evil person that
Speaker 1: you lose this pieces of the actual main characters who
Speaker 1: were good from the start. So yeah, I'm with you.
Speaker 1: And we talked about this recently on Our Beauty and
Speaker 1: the Beast episode of like the burden of forgiveness often
Speaker 1: falling on women because like and like abused women abused
Speaker 1: women because women are just expected to be forgiving and
Speaker 1: compassionate and and those are good qualities sure, but also,
Speaker 1: like like we said, there's the onus is not on
Speaker 1: you to forgive abuse if you don't want to do
Speaker 1: that so and Brandy doesn't. She's just like I moved,
Speaker 1: I live in a castle. Now. I wish the movie
Speaker 1: made it clearer that she was leaving at the very
Speaker 1: end and like she had packed up to go. It
Speaker 1: wasn't Kia until you said that that I even realized
Speaker 1: that was what was happening. I wish you would we
Speaker 1: had seen her like packing her belongings or just that
Speaker 1: it was like visually made clearer that she was intending
Speaker 1: to like peace out, because I didn't even realize that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like when she fell her suitcase popped open and he
Speaker 1: was trying to help her with the stuff. But I
Speaker 1: do see what you're saying. It would have been cool
Speaker 1: to see her like packing things and like like maybe
Speaker 1: cut away when she was like the daughter was like,
Speaker 1: there's nobody else here, not even a sort of girl.
Speaker 1: My mom was going like, you get my holder, because
Speaker 1: that would have like drawn out the tension to like
Speaker 1: if like the prince was on the other side of
Speaker 1: the door being like, aren't there any other women here?
Speaker 1: And then if we cut back and forth to her
Speaker 1: like not realizing he's there and like leaving, then we're like, no,
Speaker 1: we want you to stay so that he'll find you.
Speaker 1: That that's just good storytelling. I like that change better
Speaker 1: than because it was like in the in the animated Cinderella,
Speaker 1: isn't she like locked in a room being like like, yeah,
Speaker 1: she's that the mice are like trying to give her
Speaker 1: the key to get herself out because and like, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's way more emphasis on what the mice are doing
Speaker 1: in that scene. I appreciate a non uh mouse centric approach.
Speaker 1: It's truly something sessial, and it's like funny because even
Speaker 1: in um other adaptions, I've seen the lock Cinderella up
Speaker 1: like they do in that one, but like she gets
Speaker 1: out and it's not like mice re just like she's
Speaker 1: like I'm not trying to be in here, like I'll
Speaker 1: figure it out. Like it's so funny to me that
Speaker 1: I think about it now because the mice are so
Speaker 1: heavily feature like it might as well be like and
Speaker 1: so was Cinderella stories, like Okay, this is just a
Speaker 1: vehicle for the most Yeah, they're like trying to pop
Speaker 1: off like the minions were, like they're just like, okay,
Speaker 1: we know who's the star of the movie. For real,
Speaker 1: Let's give him a franchise. But yeah, looking at this,
Speaker 1: just not this movie alone, but just the entire Cinderella narrative,
Speaker 1: like just like approaching it from a class perspective. This
Speaker 1: like part of the stories, like the rags to riches
Speaker 1: story where she's been turned into like a servant girl.
Speaker 1: She's in this low class but then she gets discovered
Speaker 1: by the prince and then marries into wealth. So like
Speaker 1: kind of the message of this entire narrative is like, well,
Speaker 1: if you're beautiful enough, a handsome prince will elevate your
Speaker 1: socio economic status. It's a dated premise, but also I'm like,
Speaker 1: is that what I was secretly hoping for every time
Speaker 1: my mom brought me to a mall. Yes, like being like, Wow,
Speaker 1: someone's gonna someone is going to see through my back
Speaker 1: brace and realize that I am I am a runway
Speaker 1: model at And I think again too, I think I was.
Speaker 1: I was definitely like, oh, this is this is my time.
Speaker 1: I'm going to walk into the store and make guys contact.
Speaker 1: Was like I tell you, for some reason, was like
Speaker 1: someone in the addle limited to being like, Wow, I've
Speaker 1: been waiting for my whole life. But I think too,
Speaker 1: Like in defense of that, which I get. I have
Speaker 1: so many defenses for these things. Is that it was
Speaker 1: nice because she wasn't really after money, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, like it's obsessed as her stepmother and the
Speaker 1: step sisters were with like wealth and whatever. She was like,
Speaker 1: I just want to be happy and like away from
Speaker 1: all of you told me that's why she got it,
Speaker 1: which is why she wasn't. Yeah, I guess that's like
Speaker 1: the less you want something, the more likely or to
Speaker 1: get it. But that like having so I don't know,
Speaker 1: I feel like that even works better with like how
Speaker 1: some of the songs are written because in my own
Speaker 1: little corner is it's whatever, it's her I want song
Speaker 1: and it's all about how she just like lives in
Speaker 1: her imagination and like dreams of being other places. And
Speaker 1: it doesn't mentioned really men at all all. It's just
Speaker 1: like if I could do anything, I would go here,
Speaker 1: or I would do this, or I wish I could
Speaker 1: do this. And she wants to go on an African safari. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's like, my name this will adventure, Like that's the
Speaker 1: dream I have for it. I'm not more milk. I'm
Speaker 1: just out here living my life. So I guess we
Speaker 1: can just be like um. Most likely she and Prince
Speaker 1: Christopher soon went on a trip of the globe afterwards,
Speaker 1: and hopefully she didn't just move down the street. I
Speaker 1: bet you know. Christopher loved her so much that if
Speaker 1: she was like, all right, let's go on our honeymoon.
Speaker 1: I want to go all over the world, He's like
Speaker 1: anything for you, my dear. He loves love. Talk about
Speaker 1: someone who is falling in love with love, Prince Christopher,
Speaker 1: She whiz, does anyone have anything else they want to
Speaker 1: talk about? Um? Just as a close in the soundtrack slabs.
Speaker 1: So it's like, whether you watch the movie or not,
Speaker 1: the soundtrack is gonna hit you like a total bricks
Speaker 1: and it's going to be beautiful the entire way. But
Speaker 1: there is not a miss in that soundtrack. It is wild.
Speaker 1: How is every song amazing? It makes no sense and
Speaker 1: all sense at the same time. It's just brilliant and
Speaker 1: there's no there's not a single bad performance in the
Speaker 1: entire movie. Everyone's good everyone. Like I don't know, I
Speaker 1: just feel like you can sort of tell when people
Speaker 1: in a movie really want to be there, and like
Speaker 1: you just kind of feel like the energy of the
Speaker 1: movie is just really good and You're like, oh, I
Speaker 1: think that this whole cast just like likes each other
Speaker 1: and like is enjoying this and not to bring up
Speaker 1: the oral history again, but it seems like that was
Speaker 1: exactly it, and just everyone was hanging out having fun.
Speaker 1: They rehearsed. I loved learning they rehearsed the movie like
Speaker 1: it was a stage show, so that the whole cast
Speaker 1: would get to know each other even if they didn't
Speaker 1: appear in scenes together there, which is like, oh, it
Speaker 1: sounds it just sounded like summer camp. Like I founded
Speaker 1: like so much fun, and I feel like it shows
Speaker 1: in the movie how much fun it was to make.
Speaker 1: And Jason Alexander was like, whoo, who I'm not George
Speaker 1: Costanza right now? Victor Garber was like, whoo, who I'm
Speaker 1: not on a sinking boat with James Cameron right now.
Speaker 1: I would just like to close by saying that this
Speaker 1: story shame's women with big feet and someone who wears
Speaker 1: a fairly large suicide, especially in relation to my height.
Speaker 1: I feel personally attacked. And this movie also operates under
Speaker 1: the whole story operates under the assumption that no one
Speaker 1: else in the entire kingdom has the same shoe size
Speaker 1: as Cinderella. So I guess like Cinderella has a size seven,
Speaker 1: every other woman either has a size like eleven shoe
Speaker 1: or like a size four and nothing else. That's yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the suspension of belief. Yea. Also, I was reading
Speaker 1: the shoe they're carrying around on the pillow is not
Speaker 1: even Brandy's shoe size. Like they made two different shoes.
Speaker 1: They made a shoe that fits her and then they
Speaker 1: made a teeny tiny shoe that represents the fragility of women.
Speaker 1: Like there's because it's like, who knows, we will never
Speaker 1: know what size Brandy's actual foot is. But they were
Speaker 1: like weirdly like, no, she she has little baby feet.
Speaker 1: Well cute. I watched Brandy on an episode of The
Speaker 1: Rosio o'donald Show where they talk about Brandy's shoes eye
Speaker 1: and she wears the size nine, which is also the
Speaker 1: size that I wear. This is becoming a Quentin Tarantino
Speaker 1: podcast fast. Well, that's that's kind of I'm a wow
Speaker 1: size nine feeling scene. I am also size nine. Wow.
Speaker 1: Wow look at us, Wow, look at us? We have
Speaker 1: such strong feet. Anyway, does this movie pass the Bechtel test? Yes?
Speaker 1: Between a ton a ton but it passes between a
Speaker 1: lot of characters. Yeah, especially with the point with like
Speaker 1: Wendy Houston and Brandy, like when even when they're just
Speaker 1: talking about, um, how she I was okay for her
Speaker 1: to dream or whatever. So there's that little portion and
Speaker 1: I think there's like a couple he in there, but
Speaker 1: I think the stepsisters occasionally because they're I mean, it's
Speaker 1: it is sometimes like that thing where it passes the
Speaker 1: Bechtel test when women are being very cruel to each other,
Speaker 1: but a passes a pass when Brandy is like, debt,
Speaker 1: hat looks like ship on both of you that, and
Speaker 1: then the Victoria passes perfect no no and is she wrong? No,
Speaker 1: But it's the hat is the problem, which maybe she
Speaker 1: should have been more clear about. But either way, um, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is also one of the few Princess fairytale movies,
Speaker 1: especially of this era, that passes the DuVernay test as well.
Speaker 1: He shouts out to that let's examine the movie through
Speaker 1: the nipple scale, which is our metric zero to five nipples,
Speaker 1: based on how the movie fares looking at it through
Speaker 1: the lens of intersectional feminism. I want to give this, like,
Speaker 1: I mean, I almost have to, like pretend that it's
Speaker 1: not a Cinderella story, because there's just so many issues
Speaker 1: baked into that narrative that are like outdated that I
Speaker 1: do think the movie attempts and succeeds at updating at
Speaker 1: least a few of the issues with just the outdated
Speaker 1: like fairy tale story, and so I appreciate that it
Speaker 1: makes those attempts, and that the casting choices allow for
Speaker 1: just a far more diverse cast than we've seen up
Speaker 1: until that point. And in a lot of cases, we
Speaker 1: haven't seen a lot of the same things since um,
Speaker 1: so so sad. Yeah it's so sad twenty four years old,
Speaker 1: and uh haven't yes, so um. I like a lot
Speaker 1: of the just attempts that it made at at updates,
Speaker 1: and I think, like I said, there, a lot of
Speaker 1: them are successful. Um. I want to give this like
Speaker 1: a three and a half. And had it not been
Speaker 1: like I Senderella adaptation and maybe like a different story
Speaker 1: or just like kind of a romance story that wasn't
Speaker 1: specifically Cinderella, I'm sure it would get higher. But because
Speaker 1: it still has the fairy tale elements throughout the story,
Speaker 1: it doesn't score quite as high as I'd like it too.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I'm gonna give it three and a half nipples,
Speaker 1: and I will give one to Brandy, one to Whitney Houston,
Speaker 1: one two Natalie de Sell who plays Minerva, and I'll
Speaker 1: give my half nipple to Victor Garber, but his character
Speaker 1: in Titanic, Mr Andrews. I'm gonna I I know that
Speaker 1: this is probably like not, but I'm going to give
Speaker 1: it four and a half because I just like love
Speaker 1: this movie so much and I cannot. I simply just
Speaker 1: want to watch this movie every day for the rest
Speaker 1: of my life. It is just like I feel like
Speaker 1: distilled joy. It is so good I love. I mean,
Speaker 1: there are I don't know, I mean, I think, especially
Speaker 1: for its time, it is like a production that was
Speaker 1: like willed into existence kind of against a lot of
Speaker 1: odds by two black female producers and like Deborah Martin
Speaker 1: Chase and Whitney Houston made this happen. Brandy like brought
Speaker 1: this character to life. It is like I think that
Speaker 1: it's probably it was at the time the most like
Speaker 1: diverse movie to ever air on TV. Ever, it was
Speaker 1: a huge hit. It has this incredible legacy like and
Speaker 1: I don't know, I mean the Cinderella story stuff it's
Speaker 1: for some reason with this movie, it almost barely comes
Speaker 1: into it because it's just because if we were looking
Speaker 1: at like the Disney animated Cinderella, I'd be like, you know,
Speaker 1: zero negative five nipples. Yeah. But but the fact that
Speaker 1: there were attempts to kind of work with this Inderella
Speaker 1: story to kind of update it for the time, the
Speaker 1: performances are so incredible. I I ultimately the fact that
Speaker 1: it's still written and directed by white guys is deeply annoying.
Speaker 1: But um, I don't know, yeah, probably too many maybe
Speaker 1: maybe for I don't know, I can't give it less
Speaker 1: than for follow your heart, Jamie. Nothing is impossible. It's
Speaker 1: such a depressing time and truly like watching this movie
Speaker 1: several times was the best I've felt in weeks and
Speaker 1: weeks and it's just like great and and gave us
Speaker 1: like our our first black Disney Princess, which is not
Speaker 1: a small deal, that's you know, huge, And so yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I guess, I guess I'll go for because
Speaker 1: it is still stepmothers and marriage and you're not like
Speaker 1: the other girls, and you're not like the other girls
Speaker 1: had three times and that was an update. Uh so
Speaker 1: that I guess. I guess I'll go for it, but
Speaker 1: I cannot. I simply cannot in good conscience go under four. Um,
Speaker 1: I'll give a nipple to Whitney, I'll give a nipple
Speaker 1: to Brandy, I'll give a nipple to Deborah Martin Chase,
Speaker 1: and I will give a nipple to Whoopee. And that's
Speaker 1: what I'll do it. What about you? I mean, we
Speaker 1: already know what I'm gonna do, but it's gotta be
Speaker 1: five out of five. I know we think this was
Speaker 1: coming the entire episode. I was already ready listen. I
Speaker 1: just feel like it has its problems, but it is
Speaker 1: literally one of my favorite movies in the entire world.
Speaker 1: The casting was amazing, like just the fact that it
Speaker 1: exists as all and all of something so special to me.
Speaker 1: And it's not even the idea that like she Cinderella
Speaker 1: is more of it, just like an idea that like
Speaker 1: this is a black woman that we get to watch
Speaker 1: be worthy of love on a national stage and like
Speaker 1: you had me in Whitney Houston. And so even though
Speaker 1: it has its issues without You're not like other girls
Speaker 1: things and like the mean stepmothers and the annoying stepchildren,
Speaker 1: just the music alone to me gives it that extra nipple,
Speaker 1: And so in much of the ways that Jamie already said,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna bite those and say, yes, I agree,
Speaker 1: and also just tell you who I'm going to give
Speaker 1: my nipples to. The first nipple is going to go
Speaker 1: to Brandy, the second nipple is going to go to
Speaker 1: Whitney Houston as she rest in peace. And the third
Speaker 1: nipple is going to go to the songwriting because it's
Speaker 1: I just love the soundtrack so much that like, I
Speaker 1: could literally be having the worst day and somebody could
Speaker 1: be like, just go listen to the soundtrack and I
Speaker 1: would feel so much better. And then my fourth nipple
Speaker 1: is going to go to Whoopi Goldberg and Mr Garbert
Speaker 1: as a couple in this movie. And then my fifth
Speaker 1: nipple is going to go to the Hope, Joy Restoration,
Speaker 1: dreams excitement that I get every time I watch it. Yes,
Speaker 1: I love it. I love that perfect movie. Well, Kia,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for being here again. Truly come
Speaker 1: back any time for after or whatever. I'll just invite
Speaker 1: myself for every like every rob ground that you do
Speaker 1: from here on out, like, please call me, because I'm
Speaker 1: ready that I will definitely come back forever after if
Speaker 1: you do it, and I might cry. Fine, Um, I've
Speaker 1: never seen ever After something. Neither have I. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: even't seen most Inderella movies because I've never seen this
Speaker 1: the Hilary duff one. I haven't seen the like live
Speaker 1: action Disney remake from two thou fifteen or whatever. There's
Speaker 1: just you Do. It's so long, it's I mean, you
Speaker 1: think it's so boring. Um, but ever After it's not
Speaker 1: just the movie. It's a moment like much like this one.
Speaker 1: It is a lifestyle choice, you know, So if you
Speaker 1: ever want to talk about it, I will come back.
Speaker 1: I have immensely enjoyed this conversation. Literally the best thing
Speaker 1: that has happened in the past week and a half
Speaker 1: is staying here talking to you both about this movie.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, well than I loved having you and
Speaker 1: tell the folks listening at home where they can check
Speaker 1: out your stuff. Follow you online. I have very online
Speaker 1: both Instagram and Twitter. At Kia k a h underscore Arihea.
Speaker 1: I write a bunch. All of it is at Kia
Speaker 1: brown dot com. I need to update my website, by
Speaker 1: the way, but all of the things that I've written
Speaker 1: are there and um you can find me either tweeting
Speaker 1: about cheesecake, Drew bid More or um round comes, or
Speaker 1: you can find me instagram ng in my Instagram stories
Speaker 1: about random weird emails and stuff that I get from people.
Speaker 1: So that's your riot on both on both platform is
Speaker 1: you canna find me there. You can also find us
Speaker 1: on those platforms at pectel Cast. You can check out
Speaker 1: our patreon ak Matreon which has an episode on Cadet
Speaker 1: Kelly that Kia was in, So check that out. A
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of Disney movies so far. But
Speaker 1: that is at patreon dot com slash bectel Cast. It's
Speaker 1: five dollars a month and it gets you access to
Speaker 1: two bonus episodes every month, plus the entire back catalog
Speaker 1: of bonus episodes almost a hundred additional episodes. We've done
Speaker 1: there for a lot of meats. Um, and then you
Speaker 1: can grab some merch at t public dot com slash
Speaker 1: the Bechtel Cast. How do we close out this episode?
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, when possible? I don't know the song there?
Speaker 1: Perfect or no? I think that was? That was Brandy
Speaker 1: would be proud. You're welcome everyone, all right, bye bye