Cinderella, Empire and Destiny

Cinderella is “a fairy-tale heroine who is used as a drudge by her stepmother but ends up married to a prince,” according to my Merriam-Webster dictionary. Webster also says a “Cinderella” is a person “suddenly lifted from obscurity to honor or significance.”

The key word here is “lifted” and it is the way most of our mothers and grandmothers expected their lives to go: either “lifted” or “let down” by men, mostly the latter because princes are in short supply.

Many literary works portray young girls as Cinderellas, for example, The Princess Diaries (2001, sequel 2004). The heroine of Ella Enchanted (2004), although dependent upon princely attention, somewhat supersedes her cindered past when she throws off her curse and rescues her prince — a great role reversal.

Literary heroines are largely products of their authors’ cultures and historic times.

British Empire girls generally are presented as pretty but plucky.

The courageous young heroine of the visually stunning A Little Princess (1995, from the book by English author Frances Hodgson Burnett) lacks a prince but does have a rich father and an exotic Indian Sikh friend. Still, she is the one who risks danger to save the day. Anne of Green Gables (novel series by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery, various film versions) has been the role model for generations of forthright and fearless British Empire girls.

Whale Rider (2002) and Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002) present a post-Empire view of pre-pubescent girls (aged 8-13) who have a strong say in their destinies, however daunting their circumstances.

Whale Rider (directed by a New Zealand woman, Niki Caro) is based on a book by Maori author Witi Tame Ihimaera. In both works a Maori girl, Pai, struggles against sexism to assume the position of tribal leader. The movie won many regional film festival awards as well as a Special Recognition for Excellence in Filmmaking award from the National Board of Review.

Rabbit-Proof Fence (directed by Phillip Noyce who was raised in Australia’s outback) is a film version of Australian Aborigine writer Doris Pilkington Garimara’s true story. In her book and the film Aboriginal girls defy an early twentieth-century Australian policy. Half-breed children were placed in boarding schools in order to obliterate their native culture and language and make them acceptable servants for white Australian society, a practice closely related to U.S. government treatment of Native American children.

The girls demonstrate their intelligence, perseverance, and strength when they return to their own people by following the “rabbit-proof fence” that runs north-south through the center of Australia’s outback. Rabbit-Proof Fence won Best Director and Freedom of Expression Awards from the National Board of Review.

A third film, Osama (2003), represents Afghan director Siddiq Barmak’s idea of how a girl might have behaved and related to her destiny under Taliban rule.

Afghanistan was never part of the British Empire, although the British tried for two centuries to acquire it.

Osama is the name given a girl who disguises herself as a boy in order to support her fatherless family. Her mother is unable to work because the Taliban did not allow women out of the house unless accompanied by a male relative.

Osama is reluctant to assume this role. She is timid and frightened, especially when the Taliban drag her off to a school for boys. She is taunted by her male schoolmates as a sissy and forced to climb a tree. Most Western girls have no problem with trees but Osama is so scared that she cannot get down by herself.

Unlike the girls in Whale and Rabbit, Osama has little control over her fate. She is portrayed as much less self-confident than contemporary Western girls.

Canadian author Deborah Ellis wrote three novels using the same idea as Barmaq. In her books, a young Afghan girl, Parvanna, successfully masquerades as a boy in order to feed her fatherless family.

Blaming the male director/writer of Osama for a “retro” view of a young Afghan girl probably is unfair given women’s real fates under the Taliban. Barmaq’s portrait of Osama may be more realistic than Ellis’s stark but more hopeful characterization.

Most copies of Afghanistan’s films were destroyed by the Taliban, although many original reels were saved by brave museum workers. Osama is the first post-Taliban Afghan film. It earned a Camera d’Or special mention and a Golden Globe for best foreign film.