Reinvention of a Fairytale: Cinderella

My choice to use Cinderella in our modern day society is inspired by our lack of

allowance to be courted. In fact, the roles have switched so much that we either find

ourselves courting the men or courting ourselves as women. This is not to say being

courted by a man is how society should operate, it is just to depict the changes we have

acquired over time.

My image shows a girl on a bed taking off her boot while the other one is on the floor

right in front of her. This is a contrast to the old Cinderella because she leaves her glass

slipper behind her and Prince Charming finds it to guide him to her. In our society, and in

this image, the boot is in front to show that Cinderella should find herself. She should be

her own Prince Charming. In modern day society, we have a habit of stressing that we

need to empower ourselves before we can find ourselves settling in a relationship.

The colours in the image have nothing to do with the fairytale we know. Cinderella was

wearing a light blue gown and she had blonde hair. In this one, I played with grey and

black because we are generally stuck in between two worlds; fantasy and reality. The

grey depicts the fantasy world whereas the black depicts what is reality.

Often we find ourselves fantasizing about our prince charming and we enjoy that but in

our modern day society, fantasies only go as far as making us feel good. The black

represents the fact that as women, rather single women, they will wake up alone and most

likely sleep alone. This for some can be debilitating in the sense that the grey can almost

overpower the black. Our fantasies can overpower our reality and end up making us feel

unhappy about the life we live.

Back to the action of Cinderella (in the image) taking off her shoe, this shows a presence

of awareness. She is aware of herself and how she has to help herself or work on herself.

In the image, she is taking control of her life and not waiting for Prince Charming to

come find her with her missing slipper.

Because Cinderella stresses the idea of a glass slipper, I got my model in the image to

wear shiny boots. This just to enhance the idea of her standing out among the rest like

Cinderella did in the fairytale. No one else had a glass slipper. Also, our modern day

Cinderella wears boots because she is a sign for women who are well planted on the

ground; down to earth in other words.

To conclude the idea of my modern day Cinderella, the idea of self-empowerment is vital

and the need to be courted by men has decreased severely over the years. However, there

are still occasions where we want our fantasy world to be our reality and that may mean

having to leave the glass slipper behind you.