The Blockbusters That Shaped Us: Structure & Style in 'Cinderella'

Karin Maxey
.February 24, 2025

Cinderella (1950)
Courtesy of Walt Disney Animation Studios

This one is for the Dreamers.

Dreamers with seemingly insurmountable goals and the courage to go for them. Courage that has them making difficult choices, but they also choose to be kind.

Sound like a particular fair-haired, blue ballgown-wearing, glass slipper-missing princess we know?

I’ll be real for a second, Cinderella (1950) was never a favorite growing up. I was a Belle and Ariel fan. Their worlds spoke to me—something about them being more fantastical than my reality was appealing. Then along came Drew Barrymore and Dougray Scott in Ever After: A Cinderella Story (1998) and…huh. Cinderella suddenly seemed a little more interesting. (Something to do with the prince being a more consequential character with actual motivations and thoughts of his own? Possibly. Thank you, writers Andy Tennant, Susannah Grant and Rick Parks.)

Then, 65 years after her first silver screen debut, Cinderella stepped out in glittering blue again Disney-style—but also, live action. The mouse’s first live-action princess remake following the success of 101 Dalmatians and Alice in Wonderland. Under Kenneth Branagh’s steady hand and written into life by Chris Weitz in 2015, Lily James and Richard Madden met at the ball only to fall in love much to the chagrin of Cate Blanchett. This time, Cinderella had my heart. And I gave the original animated classic a second chance.

What is it about a good “Cinderella story” that has us hooked?

What is it about this particular girl that has inspired dozens of film adaptations?

The many writers of Disney’s animated classic adapted it themselves from Charles Perrault’s 1637 tale, “The Little Glass Slipper” after all. Their credits could fill a writers’ room: Bill Peet, Erdman Penner, Ted Sears, Winston Hibler, Homer Brightman, Harry Reeves, Ken Anderson, Maurice Rapf, and Frank Tashlin. It was this dream team that ensured Walt’s wish that Cinderella would “revive the Studios; economic footing after a debilitating, war-ravaged decade” beginning with its world preview at New York City’s “The Cinderella Ball” on February 13^th, 1950.

Cinderella’s courageous and kind, definitely a dreamer…but so are many film heroines. I think it’s Cinderella’s structure that’s sweetest to storytellers the world over. Its simplicity allows so much room to play in between the beats with zero worries the audience will get lost, because everything about it is so crystal clear.

Girl wants to go to the ball. Her sweet four-legged friends try to help while her nasty step-sisters and step-mother try to thwart her wishes. The big obstacle? They destroy her dress, ruining her chances of going! That’s when Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother steps in. Don’t we all wish we had one of those?! But Cinderella has the belief in her Fairy Godmother, the courage to still go despite the looming consequences, and is rewarded by meeting the love of her life. There’s even a ticking clock—literally—that strikes at midnight. We get one last shot at true love which naturally her evil step-family tries to thwart yet again, but that’s the beauty of a Disney movie: True Love always wins.

When you Google Walt these days Disney doesn’t come up first, but rather Walt from Breaking Bad and in an age when villains are overly glorified, sexualized, and given the limelight on streaming TV, there’s something about a true Cinderella story where the underdog gets where they’re going by being…good. Who would’ve thought?

A soundtrack of success

What’s a Disney movie without its music? Cinderella was nominated for two Academy Awards® for hers! “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo” was up for Best Song, while the soundtrack in its entirety was up for Best Scoring of a Musical Picture. Deservedly so: the animated classics used music and sound so beautifully to drive emotion and underscore theme by replaying its central song in variations throughout.

The musical credits-first opener common to decades past that moved into Cinderella’s sunrise palette and her opening song, “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes” sets up the whole movie and theme. She’s a dreamer, but also a realist who doesn’t shy away from the day’s work. Cinderella’s furry friends—OK, the mice. She was friends with mice and birds and made it look fun. You genuinely rooted for her, because she was kind to all, still diligently did her work while accepting her lot, yet had an inner fire one wishes for themselves.

We start immediately in Cinderella’s dilemma, and the music helps us do that, while the 2015 live action remake illustrates more of her past and how she got to be in such a horrible plight. Both types of beginnings have their merits, and really depends on which school of screenwriting you hail from!

The latter feels more “necessary” for today’s demanding audiences. We’ve seen a lot of stories, after all; far more than they had 75 years ago when Cinderella debuted. Even since 1997 when Rodgers & Hammerstein gave us Brandy’s Cinderella (because how could we talk about a musical Cinderella without the one featuring Brandy and Whitney Houston?! Even Disney brought it into canon by making Brandy Mama Cinderella in the recent Descendants franchise!).

We might’ve been content with the idea of a two-dimensional prince once upon a time—what more did we need to know? That meant he was good and handsome and kind, right? But in an era where all the lines between good and evil blur more every day for all the reasons we hungrily dig up, we deserve more rounded characters reflective of that truth.

The B Story buddies and why they work

But back to 1950 when even the mice have their own B Story struggle. As secondary characters, their goals—to be helpful—are crucial to good structure in that they underscore Cinderella’s theme: Kindness and courage are rewarded. The film does give us a little look behind the motivations of the parental figures: her stepmom, his father the king and their parallel interests are interestingly the same: the best for their children. Which creates opposition even though the goals are the same.

A dream is a wish the heart makes

This story is so incredibly relatable on a base, human level thanks to its sparkly structure. We need champions; unlikely heroes to root for, to inspire us to go for our own dreams no matter how vastly different they might seem. We all want to succeed against the odds life throws at us. And most of us, I’d wager, want to achieve that by being a good person. Maybe even lifting up others around us while we do so.

Everyone loves a good underdog story. You root for the ones with you can empathize with. Every sports movie ever in my opinion could be a variation on the Cinderella theme. You have a group being held back, down, misunderstood and used…then they have their chance at the big game! They win by being good at what they do, and most importantly, by being themselves.

It was Cinderella in her glass slippers that paved the way for them on screen, giving audiences (and screenwriters in search of inspiration!) plenty to learn from for what it was, and how it can teach us to do—and be—better. A blockbuster of the heart for so many little girls out there who dared and continue to dream big because like Cinderella said, “Well, there’s one thing: They can’t order me to stop dreaming.”