Walt Disney and the fairy tales he helped put into production are lauded stories about good things happening to good people. Some of the more popular stories that are sure to be found in the homes of families with children under the age of eight are the stories about young women who have fallen on hard times and who dream that one day their prince charming will come into their lives and save them from their particular situation. Cinderella, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty all carry these same themes.
I recently re-watched "Cinderella" after at least fifteen years of not having seen it while caring for the five year old daughter of a friend of mine. I happily watched the story unfold along with a friend. Towards the end the five year old got bored with the story and was on to wanting to do a new activity. My friend and I however did not want to stop watching it and wanted to see the story through to the end. Maybe it had something to do with our girlhood fantasies of a happy ending entailing some gorgeous man whisking us away to a better place. Or maybe it was something more.
Some have criticized these fairy tales in recent years as being unrealistic, not real life, and just well a fairy tale. There is a lot of emphasis on the man saving the day from the evil forces in their lives—often an evil older woman so it seems. There is an alternate message that can be drawn from these stories however.
The first is the importance of maintaining a positive attitude. Very often when tragedy strikes it is very easy to give up, become negative and think that your life is over—or simply become bitter by the struggles of life and allow others to define us. Really many of the Walt Disney stories do encourage this attitude—certainly something that we could remind our youth (and maybe ourselves of this at times) when we again sit down to watch these tales.
The second important message and probably just as important is action. Cinderella in particular does something to change her situation. Not only did Cinderella maintain a positive attitude through her life and find good things to surround herself (even if they were singing animals), but she also took action. At the end of the story Cinderella comes running down the stairs with the second glass slipper and presents it herself. She could have easily remained up in the far reaches of her home and just clung to a memory of one great night. Instead she found her moment, didn’t give up and took the opportunity to change her circumstances. While we all don’t have a glass slipper in our pocket, neither a prince that is going to come find us—we have a role in defining who we are. Allowing others to define who we are or what we do gets us no where fast. Taking action towards things that we enjoy doing and want to do, certainly can get us somewhere and by our own definition.
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