A Cinderella story
Despite best efforts, movie turns into a pumpkin long before midnight

Date: November 02, 1997
By Ken Parish Perkins, Writer

From Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Texas)
Submitted by: Larry A.


I'd be dishonest if I didn't 'fess up to a built-in bias against the Cinderella legacy - how, for instance, the resurrections of this fairy-tale heroine do nothing more than deepen the dangerous Prince Charming myth and further distract us from troubling messages of sexism and classism.

How - indulge me a moment, please - we continue to build on some forceful longing in today's women, how its many variations confound preconceived ideas about what women want, how its success suggests feminism may not have dislodged certain persistent romantic stereotypes.

Not that it's not a cute little romantic story, mind you. It's a classic boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-gets-girl tale that has endured and manifested. Have we forgotten Richard Gere climbing that fire escape in Pretty Woman, or striding through the factory to fetch Debra Winger in Officer and a Gentleman?

At 6 tonight on WFAA/Channel 8, The Wonderful World of Disney unveils yet another variation of the sickly sweet and syrupy franchise, a colored version, if you will, though not necessarily an updated one.

Executive producer Whitney Houston stressed her intentions of having a colorblind cast, one that not only takes the bold steps of making Cinderella African-American, but giving the princess-to-be braids, no less.

In fact, this version cleverly eliminated any hysteria over a black Cinderella. It did this by throwing in a multiracial casting mixture so ludicrous that even those forgetting that it is a fairy tale, and therefore bears no serious semblance to reality, could not attack it.

Cinderella is played by 18-year-old Moesha star and R&B singer Brandy Norwood, and from there it's the United Nations of casting. The prince (Paolo Montalban) is Filipino, the wicked stepmother (Bernadette Peters) is white; the Queen (Whoopi Goldberg) is black; the King (Victor Garber) is white; one stepsister (Natalie Desselle) is white and the other (Veanne Cox) black; so on and so forth.

It is, on the surface, a refreshing piece of work making no apologies for saying that, hey, we're all in this thing together, so sit back and enjoy. So you do. But I awoke the next morning feeling as though I'd been duped by the marketing marvels of Disney who again are handing us a production of which its cinematic merit is somewhat besides the point.

Color coding aside, Cinderella looks absolutely gorgeous in its psychedelic brights. Anyone under the age of 13 might find the sets and costumes and computer-generated special effects somewhat cool; teens on up might find themselves wanting Cinderella to be something more than shallow "event" television.

As the prince, Montalban, who appears quite polished for a newcomer, is both dreamy and dreary; he elicits no kind of spark as the most eligible bachelor around.

He is followed closely by his steward, Lionel (Jason Alexander of Seinfeld), a created role to give the prince a conversational sounding board, so he can prove a new attitude toward women. Our prince is not looking for beauty but brains, not a sexy young thing but "a soul mate. " He meets Cinderella while slumming among the common folk, much as Gere just happened to run into Julia Roberts on Prostitute Row.

Fed up that the prince is taking too long to find the girl of his dreams, his mother reminds him, "It's not about love, it's about marriage," which, of course, ticks off the king-to-be.

Cinderella's Fairy Godmother - Houston at her self-possessed best - is just as sophisticated, telling Cinderella to "Trust him to love you as you really are. " These lines do nothing to mask the fact that Cinderella wants and needs an out.

This particular version of Cinderella would have been more effective had its creators decided what it would be. Early on, much was made of how Norwood's hip-hop peers would react to the music of Rodgers and Hammerstein. (Brandy professed a difficulty with singing tunes like Impossible without injecting some home-girl soul.)

Listening to both Norwood and Houston belt out tunes - playing it straight here, doing vocal aerobics there - illustrates the inherently conflicted feelings of this production.

Which makes sense considering its pedigree. Houston's singing career can't be matched in its popularity; but sometimes she plays it so straight and calculated for maximum appeal, the result is blandness.

Ironically, I recently I stumbled upon Cindy, a teeny-weeny production on the Cinderella franchise set in Harlem and featuring an all-black cast.

It wasn't the cast or multitude of changes to the fairy tale that made the movie so stirring, so jarring, so deliciously edgy. It was when Cindy turned down the "prince" in favor of the poor, though good-hearted fellow who finds a way to get her to "the ball. " As Cinderellas go, there's no question that she found her soul mate - for richer or poorer.