The film Ever After can be considered one that digresses from the many conventional film adaptations of the classic fairy-tale Cinderella. It avoids placing the heroine in a position of ‘damsel in distress’ as per the conventional storylines of classic fairy-tales or period films of this nature. This is evident especially in the plot twist towards the end when Danielle seeks emancipation from Pierre Le Pieu to whom she is sold as a slave by her stepmother, Rodmilla. Here, the protagonist subverts the traditional mise-en-scene of a passive and submissive heroine by challenging the Hegelian master-slave relationship in which the woman as the “other” is relegated to the position of a powerless subject (Beauvoir, 2010). Hence, the film not only depicts the “angel” like image of the heroine promoted through fairy tales but also an unconventional “monster” like image in the way she seeks her emancipation (Gilbert and Gubar, 1979). Through this fluid portrayal of Danielle, the character is freed from the frames of a traditional victimised fairy-tale heroine.
The stark transition in Danielle’s identity seen towards the end or the “monster” image is depicted through her masculinised identity. Her refusal to submit to Pierre’s advances and the manner in which she threatens to castrate him with his own sabres depict the image of a “phallicized woman” who is perceived as masculine and violent (Creed, 1993). The violence demonstrated through Danielle in this particular scene through phallic symbols such as the sword and sabre in a way is also symbolic of the “femme-fatale” image in film noir (Liang, 2015). Thus, the film does not construct Danielle as a stereotypically feminine character in terms of gender identity when compared to the fairy-tale heroines.
Despite this subversion of fairy tale character construction through the protagonist, one theme that the film emulates is female rivalry. The motif of the evil stepmothers and stepsisters is once again resonant in this film. However, digression even in this respect can be observed through the character of Jacqueline (one sister) who is portrayed as a kind and sympathetic character towards Danielle’s plight but is also victimised by her mother and other sister. Further, the replacement of the fairy godmother by a historical male character such as Da Vinci also subverts gender roles and ideologies promoted through traditional genres.
Due to these thematic strands and characterisations, from a film studies perspective, Ever After can be categorised as a type five film according to Jean-Louis Comolli and Jean Narboni’s classification of film types (1969). These type films at first glance or even in the first few scenes seem to conform to the dominant ideologies of their genre but as the film progresses, it ruptures this very ideology in different instances through various devices as discussed above. Hence, in Ever After the gender dynamics reflected attempts to challenge ideologies that are often promoted through this type of genre.
References
Beauvoir, S. (2010). The second sex. Translated by C. Borde and S. Malovany-Chevallier, New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Comolli, J. and Narboni, J. (1990). Cinema/Ideology/Criticism. In: N. Browne, ed., Cahiers Du Cinema, 3rd ed. [online] London: Routledge. Available at: https://culturetechnologypolitics.files.wordpress.com/.../cahiers_du... [Accessed 1 Jan. 2017].
Creed, B. (1993). The Monstrous-feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis. 1st ed. [ebook] Sussex: Psychology Press. Available at: https://books.google.com.au/books?id=90lCwCcQaTYC&source=gbs_book_other_versions [Accessed 22 Oct. 2016].
Gilbert, S. and Gubar, S. (1979). The madwoman in the attic. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Liang, Y. (2015). Female Body in the Postmodern Science Fiction. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 5(10).
