IS THIS THE greatest Disney film YOU’VE NEVER SEEN?
Forget Bippity Boppity Boo, this has Whitney and Whoopi, too!
Once upon a time, long before Elsa let it go or Moana shunned princess stereotypes, there came a film like no other in the Disney roster. Both classic and progressive, it gave us a fairy-tale world we recognised, but had never seen. One in which some babe called Cinderella was played by ’90s R&B teen star Brandy, and the white king and the black queen (one of them being Whoopi Goldberg) had birthed a dashing Asian Prince Charming. Oh, and in the most magical film casting in all the land, Whitney Houston was the Fairy Godmother. Yes, reader, Whitney ruddy Houston. We’ll let that sink in.
So, why, pray tell, has the made-for-tv masterpiece that was Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella been so cruelly overlooked for more than 20 years now? Why, like poor Cinders herself, has it spent aeons gathering dust and soot, while lesser contemporaries have stolen the spotlight? Clearly, it’s been hexed by an evil spell, and we refuse to let such wickedness slide any longer – because this movie was “woke” before woke meant more than rise and shine. It was camp before Cher ever believed she’d be singing ABBA tunes up a Grecian hill. And it toed the line between good and brilliantly naff way before High
School Musical 1, 2 and 3 hit our screens. Basically, it’s kind of a big deal – and we’ll tell you why.
Rewriting the story
Let’s set the scene: it’s 1997 and the world is still living in fairly close-minded times, not least in the US. There had never been a black president, Caitlyn Jenner (then Bruce Jenner) was still tormented by the certainty that she couldn’t be her “authentic self”, and it was only that very year that Ellen Degeneres shocked fans by coming out on primetime TV. So, when Disney remade this version of the fairy tale, which happened to be the only musical that Rogers and Hammerstein had ever written for television, it broke all kinds of ground. And the best part? It did so without making it a “thing”. It didn’t dwell on the fact that Victor Garber and Whoopi Goldberg had a Malaysian son, played in all his royal hotness by Paolo Montalban. It didn’t think for a second of the probabilities of the Evil Stepmother, played by Broadway legend Bernadette Peters, giving birth to multiracial daughters. And it didn’t pat itself on the back just because Cinderella had braids – it probably didn’t even notice. Let’s be clear: nothing was contrived here or used as a gimmick. It was just gloriously ahead of its time.
But while we applaud the progressive, that’s not the only reason we rate this long-lost gem. You must know by now that we have a soft spot for the fabulous, and this
movie is simply dripping in kitsch. Seriously, what could be more fabulous than Whoopi insisting on wearing $60million worth of Harry Winston gems because she couldn’t feel regal in costume jewellery? The rest of the cast, meanwhile, high-kick through an ostentatiously loud set wearing everything from peasant chic to brocade dresses with heaving ruffles and bustles. Jason Alexander, aka the lawyer douchebag from Pretty Woman, hams it up as the royal footman, complete with a hard-to-place European accent (something along the lines of Franck from Father Of The Bride). And the fairest of them all? It simply has to be Whitney.
Stealing the show
There’s no doubting that the Fairy Godmother’s anthem from 1958 is a classic, but you’ll be asking “Bippity Boppity who?” when you hear Whitney’s timeless belter. Dressed in a sparkling gold, bejewelled cape and matching body stocking, our dearly-departed diva belts out Impossible/it’s Possible, imploring Cinders to believe she is more than the rags on her back. “And because these daft and dewy-eyed dopes/keep building up impossible hopes/ Impossible things are happening every day” she roars with all the power of that key change in I Will
Always Love You. It’s epic, even more so when the singer starts poofing pumpkins into carriages and mice into fit horsemen.
Funnily enough, Whitney, also the film’s executive director, had originally been cast as Cinderella, but by the time production began, the singer felt too old to play the doe-eyed novice. So, she singled out 18-year-old Brandy to play the role, and the young singer agreed