The Bechdel Cast - Cinderella (1997) with Keah Brown

Episode Date: February 11, 2021

Caitlin, Jamie, and special guest Keah Brown put on their glass slippers and go to the ball that is Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella (1997). (This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @Keah_Maria on Twitter. While you're there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELP  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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the questions asked if movies have women in them. Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effing vast. Start changing it with the Bechdel cast. Ten minutes ago we started the Zoom call and we logged in with internet audio. Pick it up, Caitlin. I have no idea what song you're singing i wanted to record the

bechtel cast because that is my job and it is fun it's a podcast okay i need to stop um i was really banking on you picking up the song at some point uh welcome to the Bechtel cast uh my name is Jamie Love my name is Caitlin Durante I'm so sorry I I don't know this movie nor these songs well enough to join in oh my gosh I I was like I it's it's one of those like I wouldn't have guessed that I knew every single word to this musical but as I was was watching back, I was like, oh, I very much do. Wait, which song was that? 10 Minutes Ago and They're Dancing. Literally perfect.

Wait, is it the one where he's like... They're at the ball. Yeah. And then they see each other and they're like, I met you 10 minutes ago but i'm ready to put my like life on the line for this love that we've discovered right but it's going down right it's so i mean you're you're i'm like okay so this is you know fuck it i'm in i'm all in right this is it it's gonna be really hard for me to plot i just oh we're covering 1997 brandy cinderella today on the vectal cast and i mean we we should say what the vectal cast is but we were just saying off mic i truly like getting ready for this episode was so good for my mental

health this is the feel good est movie in the world it's a feel great movie i love it so much a feel great movie yeah so let's let's skim over what the bechdel cast is so we can just get right into talking about cinderella 1997 um this is our podcast that analyzes movies from an intersectional feminist lens using the Bechdel test simply as a jumping off point. And that, of course, is a media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel-Wallace test, in which our version, two people of any marginalized gender have to speak to each other. They have to have names and they have to talk about something other than a man for at least two lines of dialogue so for example maybe brandy and whitney houston talk about a pumpkin whether mice can become horses uh-huh i could just i'm like i'm gonna be on the brink of just bursting out in the song for the entire episode. And I can't even sing. So don't hold back. This is what loose? God. Yes, that's what

the Bechdel cast is. And I'm just so I've had three cups of coffee this morning. And I've seen Brandy Cinderella 5000 times in the past two days because I just I was fully prepared for the episode and then I just kept going um it is so okay before okay let's actually let's bring our guest in before I start ranting about how it's a crime that there's no official soundtrack to this movie oh wow okay yes our guest is a journalist an actor author of the book the pretty one on life pop culture disability and other reasons to fall in love with me and you remember her from our cadet kelly episode on our patreon aka matreon it's kia brown welcome back hi thank you for having me back i'm so pumped to talk about this movie it's literally truly one of only three cinderellas that i acknowledge and it is number one

oh absolutely wait what are the other two just out of curiosity so ever after which is the drew barrymore adaption okay and then the third one is the hillary duff one where they're like in high school a cinderella story yeah c a Cinderella story. The Chad Michael Murray one? Yes. I have to revisit that one. I remember seeing that movie, I don't know when it came out, like middle school or something.

I think so. And finding it so funny that like Hilary Duff was wearing truly the tiniest mask. And Chad Michael Murray's like, who is this woman? Literally, he's in the diner every day and he's like yeah I have no idea oh that's great well that's a common theme throughout all Cinderella stories where like suddenly she puts on a nice dress and they're like who is this woman I've never seen before and it's like her family has no idea who she is you're just like oh it's great um kia tell us a

little bit about your history with this movie i grew up with it like watching it i think it was like what straight to vhs from a vhs and so i like watched it constantly me and my sister would just sit in front of the tv and sing the songs to the top of our lungs. And I just was obsessed with the idea that Brandy was this princess that this really cute guy also loved. And I was like, that's going to be me one day. I had all these ideas of how I would just become a princess. Because I love it. So I've literally grown up with that movie.

I own two DVD copies because I lost one and then I bought another one and found the old one so I watch it whenever I need like a little bit of comfort that's my go-to comfort movie for sure oh absolutely it's perfect love it Jamie what about you well I'll go next because mine's my history is sad well not sad but it's just that i don't have one um okay have you have you not seen this one before i have never seen this movie before this is my first time watching it welcome yes you're welcome that's so magical for you i'm so proud congrats thank you so much i. I feel like to me watching this movie was the equivalent of just putting on a gown and going to a ball and just having the night of my life. I didn't know. Obviously, I knew that Brandy and Whitney Houston was in it or Whoopi Goldberg or Jason Alexander or Bernadette Peters so I'm just like wow all-star cast what a fun romp the costumes what are the costumes

like it's just a lot of color and for some reason it makes so much sense to me like it's just every color possible in every piece of every outfit. And I'm like, yep, that tracks. Makes sense. I buy it. So many just shapes.

It was so, I feel like anytime the nineties was all about these, just like, let's insert a shape into an existing garment. And boy, are there a lot of just random shapes thrown on the outfits i love it yeah so it was quite a an experience for me seeing it for the first time um i think i just like cinderella is kind of it's i mean i don't like fairy tales and this is like one of the ones that

i i'm just like what's the point of this story but this version of it I'm like I'm on board it slaps so I feel you it really does um so Jamie what what's your relationship with it yeah I we had it on VHS we were always watching it I this is definitely like my top Cinderella adaptation of all time. Like there's no really conceivable reason why it would not be it's the best one. I remember like my cousins and I were watching this movie all the time. And then once there's been three different adaptations of the Rodgers and Hammerstein Cinderella. And I remember my mom was like, let's watch the one from when I was a kid. we watched two minutes of it and we're like fuck this get like bring ours back it's the greatest and uh similar

to you Caitlin I I mean I had no idea who all these like iconic character actors were when I like I knew Winnie Houston Brandy and Whoopi Goldberg would probably be the three people I'd recognize as a kid but I was like I didn't know what Seinfeld was so it was nice to go back and be like oh I know who like everyone is in this movie yeah it's so good um and I was really I really enjoyed learning about the um the production history of this movie too it has like this this uh really interesting story so i'm excited to talk about it yes because this is a disney property i also went back and watched the disney animated one from 1950 which i think i'd only seen like once before as a child it was like not in my disney rotation movies as a kid and i realized why now because it is the most

irritating movie i've ever seen in my entire life it is simply boring it is so boring i literally saw this one with brandy before i saw that one and i was like oh okay cool like i guess yeah there's no reason there it's so it's deeply inferior there's like 25 minutes of just like mice exposition and like a cat chasing mice around and they all have like really annoying voices and like Cinderella's barely on screen for the entire movie it's like way more of a focus on what the mice are doing and it's just like sure okay it's really the mice story yeah and also that movie is like 70 minutes long but it feels like four hours so long yeah because it's like nothing is happening i don't know i'm like it's a it's a problematic but at least it's not a boring story

but that movie makes it boring yeah but the brandy oh no notes i mean i'm just like i don't know five nipples let's get out of here like it's perfect yes it really is oh my god i just i think about how much brandy has done in her career and literally how i would have to fight to be like the best thing ever was cinderella if i remember i'd be like oh my god i'm sorry hold on give me a second i just like do you know what you did when you did cinderella like has anybody told you what a masterpiece that you were a part of i hope she knows i hope so too i hope she knows she probably does i like it would be hard watching the i i went in i i watched the like whatever because it's like aired on tv originally and they did like those um like half hour behind the scenes documentaries

where it's just like a bunch of b-roll and it's bernadette peters hosting it and she's being very bernadette peters and she's like so how do you make a movie about a princess and it's just like all this but it's like 18 year old brandy and she's so like excited and she's so oh it's it just it made me cry and then especially her and whitney together recording together it's just great it's beautiful should i do the recap and we'll go from there? Yeah, let's do it. So we open on Whitney Houston singing about Cinderella stuff, for example, pumpkins turning into carriages, glass slippers, and she's saying that nothing is impossible. that's Bernadette Peters who has two biological daughters Minerva and Calliope and one stepdaughter Cinderella who of course is Brandy they are out shopping in the village because women be shopping it looks it looks very like Beauty and the Beast the way that the village looked I was like oh yeah like yeah fun

fact this movie was shot on the same lot that the Wizard of Oz was and that like made me all emotional and everyone was like I don't know I don't know every fact I learned about this movie made me love it even more isn't that cool they like that was like

Munchkinland and then they turned it into Brandy Cinderella land wow oh my gosh so cool they like that was like munchkin land and then they turned it into brandy cinderella land oh my gosh so cinderella is not so much part of this family as she works for them as a servant the classic cinderella narrative is here then she sings a song about love and then we see a man played by paulo montalban in the village also singing the same song about love and they do a duet for a while right next to each other somehow not noticing the other person they walk so it made me laugh because i forgot how close together they are because i'm like it must just be a small set but they're like three inches away from each other right great but then they do finally cross paths and this man is smitten with Cinderella but her evil stepmother interrupts and drags her away

and that's like the moment where you find out I don't know I really like the adaptation changes that this movie made because they add in these like little like feminist moments for Cinderella where he's literally chasing her around which is not ideal but she has like this moment where she's like what are you doing and then she says she wants to be treated with kindness and respect. And it's not normal Cinderella. I don't know. Like, I feel like Cinderella is not known for standing up for herself or stating her values. But Brandy Cinderella does.

Like when he inserted that she, yeah, when he inserted that she wanted to just be treated like a princess. And she was like, no. Yeah. I want to be treated with kindness and respect and that's why i also love the drew barrymore one because she is much of the same where it's like i'm not going to let you like speak for me or think that you know what i want and i just loved that it's so good and it's like and and i love i like that they add in like the i don't know like you understand why they like each other you never understand why the people like each other in a princess movie.

They're like, oh, I want independence and I want like, dare I say, more than this provincial life. That and I was getting some very strong Disney's Aladdin vibes because what we're about to get is a big reveal that this man is actually the prince in this kingdom prince christopher but he has a habit of dressing as a commoner and going out into like the kingdom to dare i say escape the pressures of palace life much like princess jasmine does i mean at least jasmine attempted a disguise he literally is just walking around like, how does everyone not recognize him? I'm going to tuck in my shirt. That'll take him off my track. It's like, I'm going to not wear purple and tuck in my shirt and still be a very hot prince walking around. I don't have any problem with it. I love it it's hilarious that's great so prince christopher returns to the castle and

then this guy lionel played by jason alexander who i don't really know exactly what his job is he's like maybe the royal advisor or something his part was also added it's not in the original and he only did it i guess they said because he didn't want to do a role that was so closely tied to Seinfeld that he only agreed to do it if it was going to be completely different, I guess. I love that. It's like, I need to get out from the sheer cultural weight of George Costanza. Yeah, and part of that is that he's doing, I could not place what accent he's trying to do, but it's some like vague European accent.

And he's the only one who has it. Yeah. Nobody else tries that accent. He's just like, it's me, I'm doing it, and nobody else is committing, fine. I love Jason Alexander. I always kind of forget. I was like, oh, he's just like it's me i'm doing it and nobody else is committing fine i love jason alexander i always kind of forget i was like oh he's just like a full-on theater kid like the most theater kid energy possible yeah loved it so then prince christopher goes

to meet with his mother and father the queen and king King, aka Whoopi Goldberg and Victor Garber. And the Queen is like, by the way, I'm throwing a ball tomorrow so that you can meet a woman and marry her and produce an heir. And Prince Christopher is like, don't do that because I want to marry for love and I don't want you to throw this ball but the queen kind of goes behind his back and announces this ball anyway and then there's this whole Jason Alexander song about it it's so good it's great it's so good it's great I love it does he say Christopher Robin that can't be right but i think it's robert okay

it's mostly just a a list yeah oh god i cannot resist so then we cut back to the stepmother and minerva and calliope who learn about the ball and are very excited and they start to make preparations to go and then cinderella is like oh well all women in the kingdom are eligible to go so can i go and the stepmother is like lol no yes essentially and she's like anyways meanwhile uh the prince confronts his mother about the ball and he's like okay i'll go to your damn ball but if i don't find anyone there who i like you'll let me find love my own way and she's like fine i guess so then the step mother and stepdaughters head off to the ball and cinderella laments that she is not able to go

she sings a song about it but then who shows up but whitney houston as her fairy godmother and she does the whole fairy godmother thing she turns the pumpkin into the carriage and the mice into some horses and then we some of the most iconic 90s tv movie effects are taking place in this scene. She just, I love like Whitney, when Whitney isn't casting the spell, she just like expels this series of like clip art out of her head.

It looks like it does look like clip art, yeah. And then they make her like the effects when she's flying next to the carriage. It's lucky she's Whitney Houston because it looks real weird. It perhaps is not great. It's at once horrible and everything at the same time.

Yeah. And then she dons Cinderella in a beautiful blue dress and of course the glass slippers and the fairy godmother is like don't forget this magic only lasts till midnight so when the clock strikes 12 you gotta get out of there so cinderella heads off to the ball cut to the ball where prince christopher is dancing with a bunch of different women but none are appealing to him especially not minerva or calliope but then cinderella arrives and prince christopher sees her and he goes awooga who's that oh my god victor garber also goes awooga victor garber was like if i was younger if i was like 15 years younger it's great i was like wow victor i forgot victor garber gets horny in this movie interesting yes

so then prince christopher and cinderella start dancing and everyone's like who's that and even cinderella's stepmother and stepsisters do not recognize her neither does the prince even though they've met in the village already and it is unclear if she recognizes him but she appears not to because she doesn't have any reaction so again if you're if if as soon as you put on more expensive clothes you become unrecognizable to everyone luxury clothing she put her hair up true so that was the real game changer and he kind of swooped his hair to the side so there's some major differences um so they they're dancing together they're hitting it off the stepsisters are spying

on them in the background and basically singing the boy is mine and then the queen asks cinderella who her family is thinking that she must be from some like aristocratic family. And Cinderella is like, oh, no, they're going to find me out. So she considers bailing. But then the fairy godmother is like, no, stay. Everything's going to be fine. And then the prince is like, oh, my gosh, I can't believe how much I love you. It's so nice. It's so nice.

It's so sweet. But then the clock strikes midnight. So she has to run off as her clothes turn back to rags and her carriage turns back into a pumpkin. But she leaves behind the glass slipper. And the prince has no idea who Cinderella is or what her name is so he wants to go around to every woman in the kingdom so that they can all try on the glass slipper to figure out who it belongs to who it fits and so he does that it doesn't fit anyone he goes to Cinderella's house but she has been locked away the stepsisters are trying to cram their foot into the glass slipper.

And then finally, Cinderella, she's like outside dealing with the horses for some reason. And then Prince Christopher is like, wait a minute, it's you. Put on the slipper. And she's like, ah, it's me. And then they kiss. And then Whitney Houston flies again. It is.

I love that. Oh, it's me. I love that reduction of what happens. I just, it's the best. And that is the story. Let's take a quick break and then we'll come right back to discuss. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradente. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden.

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And we're back. Where should we start talking about this incredible movie well jamie do you want to did you have a context corner for like the production and stuff there's truly so there's so so so so much i feel like i'm gonna sprinkle it throughout our discussion because it um yeah there's just like so much there there was a really really good um oral history published about this movie a couple of years back i think for the 20th anniversary on uh shondaland let me figure out who compiled it because it was amazing uh kendra james um just talking about kind of how this movie came together the kind of resistance to getting it made and how Brandy was like the first black Disney princess.

So, I mean, yeah, I guess let's start talking. I guess the thing I didn't realize going into this is that this movie was produced by Deborah Martin Chase and that she was like this huge driving force so deborah martin chase we've covered a lot of her work but i don't know if we've ever really talked about her in depth but she is an iconic producer of children's media who is um really been pushing for representation in media for a really long time. She was Whitney Houston's producing partner for a while. They met when she was producing The Preacher's Wife, but she went on to like be the

driving force of Cinderella. She's the driving force for the Princess Diaries movies. She's the driving force for the Cheetah Girls movies. Like she like basically single-handedly constructed uh millennial childhoods and it was really cool seeing like just kind of her and Whitney Houston's driving this project and you know not taking no for an answer when there was pushback on uh Black Cinderella on having a very diverse cast and yeah so the story of how it was made I thought was so lovely it is I mean all I know is that first Whitney wasn't even trying to do it but Brandy only agreed to do it if Whitney was her fairy godmother which I just think is the absolute sweetest thing like she was like I'm not gonna do it unless you're my fairy godmother and Whitney was like fine I'll do it it's so not like I didn't realize yeah so I guess when this project was conceived Whitney was going to be Cinderella and then production was stalling and I guess also

it was really hard for people to Whitney Houston was just like busy and would was not emailing people back or not whatever phone because 90s so literally three years passed and then I think and then Whitney essentially is like I think I am now too old to play Cinderella and so Whitney it was Whitney's idea to cast Brandy um she called Brandy and like was like let's do this and Brandy was so excited and it was so nice to like they I guess like Whitney Houston was Brandy's hero growing up and like was the biggest like musical influence of her life and like motivated her to want to be Brandy in the first place and then when this movie started Whitney Houston kind of became her like real life mentor. Which I don't know, it makes me cry to think about and and Whitney

Houston talked about in interviews how like, she was mentoring Brandy. She also mentored Monica and because she had been mentored when she was a young artist by Dionne Warwick and was also her relative yeah like oh it just warmed my heart to look at footage of Brandy and Whitney for this is is like so good um so yeah and it was like the most expensive tv movie ever made at the time there was a little bit of pushback from Disney where this this made me like roll my eyes back into my head. There was a Disney executive who everyone very kindly refused to name even though I'm like, what was their name? But once it was clear that Whitney was going to be the fairy godmother, there was a producer who was like, well, you know, I,

maybe we should have a white Cinderella. Maybe we should ask Jewel. I was like, maybe we should ask Jewel. So, but the entire production team was like, absolutely. We are absolutely not even speaking to Jewel or thinking about her. That would have been so weird right given everybody else like if everybody was the same except for Brandy it would have been so weird yeah like she makes this movie so yeah it's uh and then all the all the casting from there kind of like fell into place. One fact that I found very just like, huh, was that they ran out of money on the production and Disney was like, we're not going to pay extras anymore.

So Whoopi Goldberg gave away like two days pay to pay extras. I was like, fucking Disney. What is wrong with them they were really they had to have been just upset that it was being made right that had to be a lot of it of them being like no we're not paying the extras

because there were a lot of extras so I just can't imagine being like we're not paying all these people for their time and energy so especially it's like what do you want a reverse shot that's empty like what are you even saying um i also the the other i guess um background thing that i thought was you know encouraging because this movie is still uh ultimately written and directed by white guys um which is like you do hate to hear it uh as far as the writing goes i at least found it somewhat encouraging for like in this oral history

the writer of this movie robert friedman talked about the elements that he wanted to add to kind of update the story for the 90s and I thought it was a really um you know I was like not to be out here giving men credit uh but I but I liked how he talked about um adapting and updating the character because he literally just says he spoke to women in his life of what they would like to see in a Cinderella, which is truly where you start. But yeah, I want to find a quote. Do you have a quote from him? I do. Yeah. Go for it. Yeah, I was reading that he made a deliberate attempt to modernize the Cinderella character who again, if you're comparing it to earlier renditions of

the character, you know, there's a lot of room for updates. So he wouldn't... She has no personality. It's like... No personality. She's barely on screen. So he wanted to ensure that she was a stronger, more active character, and to provide her with kind of her own story arc beyond waiting around to be rescued by a love interest and i have a quote from him quote i'm not saying that it's the most feminist movie you'll ever see but it is compared to the other versions and quote and i was like you know what can't argue you're not wrong I like, I mean, the elements that he adds to Cinderella's character, because it's like, you know, he's not right.

If we're adapting the story, there's only so much you can do. But I thought that what he added to Cinderella and to the prince, too, like, really did work. And so my understanding was the elements he added was that whole exchange with them at the beginning yes um was pretty significantly altered uh because cinderella has never previously said that she uh wants love and respect or wants really anything and so adding that element to her character um adding like what a huge imagination she has like her goal is not to get married it's to like live happily um and and i like how the um the conversations between cinderella and her godmother are tweaked a little bit where the godmother tells her like you know i'm trying to remember

the exact exchange but like it was within you the whole time. And like you can do whatever you want. And it's a very like 90s feminism message. But it like it really hits in this movie. I'm like, yeah, exactly. It does. It does. And at the end, when they like meet each other again, she's leaving.

Like she she had her stuff packed. She had a bag and everything and a little sticker or whatever. Oh, that's why she's, you know, getting hassled by the horses. Which is not really the most effective way, but who am I? But yeah, she was leaving. She was like, I'm not going to take this anymore. I'm going to go. So it wasn't like she was like, I'm going to run into the castle and see if he remembers me.

She was like, I'm just going to leave and not come back. So that's what it was. And I love that too, where it's like, I just think it's really good that they made a movie where her whole goal wasn't to fall in love and meet a prince. It was that she wanted to get out of the life that she was currently living, which makes it that much more sweeter when the stepmom and the stepdaughters are literally outside the gate

at the at the castle like we love you like and she's like where was that energy for the rest of my life prior to that but okay it's great because in other versions i think she forgives her step family like oh yeah you horribly mistreated me but you know i'm i'm so nice everyone has flaws yeah because there's like a cinderella too right in the the disney one the 1951 she has like a there's a second cinderella movie and it's like cinderella too back in time and here's why i know that because like here's what i know even though i hated the other one um it's because the stepsister gets the redemption arc one of the stepsisters meets a baker and realizes that she doesn't have to be trash um it's just a choice that she was making and they fall in love and i

only know that because of the internet well i i wonder i feel like i probably because that was like a straight to vhs sequel vibe i'm like i don't remember seeing it but i'm sure i did like i know i saw it i saw it once but i know for a fact that like that's what happens because people talk about it on twitter i don't know why i truly don't but they do i feel like people love to talk about disney straight to vhs stuff on twitter like yeah no exaggeration it's like a corner of twitter that it's like if you want to pop in and talk about you know vhs tapes then let's do it i've definitely seen a thread or two about like the little mermaid too which oh yeah i saw that one i do because it's just they they truly were like what if we had ariel but with eric's hair and then also we did ursula except yeah she is shorter like that's

that's the movie but yeah i really like in this version of Cinderella, the movie attempts to establish that Cinderella and the prince have something in common, which again is like, it's very, I don't know if it's like necessarily borrowed from Aladdin, but it's like they both live sheltered lives and they wish they could just kind of escape and like live their own lives. And because like the thing that really bothers me about a lot of romantic storylines in movies is that like no attempt is made to show why the two characters are compatible. So I was like, okay, we have some compatibility here. That's nice. I love that they have the same conversation at the end of the movie as they do in the in the beginning when they're in

the village and i'm just like oh this is nice i also appreciate that you see representation of a man like loving love and like wanting to marry for love and who's like he's like constantly swooning. His whole arc is like, let me feel my feelings, mom and dad. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. Because that that like he was like i love love and i can't wait to be in love and find the woman that i love and um so right yes i agree i think that it's it's smart too because even when they were at the ball he was just like spitting with her immediately and he was like what's the song it's like um do i love you because you're wonderful

or are you wonderful because anyway the point is it's just like he's so yeah it's right so he's just so ready to be romantic and be booed up and i just love that yeah he was like i want to lock it down okay i've never yeah that change is so effective because i feel like normally we see princess who just don't want to get married and then all of a sudden they do um and we don't really know why because the people they marry are just uh women that don't have any personalities that also only want to get married but it's like if his defining characteristic is he is ready to commit all of a sudden the plot works a lot better and like right yeah i also love that the um dynamic and i think this is maybe just something that was in the original musical too but the dynamic between um the king and queen is so loving and like fun right they don't hate each other yeah i don't and just like i don't

know whoopi goldberg and victor garber's chemistry is like they're just adorable together i just love them i love when they throw jason alexander off a ladder like go for it you just step over here he gets trampled so many times in this movie um and that's a class issue major i i there's there's a whole class conversation to be had about this just kind of story in general but well sure yeah we'll get there but i wasn't quite as i mean i as much as i love whoopi goldberg and victor garber and also we're like, wait a minute, this movie came out in late 1997. Wasn't this also the exact moment that Titanic was coming out? I have an anecdote about that. There is in this, I swear, like everyone, I highly recommend this oral history.

It put me in the best mood because they got to talk to, I mean, pretty much everyone except unfortunately Whitney Houston but like everyone else did an interview for this and so you just get all these great anecdotes where I guess like Paolo Montalban was like yeah when we were shooting this was shot after Titanic because it was a tv movie so it was shot like pretty close to the time it came out sure um but he's like yeah I don't know Victor on the set was like complaining that he had like had to shoot this movie in like this huge water tank in mexico for six months and he wasn't sure if it was going to be any good and it went way over budget and he was like it turns out he was talking about titanic i was like holy shit oh my god um but yeah i mean the way and this isn't like the biggest gripe but i felt the way

mothers were represented in the movie was a little like i'm not sure about this because like whoopi is characterized as being like very overbearing and meddlesome and like obsessed with her son's romantic life and then there's this moment where she's talking to prince christopher and she's like your father and i were just talking about you and victor garber's like well your mother was talking i was listening because you know women be talking too much but um and then there's a whole other separate conversation to be had about like the stepmother and the stepsisters but I wanted to quickly so I guess overall like yeah I like you know the king and queen dynamic but I'm also just like I feel like some kind of like tropey things were being employed there

yeah I mean it's it's hard it's hard because it's like i totally agree and then that's also so cooked into cinderella that it's right the the way that because i mean and i guess there would have been oh there it wouldn't have been hard to make it less that like the dad gets it and the mom is being overbearing in the same way that i mean i don't know just any woman over like 35 gets a raw deal in these stories where it's you know especially in the fairy tales they are like jealous or they are vengeful or or they're just kind of I don't know acting maliciously towards anyone younger than them that they see as a threat I guess i mean and that's definitely a conversation with the stepmother i think my only defense is i like whoopi goldberg and i like

victor garber and so i was like actually it when i was i i watched um the julie andrews version of this musical and the problems uh stuck out way more because I was not emotionally attached to the cast. Yeah, that makes sense. It's true. When you get Whoopi in there, you get Victor Garber, you get Whitney Houston, you're just like any behavior. I think my only defense of the earlier part of that movie is again when they're at the ball and he makes the clip about how if he was like 15 years younger and he's like I'd just be younger dear like to try to play off the fact that he was like oh she's a she's a snack but my defense of that was was like um how he said something about how it reminded him how they fell in love yeah so it made me feel

better in the context because i was like oh so he's not just like annoyed with how much she talks or like how overbearing she is because he just remembered how they fell in love yeah so these are just like parts of who she is that like he just loves anyway i like that they're actually in love like i feel like kings and queens are never in love for real no even in the drew barrymore one the parents hate each other like they say in the movie multiple times like oh our marriage was arranged and like she just looks disgusted the fact that her husband is the way he is and even though drew barrymore's character falls in love with their son and their marriage is obviously going to be happier than his parents it's just like a constant comedy thing where like the older couple or the other

couples you see within a fairy tale like that don't like each other so they're still in love they're holding hands it's right it's sweet i don't know holding hands walking over uh what's his face jason alexander there we go oh it's what a tree i really love that shot because it goes on like a little bit too long for some reason yeah where they throw jason alexander off the ladder and then they both like turn in unison and they're like oh well and then they just stroll away oh another okay another fun fact about this is almost everyone in this movie is wearing costume jewelry obviously because it's a tv movie but whoopi goldberg refused to wear costume jewelry. She's like, if I'm playing a queen, I'm going to wear Harry Winston jewels. And she called, I guess she had a hookup at Harry Winston. And so everyone's wearing costume jewelry, except for any shot Whoopi Goldberg's in.

She's wearing literally $5 million worth of jewels. Which I thought was so amazing. I love her. She's so great. Like, if you're going to make, if we're going to take a stand stand let it be that one where you're like you know what no i want i want the real thing i don't want costume jewelry if i'm not dripping in diamonds i'm not interested but i'm not playing a queen i can't get into the role like i just thought it was so fun because it once once i knew that and i re-watched it with that knowledge everyone else's jewelry looks aggressively fake and Colby Goldberg's you're like oh yeah that is

a ruby wow what a flex um I know it's so good I wanted to go quickly back to Prince Christopher because one of the things that I think is maybe is now pretty dated and like very obviously dated to us is that he one of the reasons he likes her is because she's not like the other girls which he like literally says several times yeah he's like yeah but it's like okay so here's here's this I just kind of want to break down one of the initial conversations they have where they meet in the village he's talking about oh how does a stranger get to be in your good graces and like get to know you better and she's like well does this stranger know how a woman wants to be treated Kia you already I think mentioned like brought up part of this conversation and he's like like a

princess and she says no like a person with kindness and respect and he's like, like a princess? And she says, no, like a person with kindness and respect. And he's like, oh, you're not like the other girls, are you? And she says, what do you mean? He says, nothing. I don't mean to offend you. And it's like, no, you just offended an entire gender of people. That's all you did, Christopher. And then later, the queen is like you're not gonna

find her so just like think about choosing one of those other girls from the ball and he's like that girl was not like the others she's different from any other girl i've ever met and then whoopee is like how can you know that after one night and we're like yeah that's a great question whoopie i mean ideally that's what i was like but like i know myself watching it and i'm like tracks of course he would go after one it was brandy that's that's but um yeah that is like a very like of the time sentiment for what a romance is based in. It's like, oh, well, I like her because she's not like other girls because other girls are boring or other girls don't read. Like that's usually the criteria.

They're like, she has a book. So pretty low bar to clear. I'm like, this might just be good old-fashioned misogyny. Right, just casual. I mean, speaking of other girls, let's talk about the stepsisters. Yes. Okay. Can I go first?

Yes, please. Okay, thank God. All right, so the stepsisters were terrible but also I loved them like I don't know if it's because the one who played is it Minerva just passed away yes yes rest in peace to a real one um but I loved them they were such a mess I loved the little quirks about how one of them laughed too loud and the other one itched herself when she was nervous. And, like, the hat thing was so funny to me.

Like, the little bit where they're like, who looks better in this hat? And she's like, I don't think it flatters either of you. And they're like, what do you know? It's so terrible. Like, it's because it's such a bad hat. And they're such bad people. But when they sing the song at the ball that's like, it's a terrible like it's because it's such a bad hack and they're such bad people but when they sing the song at the ball that's like um how can i fall in love a girl like her a girl

who's merely lovely i'm like yes i mean i would be like i would be a hater as well you know i would hate i would hate for the guy that i love for no reason at all like know nothing about like i love him because he's a prince and i want to be a princess and i just like i think that they worked really well together those actresses oh yeah and i just think about them in terms of um one of my favorite songs in the movie is in my own little corner when she's like talking about how she's just a little servant and they're like cinderella warm milk and um cinderella hot water and cinderella's just over it and like they're just so rotten to her and they're terrible but but i feel like i like that because you see how insecure they actually are like they don't really have anything going for they're like oh whenever speaks pig latin but like who cares about pig latin and it's just like

they're like we love you like and you don pig latin and it's just like they're like we love you like and you don't really love her you're just just jealous and hoping to get some of her scraps and i felt like that was played really well so i think about them often in terms of like it must be hard to have a sister that like slaps so hard and you know that you don't and you just have to live with the fact that you will never have what you have especially when your mother is like drilling these really wild notions into your head about like don't ever show your flaws until after you're already married it's the best line in the whole entire movie i sing song it at least once a week i I'm like, we do not show our applause.

And then my sister will go, until after the wedding. I thought it was really interesting. Because there were like some, I don't know. Okay, so I guess there's a bunch of different ways of looking at the step family. And as with everything with this movie i'm gonna cut them a bunch of slack but i do i mean it's like on one hand i feel like the the stepsisters no matter what adaptation they're always cast uh to be older than cinderella and they're always cast to just have like different body types than cind And so I feel like that is like not the greatest shorthand in terms of being

like, well, this is like a woman that we don't think is like the movie is telling you like they're not as attractive as Cinderella is. Right. And so that's never a good message. And that's true across the board in Cinderella adaptations. That choice is always made without fail.

What I like that this movie does to kind of like mitigate that for the stepsisters and the stepmother was like you were just saying, Kia, like that song I feel like is helpful in like contextualizing them of like they're not just like evil because they are really insecure and I liked that I guess that the stepmother doesn't have a song in the original musical and they were like but we cast Bernadette Peters so like let's find one and I love the song they picked for her because I feel like it gives you it's not the greatest you know I guess context that character, but it's one of the only attempts at like really giving a stepmother character some sort of like, this is where she's coming from, even though she saying is like i fell in love like with love but i i fell in love once uh for actual love and it blew up in my face and we live in the question mark century where like for most women marriage is going to be the only way to acquire any level of security security so fuck love and let's go you know trick a prince into marrying us like it is definitely not the most feminist message in the world but but it is like one of the only like i prefer an attempt to contextualize where she's coming from then just be like she's mean because she's over

35 and like brandy is younger than her right because i think that for me like that song first of all it's catchy second of all the thing that made me think about her character with that song is that like so the person she fell in love with for the first time was obviously supposed to be brandy's dad and he just up and died and now she's like i don't mean to sound like like he just died so now she's taking care of you know she's on her own they don't have really i don't know how they have the house maybe he left it to them but like she has no more prospect now that he's gone because she's over a certain age so nobody wants to remarry her

she's taking care of her two stepdaughters who she wants to make sure that they're secure before she goes because the only way for security is to have a man but she's angry at brandy in part because brandy reminds her of what she lost in her father right yeah and it's like that it's it and it like her motives are always going to be like but but but it is like i i appreciated that kind of attempt and the brunette peter's performance is really good right but there's just so much you forgive because the people are because the people who are playing the character you're like yeah okay sure fine i can make that one i love how that number ends where at the end they come out and they're like ridiculous dresses and then they're just like they sing the last note as their carriage is taking off and you're like yeah sure and there's also uh there's like a weird

statue of the stepsisters outside of the house oh whoa i did not notice that yeah it's like a weird statue of the stepsisters outside of the house. Oh, whoa. I did not notice that. Yeah. It's like right in the front lawn. They're like spitting water at each other. It's really funny. And then there's that other song when they come back from the ball. And she talked about how she found them.

And then Brandy tips her hub. And that's when she realizes. I like that they have that because in the um other adaptions i've seen the mom never realizes it until they come with the slippers so like right or i guess it's different than drew bernard one but again that's why these two are tapped here but in every other cinderella adaption the mom doesn't realize it until like way later but i mean literally as soon as she bows her head b Bernadette Peters makes this face like, oh, my God, it was you. And then she's like, well, how could a prince love you?

But you already know the vibes. Like she already knew by then that it was her that the prince loved. And I loved that they had that little moment in there at the end of that song. Yeah. Same. Let's take another quick break and then we'll come right back. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradente. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden.

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and of course, the culture. I feel some Sandra Bernhardt in you. Oh, my God. I would love it. I have to watch Lost. Oh, you have to. No, I know.

I'm so behind. Katherine Hahn can sing. Oh, I'm really good at karaoke. What's your song? Yeah karaoke What's your song? Oh I love a ballad I felt Bjork's music I just was like who is this person

I gotta hawk this slalom I'm not hawk this slalom I absolutely love it It was somehow Shakespearean when you said it It was somehow gorgeous Listen when you said it. It was somehow gorgeous. Yee, my slok, you hollum. Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To go back quickly to what you were talking about, Jamie, with like the because the stepsisters, like they

are famously known as like the ugly stepsisters. So there's always an attempt in the adaptations to show them as being undesirable or unappealing in some way. And I feel like with Minerva particularly, I think the movie is trying, it like wants you to think that because she's fat, that's one of the things that makes her seem unappealing. Especially because there's that scene where like the stepmother is like dramatically trying to like tighten her corset. And then there's a lyric in one of the songs later on that she says uh why can't a guy ever once prefer a solid girl like me and i feel like that was like the movie's attempt to be like well uh because she's fat that's one of the things that makes her unappealing and you know that's not great. No. The end. No, it's not. Yeah. And that's definitely like one of, for a movie that is generally very inclusive, that is, I feel like, one of its like kind of glaring shortcomings.

Yeah. That would have been easy to, like, they didn't have to do that in 1997, but. They didn't, to do that in 1997 but they didn't but they did but fortunately Natalie Dessel was amazing the chemistry between the sisters really is great

right and that's the thing that I think helps is that she played her so well I just think that like a lot of her work went underappreciated because in this movie and in baps and in that short-lived tv show that eve was the star of that was called eve even though her character was named something else entirely i don't it's fine um that she had a really good way of making even the strangest of characters

slash people make sense like you really felt for them and I feel like even before she passed me she rested in peace I'd watch the movie back and be like I wonder if they would have ever you know did a sequel with Minerva or something. Because poor Calliope, bless her heart, Calliope was just sort of like, to me, the annoying one. And Minerva was sort of just caught up in trying to both please her mother and find a love that would help her validate who she is as a person. I mean, I really sat and thought about this movie way too much. But I'm just saying like I think I think that um what Natalie did was really make her to me more redeemable in a way by just allowing us to see that

like she wants what is best for her and what her mom wants for her and she thinks that love will give her that thing yeah and i mean i guess i've never like thought of like the step sisters are definitely me like cinderella's whole family unquestionably cruel to her unacceptable not in my house would we treat cinderella in that way um but but i it is um i don't know especially how the sisters play it in this movie sometimes you're like oh they're also being like constantly emotionally berated by their mother who is also a deeply insecure person and it's i don't know i'm like this is a this is a very complicated family because there's no time where Bernadette Peters is not like even though it's like the stepsisters or the daughter she quote-unquote likes like she's never not criticizing them and like never not telling

them they need to alter their appearance they need to like repress their emotions they need to do this this and this and so it's like oh it just a very unhappy household don't be what does she say you mustn't let the prince know how clever you are men can't stand to be around smart women which i mean men are often very intimidated by smart women so yeah i like that line i liked liked it too. Because it felt like they did it on purpose. To just show how ridiculous she is. In her thinking. I mean at least maybe I'm giving them too much credit. But it really did feel like.

They were saying it like. Look how ridiculous this woman is. She believes because that's what she was taught. That men don't like clever women. And it's the idea that oh Brandy as Cinderella. Is so clever. And so smart she reads and the reason she has she cinderella is because she likes to watch the cinderflies and

her face gets smudged and like she's all these things that bernadette peters as her stepmother was told men aren't supposed to like right and i think it goes back to that thing that we talk about a lot which i think this movie does more to contextualize than most stories where like the reason if women are ever kind of like cruel to each other or jealous of each other just like in life in real life is because we've been conditioned to think that we have to compete with each other for the, like, you know, limited resources and limited opportunities that are afforded to women. And in this case, they're, like, literally competing over the love of a prince who will give them, you know, like, financial security and stuff like that. And in this adaptation of like just the Cinderella narrative, the stepmom and stepsisters, while still very cruel to Cinderella, their cruelty seems to be coming less from a place of like they're behaving this way because they're pure evil, which is like how

those characters are depicted in the 1950s Disney animated Cinderella. And it's coming more from a place of they're behaving this way because they're desperate. Like they're a household of women with few options in terms of access to financial security. So they lash out at Cinderella, who they feel threatened by because they perceive Cinderella as being someone who's like more likely to gain access to that type of security that they are desperately after because she's so beautiful. And that's what men have historically been conditioned to value in women is like physical beauty right so i might be like reaching or kind of projecting here but again it felt to me like those characters are less like evil for the sake of being evil and more just like acting out of desperation right yeah and it's like the idea that like abused people sometimes abuse people and it's not to like

justify their behavior but it's just the idea that like when you really think about it it makes sense that bernadette peter's character i know she has a name but i don't know what it is i don't know if she has one is it just step I think it's just stepmother. Is it just stepmother? Okay, well, stepmother grew up being told, you have to be all these things. And so she's trying to pass that on to her daughters because she thinks being all those things is what landed her Brandy's dad. But once Brandy's dad dies,

she's like, well, what do I do now? You know, like they just, I think that a part of their abusing of Cinderella is because they lose that high society life life they had when her dad was alive so they're using her to still feel like they're above someone because of that and I think that a part of what I've always seen in the movie is just that they're abusing her because they think that it's like a thing they have to do and or maybe because they were also at one point abused but again stepmother also abuses the children that she supposedly likes like you said so it's a it's

a weird cycle that movie and and just even in the idea of Cinderella in general it's a weird cycle yeah right yeah it's it's definitely I mean the stepmother I feel like the stepmother trope has definitely come up on the show before in addition to thinking this is a perfect movie I just I I appreciated an attempt to try to address the trope because you can't really cinderella the story can't happen without a stepmother so i i appreciated the the attempt to um to try it at least and give it some some kind of context because yeah because it's like worst case scenario we're just seeing like women are irrationally jealous of each other based on age and how like attractive society

perceives them to be and it's like you know a trope that's been used forever to make it seem like women are just baselessly petty against each other when there is like there is a context for it and there's a context for it in this story so yeah an attempt was made i i appreciate it yeah and the thing is like i think i think for me it's like it's so important to critique the things that we love because you know they can be better and for me like this movie is perfect to me in every way it has flaws but it's still perfect because i think whenever i i have this nostalgia attached to it but also i just feel like it was brilliantly done for the time that it was done. And it doesn't feel like, you know, everybody's like, oh, my God, colorblind casting.

This was just like, but I think of like Bridgerton, which they're not really connected at all. But I think about how in parts of Bridgerton, spoiler alert, the only time race is brought up is when the black people are doing it. And the white people never examine the dynamic between, like, say, Daphne, the white woman, and Simon, the black man, and what that is like in reality for when something to me that happened that was really gross, i'm not going to say what it is but there's a thing that happens in bridgerton and they don't explore the dynamic between her being a white woman and doing that thing and then him being a black man and then they don't address at all what she did as the abuse that it was and i think that with this movie in particular it wasn't

like they brought it up but it wasn't like it was this thing that they were like wanting to be championed for. It was just like, oh, look, there's a stepdaughter that's black and a stepdaughter that's white. And Bernadette Peters is white and the dad is white and Whoopi Goldberg is black and the son is like of Asian descent. And then there's just Brandyy who's a black woman i just i felt like for me this movie was ahead of its time in terms of the idea of colorblind casting because it wasn't anything that they wanted to make a big deal out of they just were a part of this uh fairy tale and that was that and you were going to deal with it and there was no explanation about why someone looked the way they looked it was just like nope we're telling a story these are the people who populate this world and

blah blah blah right whereas i think sometimes what happens um in any type of movie but particularly in fairy tales is like if they want to modernize it it's like okay let's talk about why this person is of color and let's make a clip about how hard it is for them to be of color and let's do this and let's traumatize them this way and so for me i just really think about this movie in terms of just being able to feel good while watching it from beginning to end yeah because part of what the colorblind casting does is just simply allows us to see a black woman as a princess in this like classic princess narrative and just like go through all the motions of that story without any other kind of trauma I mean she still experiences trauma at the hand of like her step family but it's not like racial trauma which

is so nice because it's still so rare like we're in 2021 and it is so rare to watch it's like sylvie's love which has nothing to do with this i'm sorry but it's like the idea that we can have issues without it always being about race right i think that um the way this movie did this ahead of its time in the 90s was just amazing to me. Because it allowed black girls like me to dream, you know? Like, obviously I'm not going to be a princess for real. And, like, I'm queer. And Cinderella's not.

She could be, though. That's the 2021 update we need for Cinderella. You're right. Let's make her queer. Let's make her, let's make her like please but I just think that it allowed me I have such a close tie to it because it allowed me to dream

and feel like it was possible for me and I think that is obviously the magic of representation but also a story well told where I don't feel like I have to go through mountains and mountains and mountains of racial trauma just to get my own happy ending yeah another thing this movie does too with its casting is i don't think we've talked about this

a whole lot on the podcast but there is a long history of desexualization of asian men in media where asian men are rarely or never seen as romantic interests in love stories or just in general at all ever so that the like handsome prince charming in this movie is played by an asian man is pretty groundbreaking right and he's gorgeous i know that that's not the point but he is he's really handsome the crush the entire world had on that man like it just we all loved him i don't i hope he's well he like responded to one of my sister's instagram comments a couple months ago and she lost it she was like oh my god i was like what happened and she showed me and i freaked out for her because first of all he's aged well but second of all just a man of our childhood like truly wow i love it shout out paulo i just i didn't get super into this earlier but i just wanted to give another shout out to uh whitney

houston and like her she was pretty explicit about like it was her and deborah martin chase who made this movie happen but whitney specifically said like i want to make this movie for my daughter which is so like it just comes through and there's like pictures of Whitney and Bobby Christina on the set of the movie and uh and Debra Martin Chase says in this um oral history like to have a black Cinderella is just really something I know it was really important for Whitney to leave this legacy for her daughter and would be Goldberg says something similar about being I mean so hyped to do the movie that she literally gave up part of her salary so that it could get finished because she wanted this movie for her grandkids and like just it was

I don't know really cool to know how first of all I mean unfortunately how hard it was to get this movie the way that they wanted it to be but also like how determined everyone was to like get it right and to just like have cinderella and not like bog it down with everything with that you were just saying kia and like how intentionally it was done and like i mean kind of as always how like frustrating it was with disney to get it done the right way but that was the power of like whitney houston in 1997 like talk about using your powers for good like she was like the fairy godmother of this entire production right yeah which is fun because there's still all these stories about how like she was never like she was never on time and she like whitney houston

was like grinding to get this movie done for years and years and years and then they were like okay so when can you shoot and she's like I can give you four days um which is amazing well no that's so that's so cool though because I think about those pictures of her on set with Brandy or even the videos of them singing impossible and then I think about how she was on set with anne hathaway for the princess diaries movies and i'm like there's so much that she did that like has come out now that she's gone but that i wish we would have been able to give her her flowers for while she was still here because she was a part of so many of like at least my major childhood movie moments like I loved the princess diary movie I love this movie I love like like she just was a part of

so many things that I think helped make me the person that I am that it's wild when you think about how hard she had to do how hard she had to work just to make them all happen yeah yeah and like and what a big like impact like all of them i don't know like deborah martin chase uh i feel like i i did i i've seen her name so many times but i never like fully put together i'm like wow this woman is really the architect like she's the one yeah powerhouse yeah and then her call all of her collaborations with Whitney like just produced these amazing stories always about women often about a diverse group of women and then it was always really fucking good I don't know I just yes I'm like am I about to write her fan mail? Could be. Right. Could happen. Could happen.

The day's still young. Also, shout out to the diversity in the background actors as well. I feel like this is something we don't see very much where even if a movie will feature probably not as much diversity as needed, but they'll be like okay we've got you know one black lead and that fills the quota right and then every other person in the movie is white but like in this movie there's so much diversity in the background actors and like in the village there's and the ball yeah the ball it's like i knew about the like pretty mixed cast of the main characters but i was like i was surprised to see how much uh diversity there was just in the background and it doesn't like seem like it would be that big of a deal it's like oh they're you know they're extras they don't have

lines but it is yeah it's funny because it's like if they can do that in 97 why can't they why can't they do it now they're not doing there i do have i i don't though i know like i understand why this was a tv movie because rogers and hammerstein like the tradition of this musical was it was always a tv movie but there's a part of me that was like and i think and i if i'm remembering right i think whitney houston was pushing for this too. It should have been a theatrical release. I know that people talk. I've seen people talk about it pretty frequently. But it's also really weird to me that this movie isn't on Disney+. Fortunately, it's on YouTube for free.

But why the fuck is it not on Disney+, like it's canon? Is it a Rodgers and Hammerstein rights thing? Like, what is it? I think that's what it is. I read somewhere that that's what it is, that they can't. And that's also why they can't do, they could never release the soundtrack. Because they did it. They recorded it, but they can't release it because of a Rodgers and Hammerstein thing.

And I think it's because Rodgers and Hammersteins also already has a version of it on Apple Music but it's sung by all white people so it's not it's not the one from the movie so they for some reason can't get clearance to do the one from the movie even though it's already recorded and literally whenever I want to hear the song from the movie and I don't feel like watching the movie I have to go to youtube to do it same i did that on my walk this morning i was like all right so frustrating because it's like if it it exists it makes me so sad that it exists and we are not allowed to have it um yeah the last thing I wanted to talk about.

So there's a, there's a message in this movie that is not present in, I think, a lot of other versions of this story where Cinderella like wants to escape her abusive home life. This is like part of her drive and part of her motivation as a character. And the fairy godmother comes and is like, I can give you some tools to help you with that. But ultimately, it's something that you have to do on your own, which I feel like can be read a couple different ways, where if you're looking at it from like a feminist perspective, it's like, oh, okay, so the fairy godmother is basicallyinderella to have agency over her own life and and to make active choices and be in charge of her own outcome and that's great and we love to see that but then if you look at it from like a class perspective it's sort of like well yes you're poor yeah you're poor but if you just pick yourself up by your bootstraps and work a little bit harder then you'll magically get out of poverty and that's just a classic american capitalistic yeah just start a small business like see what happens how hard could it be

take on a load start a change your life like okay we just covered enchanted i'm like that's literally the ending of enchanted she's like i don't know enchanted i'm like that's literally the ending of enchanted she's like i don't know i guess what's feminine what's more feminist than starting a small business i'm like well i guess but yeah that is definitely like again it's like i feel like that's when the the 90s is kind of showing a little bit when it's like oh we were not we were very much not questioning pull yourself up by your bootstraps mentality in 1997. No. Right.

I think the only thing that I was a really appreciative was that nobody at any point in the movie, excuse the abuse. Like at no point did Whitney as a fairy godmother be like, Oh, you know, they're just going through a lot. Like she was just like,

she was just like she was just like no there are gonna be people in your life who don't something poppycock and twaddle whatever that whatever that part of the song was where she was talking about how like you're gonna run across people who don't believe that the impossible is possible but it's possible and like yeah it sucks that that's all she said and there's really no way for her to get out of her abusive situation but i liked the idea that like nobody was making excuses for the abuse that she had went through because i find that oftentimes someone says something even in my beloved drew barrymore one at one point one of the stepsisters was like you should have known that she would have went off like if you said something to her like that or there's a point where like she gets beat by the stepmom and the the sister's like well why did you do that you should have

known she would have been that way and i really appreciated that that didn't take place in this movie in particular because it happens all the time whether it's cinderella or not they'll make an excuse for someone's terrible behavior right yeah and the and the end i forget um i forget which of us said it but the the fact that she doesn't forgive them at the end is like it's so it's weird because it's with with modern fairy tale adaptations it's so like it makes my head hurt because sometimes i'm like if you address the problem too aggressively, the story feels completely different. And if you like go into the story Cinderella of like, we're going to really examine this from a class perspective, it's not going to really be the same story.

And so the changes made to address it are very subtle and probably like, you know, it doesn't address class, you know, completely responsibly. But the source material definitely doesn't. But the little like the subtle changes that this movie goes for where I mean, just the fact that she doesn't say like, it's OK, I get it. Like, no, she was abused no matter how damaged the stepmother and stepsisters are as people. It doesn't justify the abuse and she doesn't forgive them. It's a start. And that's so important too,

because a lot of times for a lot of years anyway, it's been like, oh my God, of course you should forgive. Like you don't have to forgive somebody for being to you. Like you just don't have to do it. I think that's why I like it so much. That one and the Jurema one,

which I'm sorry that I keep bringing up. I guess you'll just have to come back on the podcast and cover that one with us as well. Yes, please. I just like that they're not like, okay, well, you know, they're gonna, there was no reason to try to

rehabilitate them throughout the movie, which I found refreshing because sometimes when movies do that, they're like spending too much time trying to rehabilitate the evil person that you lose bits and pieces of the actual main characters who are good from the start yeah um so yeah I'm with you and we talked about this recently on our Beauty and the Beast episode of like the burden of forgiveness often falling on women because like and like abused women abused women yeah because women are just expected to be forgiving and compassionate and and those

are good qualities sure but also like like we said there's the onus is not on you to forgive abuse if you don't want to do that so and brandy doesn't she's just like i moved i moved i live in a castle now i wish the movie made it clearer that she was leaving at the very end and like she had like packed up to go it wasn't kia until you said that that i even realized that was what was happening I wish you would we had seen her like packing her belongings or just that it was like visually made clearer that she was intending to like peace out because I didn't even realize that yeah like when she fell her suitcase popped open and he was trying to help her with the stuff but I do see what you're saying it would

have been cool to see her like packing things and like like maybe cut away when she was like the daughter was like there's nobody else here not even a servant girl my mom was looking at her like you get out my holder right because that was that would have like drawn out the tension too like if like the prince was on the other side of the door being like aren't there any other women here and then if like we cut back and forth to her like not realizing he's there and like leaving then we're like no we want you to stay so that he'll find you and that would that's just good storytelling i like that change better than because it was like in the in the animated cinderella isn't she like locked in a room being like ah like yeah that's and the mind the fucking mice the mice are like trying to give her the key to like get

herself out because and like yeah there's way more emphasis on what the mice are doing in that scene i appreciate a non uh mouse centric approach to it's truly something special and it's like funny because even in um other adaptions i've seen they'll they'll lock Cinderella up like they do in that one. But, like, she gets out. And it's not like mice were hurting me. Right. She's like, I'm not trying to be in here. Like, I'll figure it out.

Like, it's so funny to me that I think about it now. Because the mice are so heavily featured. Like, it might as well be, like, a Cinderella story. Like, okay, this is just a a vehicle for them yeah they're like trying to pop off like the minions were like they're just like okay we know who's the star of the movie for real let's give them a franchise oh my god but yeah looking at this just not this movie alone but just the entire cinderella narrative like just like approaching it from a class perspective this like part of this story is like the rags to riches story where

she's been turned into like a servant girl she's in this low class but then she gets discovered by the prince and then marries into wealth so like kind of the message of this entire narrative is like well if you're beautiful enough a handsome prince will elevate your socioeconomic status it's a dated premise it is very dated but also i'm like is that what i was secretly hoping for every time my mom brought me to a mall yes like being like wow someone's gonna someone is gonna see through my back brace and realize that I am a runway model at heart and I think again too I think I was I was definitely like oh this is this is my time I'm gonna walk into the store and make eyes make eye contact with like a 12 year old boy

for some reason was going to like someone in the middle of the limited to being like wow there she is there she is kia i've been waiting for her my whole life but i think too like in defense of that which again i don't i don't have so many defenses for these things, is that it was nice because she wasn't really after money. You know what I mean? Like as obsessed as her stepmother and the stepsisters were with like wealth and whatever. She was like, I just want to be happy.

Yeah. And like away from all of you. So maybe that's why she got it, which is wild. Right, because she wasn't Yeah, I guess it's like the less you want something the more likely you are to get it but that like having so i don't know i feel like that even works better with like how some of the songs are written i because in my own little corner is it's whatever it's her i want song and it's all about how she just like lives in her imagination and like dreams of being

other places. And it doesn't mention really men at all. It's just like, if I could do anything, I would go here or I would do this or I wish I could do this. And she wants to go on an African safari. Yeah. She's like, my life is full of adventure. Like that's the dream I have for it.

I'm not, you know, fetching more milk. I'm just out here living my life so I guess we can just be like um most likely she and Prince Christopher uh soon went on a uh trip of the globe afterwards and hopefully she didn't just move down the street I bet you know Christopher loved her so much that if she was like alright let's go on our honeymoon I want to go all over the world he's like anything for you my dear

let's do it he loves love talk about someone who is falling in love with love Prince Christopher gee whiz does anyone have anything else they want to talk about just as a closing the soundtrack slaps so it's like whether you watch the movie or not the soundtrack is going to hit you like a ton of

bricks and it's going to be beautiful the entire way but there is not a miss in that soundtrack it is wild how is every song amazing it makes no sense and all sense at the same time it's just brilliant and there's no there's not a single bad performance in the entire movie everyone's good everyone like i don't know i just feel like you can sort of tell when people in a movie really want to be there and like you just kind of feel like the energy of the movie is just really good and you're like oh i think that this whole cast just like likes each other and like is enjoying this and not to bring up the oral history again but it seems like that was exactly it and just everyone was hanging out having fun they rehearsed i loved learning they rehearsed the

the movie like it was a stage show so that the whole cast would get to know each other even if they didn't appear in scenes together which is like oh it sounds it just sounded like summer camp like it sounded like so much fun and i feel like it shows in the movie how much fun it was to make and jason alexander was like woohoo i'm not george costanza right now victor Garber was like, woohoo, I'm not on a sinking boat with James Cameron right now. Super cool, you know. I would just like to close by saying that this story shames women with big feet. And as someone who wears a fairly large shoe size especially in relation to my height

I feel personally attacked and this movie also operates under the whole story operates under the assumption that no one else in the entire kingdom has the same shoe size as Cinderella so I guess like Cinderella has a size seven every other woman either has a size like 11 shoe or like a size four and nothing else that's yeah that's the suspension of belief that you have to have yeah also I was reading the shoe they're carrying around on the pillow is not even Brandy's shoe size like they made two different shoes they made a shoe that fits her and then they made a teeny tiny shoe that represents the fragility of women. Like there's,

because it's like, who knows? We'll never know what size Brandy's actual foot is, but they were like weirdly like, no, she has little baby feet. Well, isn't that cute? I watched Brandy on an episode of the rosie o'donnell show right where they talk about brandy's shoe size and she wears a size nine which is also the

size that i wear this is becoming a quentin tarantino podcast fast well that's that's kind of i'm a wow size nine feeling scene i am also a size nine wow i'm a 10 a 10 nice oh wow look at us wow look at us it's our time we have such strong feet anyway does this movie pass the bechdel test uh yes it does between a lot of different characters a ton a ton but it passes between a lot of characters yeah especially with the point with like uh whitney houston and brandy like when even when they're just talking about um how she how it's okay for her to dream or whatever so there's that little portion and i think there's like a couple here and there but yeah i think the stepsisters occasionally because they're i mean it's it is sometimes like that

thing where it passes the bechdel test when women are being very cruel to each other sure but a pass is a pass when brandy is like that hat looks like shit on both of you that passes perfect no no and is she wrong no no but it's that it was terrible the hat is the problem which maybe she should have been more clear about but either way um yeah this is also one of the few princess fairy tale movies especially of this era that passes the duvernay test as well so shouts out to that uh let's examine the movie through the nipple scale which is our metric zero to 5 nipples based on how the movie fares looking at it through the lens of intersectional feminism. I want to give this like, I mean, I almost have to pretend that it's not a Cinderella story because there's just so many issues baked into that narrative that are like outdated that I do think the movie attempts and succeeds at updating at

least a few of the issues with just the outdated like fairy tale story and so i appreciate that it makes those attempts and that the casting choices allow for just a far more diverse cast than we've seen up until that point and in a lot of cases we haven't seen a lot of the same things since um yeah so sad yeah it's so sad this movie is 24 years old and uh haven't yeah yes so um i like a lot of the just attempts that it made at at updates and i think like i said they're a lot of them are successful. I want to give this like a three and a half. And had it not been like a Cinderella adaptation and maybe like a different story or just like kind of a romance story that wasn't specifically Cinderella, I'm sure it would get higher. But because it still has the fairy tale elements throughout the story, it doesn't score quite as high as I'd like it to but

yeah I'm going to give it three and a half nipples and I will give one to Brandy one to Whitney Houston one to Natalie DeSalle who plays Minerva and I'll give my half nipple to victor garber but uh his character in titanic mr andrews i'm gonna i i know that this is probably like not but i'm gonna give it four and a half because i just like love this movie so much and I cannot I simply just want to watch this movie every day for the rest of my life it is just like I feel like distilled joy it is so good I love I mean there are I don't know I mean I think especially for its time it is like a production that was like willed into existence kind of against a lot of odds by two black female producers and like deborah martin chase and whitney houston made this happen

brandy like brought this character to life it is like i i think that it's probably it was at the time the most like diverse movie to ever air on tv ever it was a huge hit it has this incredible legacy like and i don't know i mean the cinderella story stuff it's i for some reason with this movie it almost barely comes into it because it's just because if we were looking at like the disney animated cinderella i'd be like, zero, like negative five nipples. Yeah. But but the fact that there were attempts to kind of work with the Cinderella story to kind of update it for the time. The performances are so incredible.

I ultimately the fact that it's still written and directed by white guys is deeply annoying but um I don't know yeah probably too many maybe maybe four I don't know I can't give it less than four follow your heart Jamie nothing is impossible it's such a depressing time and truly like watching this movie several times was the best I've felt in weeks and weeks. It is just, like, great. And gave us, like, our first black Disney princess, which is not a small deal. That's, you know, huge. And so, yeah, I guess I'll go four because it is still stepmothers and marriage.

And you're not like the other girls. And you're not like the other girls said three times. And that was an update. So I guess I'll go four. But I simply cannot in good conscience go under four. I'll give a nipple to Whitney. I'll give a nipple to Brandy. I'll give a nipple to Whitney. I'll give a nipple to Brandy. I'll give a nipple to Deborah Martin Chase.

And I will give a nipple to Whoopi. And that's what I'll do. Love it. Kia, what about you? I mean, we already know what I'm going to do, but it's got to be five out of five nipples. I know. Hell yeah.

We knew this was coming the entire episode. I was already ready. Listen, I just feel like it has its problems, but it is literally one of my favorite movies in the entire world. The casting was amazing. Just the fact that it exists and all is something so special to me. And it's not even the idea that she's Cinderella. It's more of an that like this is a black

woman that we get to watch be worthy of love on a national stage and like you had me at whitney houston and so even though it has its issues with that you're not like other girls thing and like the mean stepmothers and the annoying stepchildren but just the music alone to me gives it that extra nipple and so in much of the ways that Jamie already said I'm just gonna bite those and say yes I agree and also just tell you who I'm gonna give my nipples to yes the first nipple is going to go to Brandy the second nipple is going to go to Whitney Houston may she rest in peace and the third nipple is going to go to Whitney Houston, May She Rest In Peace. And the third nipple is going to go to the songwriting. Because I just love this soundtrack so much that, like, I could literally be having a worst day and somebody could be like, just go listen to the soundtrack and I would feel

so much better. And then my fourth nipple is going to go to Whoopi Goldberg and Victor Garber as a couple in this movie. And then my fifth nipple is going to go to the hope, joy, restoration, dreams, excitement that I get every time I watch it. Yes, I love it. Love that. A perfect movie. Well, Kia, thank you so much for being here again truly come back anytime for i'll just invite myself for every like every rom-com that you do from here on out like please

call me because i'm ready and i will definitely come back forever after if you do it and i might cry it's fine um i've never seen Ever After. Neither have I. Yeah. I haven't seen most Cinderella movies because I've never seen the Hilary Duff one. I haven't seen the live action Disney remake from 2015 or whatever. There's just... You don't just do them.

It's so long. I mean, you think the first one felt long? It's so long. Oh, my God. It's so boring. But Ever After is fell long oh my god it's so boring but ever after is not just a movie it's a moment much like much like this one it is a lifestyle choice you know so if you ever want to talk about it i will come back i have immensely enjoyed this conversation literally the best thing that

has happened in the past week and a half is sitting here talking to you both about this movie. Oh my gosh. Well, we absolutely loved having you. And tell the folks listening at home where they can check out your stuff, follow you online, etc. I am very online, both Instagram and Twitter at Kia, K-E-A-H underscore Maria. I write a bunch. All of it is at KiaBrown.com. I need to update my website, by the way.

But all of the things that I've written are there. And you can find me either tweeting about Cheesecake, Drew Barrymore, or roundcoms, or you can find me Instagramming in my Instagram stories about random weird emails and stuff that I get from people. So it's a riot on both platforms. You can find me there. Hell yes. You can also find us on those platforms at Bechtelcast. You can check out our Patreon, aka Matreon, which has an episode on Cadet Kelly that Kia was in. So check thatchtel cast it's five dollars a month and it gets you access to two bonus episodes every month plus the entire back catalog of bonus episodes almost

a hundred additional episodes we've been on there for a lot of months um and then you can grab some merch at tpublic.com slash the bechtel. How do we close out this episode? Oh, my gosh. Impossible. I don't know the song. Perfect. Or no notes. That was perfect.

Randy would be proud. You're welcome, everyone. All right. Bye. Bye. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts.

There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everybody. This is Matt Rogers. And Bowen Yang. We've got some exciting news for you. You know we're always bringing you the best guests, right? Well, this week we're taking it to the next level. The one, the only, Katherine Hahn is joining us on Las Culturistas. That's right, the queen of comedy herself. Get ready for a conversation that's as hilarious as it is insightful.

Tune in for all the laughs, the stories, and of course, the culture. Don't miss Catherine Hahn on Las Culturistas. Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearths the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks everywhere

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