The idea of servitude offered in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is bumped up a notch in Cinderella. Snow White was rather intentional in her work for the dwarves. It is true that she used it as an exchange for a place to stay, but she willingly offered up her services to them, where Cinderella is absolutely forced to work as hard as she does.

    The movie begins in tandem with Cinderella’s average day, we wake up with her and follow her routine. It is not long before she is up and fetches the house cat, Lucifer, from his bed for breakfast and tells him, “It’s certainly not my idea to feed you first.” This is the first instance of many in this movie and more to come where animals are liberally portrayed eating, while humans, and especially women, are not. Cinderella proceeds to give Lucifer his breakfast before going outside and feeding all the farm animals. In this scene alone, she calls out the word “breakfast” seven times while feeding the chickens, sheep, horses, and more.  Even greater detail is given when the fattest mouse, Gus, is struggling to protect his portion of corn from a few chickens, and Cinderella steps in to ensure that he has a pile of food taller than he is. Before you know it, the ladies of the house are calling for their tea and breakfast and Cinderella runs off to serve them. Any possibility of her eating or drinking is entirely left out from this point on. We never see her take a single bite of food.

 

    Not only does Cinderella go hungry, but it should be noted that even the animals are fed before the other women of the house, who we never actually see eating anything. The consumption is merely implied. Meanwhile, an entire scene is based around Gus trying to bring so many corn kernels inside, that he makes a target of himself for Lucifer, causing a wild chase. These shenanigans go on for minutes on end and culminate in Cinderella being blamed for a mouse ending up in one of her step sister’s rooms, and receiving more housework as punishment. So in this movie we have major plot developments centered that all begin with animals eating, and yet the consumption of any sustenance by Cinderella does not exist.