Many months ago I decided to watch “A Cinderella Story”.
The movie “A Cinderella Story” is a modern day version of the old Disney classic “Cinderella”.
Movie Summary:
This movie takes place in the 21st century in a small town within the United States, and features Hillary Duff as Sam, a unpopular high school senior, who's mom died soon after she was born. When she was around eight years old her father passed away trying to save her stepmother during an earthquake. Having lost both of her parents, she finds herself living with her “evil” stepmother and two twin stepsisters who hate her and force her to scrub floors at at her father's old diner.
Having talked to an anonymous boy over email for several weeks, and realizing he attends her school, Sam decides to finally meet him at the high school's Halloween homecoming dance at the center of the stage. The only problems being that she has no costume to wear, and her stepmother expects her to be at the diner cleaning floors, not the homecoming.
Her close family friend and mentor from before her father died, as well as her loser friend from school, help her find a costume and prevent her stepmother from finding out where she went for the night.
Once at the dance Sam meets her mystery man, who happens to be Austin, the most popular guy in the school, she realizes she has to return to the diner before her family makes it back before she does. On her rush out the doors she drops her cell phone, which leads Austin on a search to find out who the princess was that he danced with at homecoming. Not wanting to tell Austin who she is in fear that he will not like her anymore, Sam keeps her identity a secret.
As her evil stepsisters search through her emails, they find the emails from Austin and decide to create a mean play to preform at the upcoming pep rally in front of the entire school, because they do not think that Sam belongs with him as they like him as well.
The play ends up hurting Sam and she does not want to see Austin anymore because she thought he was the one who created the play.
In the end Austin ends up following what he believes in, and ends up with Sam. Together, they find her father's hidden will, which leaves all of his possessions to Sam. After packing up all of her belongings, selling her stepmother and stepsister's cars, and restoring the diner to it's original state when her father owned it, she escapes to Princeton University with Austin.
While viewing this movie, I was able to pick out many archetypes from Greek and Roman mythology.
Some of them being:
Heroic archetypes
Hero as a Lover: Austin Aims is Prince Charming and saves Sam from her entrapment under her stepmother's close watch.
Archetypal Journeys
The Search for love: Austin finds a way to be with the girl that he loves and helps her find a way to be happy.
Stages of the Hero's Journey
Departure: This stage occurs when he finds Sam's dropped cell phone.
Initiation: Austin falls in love with who Sam and finds out who she really is.
The Road of Trials: Austin has to face many trials as he continues on his quest for love. Some of the things he goes through include deciding to date Sam even though everyone is making fun of them because she is unpopular, Choosing Sam over his ex-girlfriend Shelby, and facing the actions of his ex-girlfriend and Sam's evil stepsister who try to break them apart.
The Innermost cave: Austin chooses Sam over his football career.
Return and reintegration with society: Austin helps Sam find her father's hidden will, which allows her to get rid of her step-family and the two of them go off to their dream school, Princeton.
Characteristics of the Hero's Journey
The Hero Struggles for Something Valuable or Important: Austin faces many delays when striving for the love of a less popular girl.
Situational Archetypes
Innate Wisdom vs. Educated Stupidity: Sam has had a worse education than her stepsisters and yet her sisters, who were given a superior education, are way more unintelligent.
This is also seen between Sam and Shelby (Austin's ex-girlfriend), as Sam is smart and Shelby is stupid, having had the extra education.
Symbolic Archetypes
Colours:
White- Usually symbolizes purity, peace and innocence. In this movie, Sam's homecoming dress is white, showing that she is innocent, pure and peaceful. This helps the viewer realize that her love for Austin is pure and that she is innocent and does not deserve to be trapped and slaved by her Stepmother.
Blue- Sam is seen in blue throughout the entire movie, symbolizing that she is innocent and truthful. This colour of clothing being seen on Sam from the beginning of the movie to the end, present the idea that Sam does not deserve all of the mistreatment she is encountering.
Austin is also seen in blue clothing, suggesting that he is also truthful and innocent to some extent as well.
Green- Austin is constantly seen in green throughout the movie, presenting the idea that he is full of hope and sympathy. This idea of Austin being sympathetic is confirmed when he goes after Sam to help her having just been made fun of in front of the entire school.
Nature:
Center- During the homecoming dance, Austin and Sam meet in the center of the dance floor and dance in the center of the gazebo. This idea of the center represents timelessness, unity, spacelessness and paradise, suggesting that Austin and Sam are meant to be together.
Rain- At the end of the movie, Austin chooses Sam over his football career being forced on him by his father. Because rain usually represents the idea of the giver of life, Austin is suggested to have begun a new life, as he leaves his father's plan for his life, and enters into a new life with Sam.
Objects:
Masks- The idea presented by masks is concealment, so when Sam comes to the Halloween homecoming dance in a mask, she is suggested to be concealing something from someone. This is confirmed when Austin and Sam meet at the dance, because she conceals her identity from him.
Character Archetypes
The Hero: Austin is the hero in this movie, as he sets out to save Sam from her evil step-family out of his love for her.
The Outcasts: Carter (Sam's best friend) is an outcast, as he is rejected by the rest of his school because he is uncool and “weird”.
Sam is also considered an outcast, as she has also been rejected by her fellow students because she is unpopular and hangs out with Carter.
The Temptress: Shelby (Austin's ex-girlfriend) is a temptress, because she pulls Austin off of his path to find his true lover.
The Evil Figure with the Ultimately Good Heart: Austin's popular friends would be this type of character archetype because in the beginning they prevent Austin from being with the unpopular girl that he loves, however, later in the movie they support Austin's choice to be with who he is with.
The Star-crossed Lovers: This is seen between Austin and Sam, as they both love each other, but are not supposed to be together due to the fact that they are on opposite sides of the popularity scale at their school.
This movie is somewhat like the movie I watched for my first blog, “Snow White”, in that “Prince Charming” rescues his princess, however, instead of risking his life to save her, Austin risks his social life.
Do you think that it is more praiseworthy to risk your life for someone, than it is to risk your social life for them?
All of the character archetypes in “A Cinderella Story” really interested me, but mainly the idea of the “star-crosses lovers”. In this movie, Austin, the most popular guy in school falls in love with Sam, an unpopular girl.
In this movie, and in most movies were we see the “star-crossed lovers” archetype, it appears to be an odd occurrence, simply because the two people are not meant to be together, but are together anyway. This archetype usually leads to a happy ending for the lovers.
Do you think that this archetype can also lead to a very unhappy ending, where one or both lovers are hurt?
One example of this is in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.
Can you think of any others?
Recently I read the myth of Hades and Persephone.
In this myth, Hades sees Persephone, during one of his trips out of the Underworld , and falls deeply in love with her. Having made his decision to kidnap her to marry her, he devises a plan with Zeus.
Hades and Zeus crack the ground open underneath her feat and she falls to the Underworld, where she was forced to marry Hades against her will.
This myth seems to have the archetype of the "star-crossed lovers" because the god and the human do not belong together. The only difference is that the love was one sided in the beginning as Hades loved Persephone, but she does not share the same feeling towards him. After a while she came to love him, as she realized that there was no escaping him.
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