Cinderella Stories

 When I was in high school, I had the unfortunate experience of being in the musical "Cinderella." You know who she is. She's someone who's tormented and lonely for no reason, despite secretly being the most beautiful girl in the kingdom. Some mice make her a really nice dress, and she becomes a princess.

Cinderella stories are kind of a trope. The plain, overlooked girl somehow becoming the object of everyone's desire. Sometimes because she changes something slightly about her appearance, sometimes ... just because. It seems like a lot of writers want to create a female lead who is a loser, but at the same time there can be nothing wrong with her, and it doesn't really make sense. 

This has been parodied by the movie Marge and Lisa Simpson see together: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zm8sfVbKUUY

And of course, there's Peter Griffin explaining the law of 80's movies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDPJQJ3a6kI

There are plenty of modern Cinderellas, and here we shall discuss four of them.

4. HERMIONE GRANGER -  THE HARRY POTTER FRANCHISE

Aw, shucks, Hermione doesn't have any friends at all! Then she makes friends with Harry and Ron, who don't even realize she's a girl! But then in the fourth book, she uses magic to straighten her "bushy" hair and do something about her teeth, and goes to the ball with Viktor Krum. The book, which is written from Harry's perspective, I think says something like "Viktor Krum had an incredibly beautiful girl on his arm that they didn't recognize." Well, dang, this girl who was supposed to be a loser ended up being incredibly beautiful, because they can't actually have a non-beautiful girl as a main character. Also, Harry and Ron don't even recognize their best friend because ... she straightened her hair ... but now she is like catnip to them, and others. I think in the seventh book she goes as Ron's date to a family wedding and Ron's aunt says something like, "She's pretty, but he has skinny ankles."

Okay, first of all, that's not a thing. This book was written by a woman, and she couldn't give Hermione any actual flaws, so skinny ankles are a thing. I'm reminded of a really, really terrible episode of Bob's Burgers where the reason Tina is an outcast is because of her skinny legs. So she puts on a Thanksgiving musical about how it's okay to have skinny legs and borderline molests her likely brain-damaged crush, Jimmy Jr. I wish I were kidding, but that is a thing that happened, and we all have to come to terms with it.

Hermione started out as an outcast, but it was determined that she had to be perfectly feminine and beautiful in every way and end up with one of the main male characters. Her only flaws were her intellect and activism. More characters like that later.

3. BEVERLY MARSH - THE IT FRANCHISE

Oh, what to say about Beverly. I mean, what CAN I say about Beverly that would keep this blog PG.

Beverly is a loser. She's the only female member of the Losers Club from Stephen King's classic book and two miniseries adaptations. 

Why is she a loser? It's never made clear. She just is, ok? But also, she's gorgeous. Her hair is winter fire, January embers, and your heart burns there too. In the book, all 6 of the other members of the Losers Club fall for her, ending in a gang-bang of a bunch of 11-year-olds, and, again, I wish I were kidding. In the book, though Beverly is a loser, Stephen King constantly describes how attractive she is, to the point it gets weird. She's also a perfect shot and saves the day multiple times, like so many a Hermione before and after her. She's a loser and also a goddess. Can we not have ... just a normal, relatable female character? Was King overcompensating for having only one female character, our of the seven members of the Losers Club? Sometimes people just don't know how to write for females.  More on that later.

2. DIANE NGUYEN - BOJACK HORSEMAN

Here we come to a deeply flawed Cinderella.

Like the character who will be my #1, Diane sabotages so many chances of happiness because she is an egomaniac who cannot admit that she is. Like Hermione, like Beverly, Diane was bullied by all the mean girls at school, but ... why? She's portrayed as very attractive and smart. We never know the reason that any of these characters were tormented, other than, well, it's a trope. As an adult, Diane has two major celebrities in love with her, and she leads them on and strings them along for all she's worth. She even sits by without much comment when they very overtly fight over her.

Even after she's left her husband, Mr. Peanut butter, she knows that she could sleep with him any time she wants, and does a couple times. She also hits on BoJack at one point, and he turns her down because she's been drinking, maybe one of the most decent things he's done on the show. But he retains a deep, deep dependence on her for the rest of the series. It seems all the men around her do.

Diane's problem, though, is that she believes that she is a Cinderella and needs to be special, needs to be the smartest person in the room. This causes two breakdowns. The first is when she decides to go to a war-torn country and make a difference, only to find out she can't handle it. The second is when she attempts to write her autobiography and realizes she doesn't have the "good damage" she thought she had, and doesn't really have anything that poignant to say. This sinks her into a spiral where she's forced to accept that she might just be a normal person, and she might need to write things that are not about her. Luckily, at that point, she has a supportive boyfriend who loves her but doesn't ooze with worship like Mr. Peanut butter and BoJack did (and he loves Chicago! and he's voiced by Lakeith Stanfield!) so she works her way out of it.

When I first watched this show, I hated Diane during the first season. But by the time we get to the last episode, with her final conversation with BoJack, I'm crying. Trust me. I still cry.

1. LISA SIMPSON - THE SIMPSONS

But Mandie, you say, you love The Simpsons. You are made out of Simpsons.

Yes, I am. I can still criticize something I love.

Lisa is the most inconsistently written Cinderella on this list.

I kind of considered including Meg Griffin on this list, as they also can't seem to pick a lane with her. Either she's a disgusting monster who can't get a guy to look at her twice and practices kissing with her brother or with possums, or, she has banged everyone in town and has abortions on a regular basis. I'm reminded of my #2 recalling her childhood torment and saying, "They called me a virgin whore and I asked how I could possibly be a virgin and a whore." Meg was the result of a male writing staff not knowing how to write for a teenage girl and picking whatever lane worked for the current joke. But, she doesn't count as a Cinderella. Most people get with her out of desperation. There were a few nice-seeming guys that dated her, like that Amish guy who chose Amishness over her, the handsome prince who was immediately shot by Stewie, the guy on the cruise ship who was immediately beheaded, the normal-seeming guy who then made out with her mom, the prison escapee didn't seem too bad ... no, Meg doesn't make this list. Shut up, Meg.

But Lisa sure does. 

It's hard to judge whether any of the Simpons are supposed to be attractive, because, I mean, they aren't drawn like humans. Marge is supposed to be incredibly, incredibly hot, but what of Bart and Lisa. There's an episode where they realize they don't have hairlines and they freak out. 

Ever since "Moaning Lisa," her thing has been that she's incredibly sad and has no friends. They revisit this in other episodes like "Summer of 4' 2" and the abysmal "Lisa Goes Gaga" when she is voted the least popular kid in school.

But, when the plot needs it, she has a friend named Janey. This is usually something like Bart asking where Lisa is and Marge saying, "She's at Janey's, so you need to clean this up yourself."

And, every male character within her age range is in love with her. Milkhouse, Nelson, Martin, Ralph, and every one-off male character in her age range who ever shows up on the show. The kid from the La La Land episode. The kid from the Hemingway episode. The kid from the Simpsons Movie. The kid who wanted to be a competitive eater. Every. Male. Character. Loves. Lisa.

And here's another case where they can't pick a lane. Either she's the least popular person in the entire world, or she's the most celebrated. And, because she is, like my #2, an egomaniac, she doesn't handle the celebration very well.

In the majority of the flash forward episodes, Lisa ends up with Millhouse. That used to always bother me. I hate the "if the nice guy is persistent, he'll always get the girl" plotlines. But, on my most recent watch-through, I noticed Lisa strings Millhouse and Nelson along to the same degree that Diane strung along Mr. Peanut butter and BoJack. The most egregious instance might be the episode where Millhouse gets a girlfriend, and Lisa starts stalking them out of jealousy. Millhouse says, in maybe one of the most affecting lines he's ever said, "You don't want me to be with you, you don't want me to be with anyone else, how miserable do I have to be before you're happy?"

Lisa's ego also means she cannot stand to be one-upped by anyone. When another girl gets first chair saxophone, she has a meltdown. When she finds out Maggie's IQ is slightly higher than hers, she runs away from home. Even in the Family Guy crossover episode, Lisa decides to find something that will make Meg feel better about herself, but when it turns out Meg is talented at the saxophone, Lisa tells her it would be a shame to waste such nice butcher's arms on a musical instrument.

Is Lisa an outcast, or the most desired pre-teen in Springfield? Is she compassionate, or an egomaniac? In conclusion, Lisa Simpson is a land of contrast.

Oh, and screw Flanders.