The Cinderella 1997 Reunion Wasn't What I Expected
Get link
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
Email
Other Apps
When I learned that 20/20 was having a reunion of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella from 1997 to celebrate World Princess Week, I was expecting a journalist like Barbara Walters to show up in a big room with the cast and lead a discussion about their memories of shooting together and what they've been up to since then. What I got instead was a mash-up of individual interviews from various people involved with the film from the past and present day talking for an hour about what a great movie it was. Don't get me wrong; it was great, but that isn't what comes to mind when I hear "reunion." Not only was there never more than one person on camera at a time, but there was also no host to introduce and close out the special. If someone tuned in without knowing anything about it, they would have no idea what they were watching. The biggest highlight for me wasn't even part of the special. It was a clip of Brandy giving a live performance of "Starting Now" in Disneyland during a commercial break as a promotion for World Princess Week. You can watch the full video below.
Maybe I'm being a little too harsh. There was some decent footage in the special, particularly for people who didn't own the DVD, such as clips of the making of the film and some early interviews with the late Whitney Houston. The motherly relationship between Whitney and Brandy was a big highlight of the behind-the-scenes footage both on the DVD and during the special. Brandy idolized Whitney, and being able to work with her was a dream come true. There was a touching moment near the beginning in which Brandy talked about how she never thought she was pretty and was amazed when she got cast as Cinderella. She also revealed that the shots of her feet in the glass slippers weren't really her feet because they looked too big on camera. It isn't easy being Cinderella! The only two people interviewed who weren't part of the film were Billy Piper, who acted as a stand-in for Whitney Houston since he played the Fairy Godmother in another recent Cinderella film, and Todrick Hall, who provided limited footage from the music video he created to honor the movie last year.
Another highlight was footage of what appeared to be some sort of exclusive Disney Princess party with a group of little girls playing dress up in various princess costumes and answering questions about their favorite Disney Princesses. If they had answered more in-depth questions, this section could have easily been a full special on its own to provide a deeper investigation of how princess culture affects society. As it was, it served as break between the monotony of all the one-on-one interviews for the "reunion." I would have loved to see Brandy inspire the little girls with a surprise visit, but this was a very socially distanced special. Even in the wake of Covid, there were numerous reunions of TV shows and movies that took place over Zoom, so I don't see any reason that the producers couldn't get at least some of the actors together for a discussion, virtual or otherwise. Instead, it acted as an hour-long commercial for Disney's Ultimate Princess Celebration, which was odd because I thought 20/20 was a news show.
Another thing I expected from this special was some sort of memorial for Whitney Houston. There was plenty of dialogue about how great she was, which is true, but no one mentioned how they were affected by her tragic death in 2012. I also learned through the Twitter hashtags that Natalie Deselle Reid, who played Cinderella's stepsister Minerva, had also passed away two years ago, something that was not mentioned in the special at all. Maybe they thought these things would be too depressing for a peppy reunion that would re-introduce the film to a new generation. Still, I thought reunions were supposed to be about celebrating everyone who worked on the project and paying tribute to those who couldn't be there.
In case you were wondering, I did stick around for the live presentation of the movie even though I already have it on both DVD and Disney+. I've been so spoiled by streaming that I forgot how many commercials live TV had! There was a lengthy commercial break after almost every song, which I sang along with loudly, pleased that I still remembered most of the lyrics. Seeing the movie with fresh eyes reminded me of how magical it was the first time I saw it and how solid the story, pacing, choreography, set, and costume designs were. It was clear that a lot of love went into it, and I'm glad everyone involved had an opportunity to reminisce about it 25 years later. Let me know in the comments if this reunion special lived up to your expectations or if you were hoping for something different.
As soon as I saw the previews for Netflix's new animated series, Unicorn Academy , I couldn't get over how similar it looked to Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders . Teenagers forming magical bonds with unicorns to save the world from evil? Yes, please! With a Jewel Riders graphic novel on the horizon, this is the perfect time to revisit that premise. Unicorn Academy is loosely based on a book series of the same name that got picked up by Netflix and recently aired its first season. The premiere movie and successive eight episodes follow six unicorns and their riders on their quest to protect the magical realm from the evil Ravenzella, who performed reprehensible acts to previous generations, including the father of the main character, Sophia. The show contains a lot of teen angst and drama as well as rainbows, sparkles, and magic. Although Unicorn Academy features an entire school full of unicorn riders training to be protectors, it only focuses on the six students liv
I wasn't sure what to expect after the movie My Sweet Monster was recommended to me and I found out it was released last year. There are very few movies I've enjoyed that came out within the past five years or so. Then again, there haven't been many animated princess movies for a while in general. My Sweet Monster is a Russian CGI princess musical with a plot that feels like it could have been released in the '90s with environmentalist themes and a wacky setting. It's on par with lower budget animated films like Fern Gully: The Last Rainforest or Charming . I appreciate that it was a musical, which is becoming less common these days, and that it isn't pandering to political themes, probably due to cultural differences in Russia. It isn't one of the best animated films I've ever seen, but it's refreshing for something that came out within the last year. My Sweet Monster is about a ditzy princess named Barbara, voiced by Haylie Duff , who wants to
I've been seeing several viral posts recently about historical fashion lately. One was a gallery of women's fashion every year from 1784 to 1970 , and another was a video re-enactment of how women got dressed in the 18th century . These got me thinking about some of my favorite princess fashions. Though princesses are not known to be historically accurate , their fashions drew inspiration from many different places, and history is one of them. If you take a look at the way fashion has evolved over time, you can get an idea of which parts inspired the princess movies and which parts were altered. Something that surprised me in the re-enactment was how many pieces were assembled on a woman to give the appearance of a single dress. Today, most dresses are a single piece, but historically, gowns consisted of a corset bodice and a large skirt with a crinoline underneath. This was something I also noticed about Disney's theme park princesses . Though they look like one dr
Yesterday, the Starz network released the series finale of The Spanish Princess , concluding The White Queen trilogy of miniseries that began in 2013. Based on a book series called The Cousins' War by Phillippa Gregory , the trilogy covers the women who stood behind the men in power in the English monarchy from 1464 to the 1530s, preceding the first two sovereign queens, Mary and Elizabeth. The White Queen , The White Princess , and The Spanish Princess grant us a rare opportunity to see what life was like for medieval monarchs. Watching them reminded me of why I prefer the fairy tale versions of royalty. Those stories do not contain the gory deaths, gruesome births, and invasive politics that historical dramatizations like these exemplify. In fact, I had very little interest in watching the second season of The Spanish Princess until I watched some historical videos and learned that the king that Catherine of Aragon was married to was none other than King Henry VIII, who was
I have never been a fan of the Descendants franchise , which was originally created by Disney to take down Mattel's semi-successful Ever After High line of dolls, books , and webisodes. It succeeded in this endeavor thanks to Disney brand recognition despite being an inferior product. Coming out nearly a decade after the original , we have a fourth Descendants movie entitled The Rise of Red . This movie introduces a new generation of fairy tale offspring with countless changes to the classic stories, most of which are for the worse. Its only redeeming factor was a heartfelt tribute to Cameron Boyce , who played the son of Cruella de Vil in the original films. The Descendants franchise had very little working in its favor from the start, but it at least had a leg up over The School for Good and Evil by basing the backstories of the Disney characters on their films instead of superimposing an artificial school setting where they learned to be heroes and villains. This film retcon
For those of you who aren't savvy in the world of underground Hollywood, there is a studio called The Asylum , whose sole purpose is to create low-budget imitations of popular movies in the hopes that an old granny will forget her glasses while shopping and buy one on DVD for her grandkids, thinking it's that big blockbuster movie they're always yapping on about. When they set their sights on an upcoming release from a major studio, they rush to get their imitation out before or around the same time as the one they're mimicking so they can pretend that they came up with the idea first. The Princess Twins of Legendale was not produced by The Asylum, but it feels like it easily could have been. In actuality, it was produced by a modern toy company called MGA Entertainment , which is famous for making Bratz and L.O.L. Surprise dolls. You would think that a toy company producing a low-budget movie would only do so with the intention of selling toys, but surprisingly, my
Happy New Year, princess fans! When a new year begins, many of us think about things we can do better than the year before. There is no company this notion applies to better than Disney, which has been failing in every direction now more so than ever. Their latest feature, Wish , was a genuinely solid movie that sadly did not make the profits it deserved. Following its theatrical run, many fans noticed that the concepts presented in the official Art of Wish book would have elevated it from a good movie to a great one. Most of these concepts revolved around love and romance , which has been strategically removed from modern Disney Princess archetypes , despite being a staple of the brand prior to the past decade. Despite some early rumors that Asha might be the daughter of King Magnifico and Queen Amaya, the film's director Chris Buck explained in an interview why he was adamantly against making her a princess, which may have been another mistake that could have altered the m
There have been many recent updates in the Dress Up! Time Princess app with the most notable being that they changed their name to simply Time Princess, which is how I will be referring to it from this point on. Another major update from this week was the second half of the latest visual novel, Shadows of London, a Victorian vampire story. This is the first visual novel in Time Princess that was released in two separate halves since I started playing it. I thought the wait time would be frustrating, but I found that it gave me ample time to craft the items I needed to access the new story levels so I wouldn't get stuck when the rest of the game was released. This is the easiest story I've played so far in Time Princess, but that might be because I've been playing it for so long. I was able to get through all the story levels from each of the two releases within a single evening. The main character in Shadows of London is Caroline Rayes, a young lady with a tragic past who
Sofia the First , everyone's favorite princess-in-training, has met every official Disney Princess that existed when her show began with the sole exception of Pocahontas . The power of her purple amulet granted her the ability to summon famous princesses whenever she was in trouble. Technically, she never met Anna either, but the episode "Olaf and the Tale of Miss Nettle" implied that she was supposed to meet her but got Olaf instead because her amulet was on the fritz. About a year ago, her amulet turned pink and granted her new powers. It now sends her to help princesses , meaning that the chances of her meeting Pocahontas at this point are virtually nonexistent. Why did they acknowledge every other princess movie except this one? Actually, they did acknowledge the 1995 animated classic in an episode of Sofia, but it was very subtle. In the 2015 episode of Sofia the First, "The Secret Library," Sofia discovers a hidden passageway beneath her c
It was common in the early days of fairy tales for the enemy of a princess or future princess to be her vain stepmother. There were many reasons for this, most of which are no longer relevant by modern standards, causing that trope to fall by the wayside. One outdated reason is that girls rarely left the house (or "tower" if you will) in the old days because they were expected to do housework and eventually become mothers. Therefore, meeting an enemy outside of their own homes would have been unlikely. Why do you think so many princesses long for freedom ? The other reason is that fairy tales are meant to encourage children to love and obey their parents, so it would be counterintuitive for them to go up against their biological caretakers. There are a few rare exceptions , but these disturbing stories about horrible parents never made it into the mainstream media for good reason. Giving them stepparents who were brought into their lives at a later time solves this problem
Comments