Cinderella Comparison Essay

Growing up as a little black girl, I rarely found dolls or princesses that looked like me. It was until I ran across the Rodgers and Hammerstein’s version of Cinderella movie starring the African American pop star Brandy as Cinderella. The made-for-television film was a remake of the Julie Andrews R&H Cinderella. But even the Julie Andrews version was based off the ancient folk tale. Although the movies are very similar, both films have a very unique touch to them.

Cinderella happens to be one of the oldest tales in history and has been used all throughout literature for centuries. The oldest version of Cinderella is considered to be recorded from ancient Egypt, by the Roman historian Strabo in the first century BC. From then on the

The musical still followed the same foundation of the original film but still added sense of color to the show. Because the of time, the Julie Andrews version was actually in black and white. This was one of the reason the the remake was in the talk of being created. It has been over 40 years since the original filmed had been created and technology had advanced so much since then. It is very impressive to see the advance of technology between the two films. Compared to the double exposure of the sparkle in the original film, the remake had a more realistic effect with the magic. Along with the advance of technology, the style of music changed. Of course having Whitney Houston, one of the greatest voices in pop culture, and Brandy, a rising star at the time, plenty of soul would be represented. Multiple songs featured in the remake were not in the original. This actually gave smaller characters more airtime than the original. A Lot of the songs from the first film were expanded to give some of the big name celebrities in the film big numbers. The film received some mixed emotions. Some critics loved it saying it was just as good as the original. While others said they were distracted by the multi ethnic cast. The multi-ethnic cast was one of the main goals of the film. The producers wanted to reach audiences that had mixed families because times had changed so much since the original. Even during the production process, the team experienced hesitation about the whole project. Cinderella. Craig Zadan , One of the films producers, mentioned in an interview that there was an executive at Disney that was very nervous about a black Cinderella. He loved the idea of Whitney being the black fairy godmother, but he said, "Well, if you’re coming up with someone like Brandy as Cinderella, why can’t you go get Jewel instead, and have a white