The REAL Story Behind Disney Movie

Cinderella

By now, most of us know about the Grimm's version of Cinderella, where the Prince spreads tar on the palace steps in the hopes that Cinderella will get stuck as she tries to flee. His plan fails however, and only her shoe is left sticking in the tar. Her sisters, who are "beautiful but black of heart" both attempt to fool the Prince into marrying them. One sister slices off her big toe so that she may fit the slipper, the other slices off her own heel. Their deceit is unmasked when Cinderella's enchanted birds point out the blood on their stockings to the Prince. The sister's eyes are pecked out as punishment for their cruelty and deceit. Though this is an excellent version of Cinderella, this is not the version Disney actually based their movie on.

Disney's Cinderella was based on a very tame story by Charles Perrault, published 1697. Perrault's version plays out almost exactly like the Disney version. However, both Perrault's and Grimm's versions contain elements from The Cat Cinderella, published in 1634, by Giambattista Basile. Though tame for a Basile fairy tale, it is worth noting that in this version, Cinderella confides in her seemingly kind Governess about the cruelty of her step-mother. The Governess tells Cinderella that to fix her problem she will need to kill her step-mother by slamming the lid of a large wooden chest down on her step-mothers throat, which will break her neck.

Cinderella must then convince her father to marry the Governess. Cinderella kills her step-mother and the marriage goes ahead. It turns out though that the Governess was hiding her own seven beautiful daughters out of sight, and when she produces them, Cinderella's father loses interest in his own daughter. They all start to mistreat Cinderella, abusing her and calling her names, and she is sent to the kitchens to work as a servant (she is now given the name 'Cat Cinderella'. previously her name was Zezolla). The rest of the story carries like a traditional Cinderella tale, and actually has a happy ending all round, but it's nice to know that Cinderella wasn't always so innocent.

Yep, well the Into the Woods was kinda right but not all :/