Some Cinderella’s Castle race analysis
While Cinderella’s castle isn’t explicitly about race because it’s in a colorblind fantasy world, I do still think the implications of Ella being a black woman are still there.
I think the fact that she isn’t take seriously and called crazy and over the top parallels the experience of black women really well. Black women’s pain and struggles aren’t taken seriously, and they’re called hysterical or over the top for asserting their boundaries or asking for help.
This also makes me think of how black people’s mental health is treated. They are more likely to get diagnosed with highly stigmatized behavioral disorders in order to dismiss their emotions as just the byproduct of a disorder that makes them more “obstinant.”
I think this is especially poignant because it’s in contrast to her white step mother. Yes they’re both women and exist under patriarchy, but ultimately when it comes to believing the white woman or the black woman, who do the people choose?
Also her story is centered around *validating her anger and revenge.* Black people are expected to sit back and be fine with racism, and forget slavery ever happened and ignore the micro agression. We are expected to be “civil and respectable” in the face of our own dehumanization and oppression.
Cinderellas castle says no, fuck that, let her have her revenge and be angry and kill the people who took her family away from her. Let her have resentment and anger because she deserves to because what was done to her was horrible.
While we’re here the trolls really feel like a metaphor for cultural appropriation. They marry into the house of ashmore, and then they kill the head of the house immediately after, taking their land, their home, their resources.
ON TOP OF THAT, they literally steal other people’s skin. They kill people, and use their bodies to parade around as though they are human too.
Yes all three of the trolls are in white bodies, but I still think there’s something to be said about how this parallels the appropriation of black culture.
They pretend to be human, to be of the house of ashmore externally, but internally they are still trolls. This is not who they are and it is not their culture, nor are these even their bodies.
Then they turn around to the person WHOS LIFE THEY STOLE, and force her to do unpaid labor for them. Like it’s literally slavery.
This also makes me think of how interracial family dynamics can lead to racism within families, and how neither blood nor marriage stop people from perpetuating racism against those meant to be their kin.