Cinderella’s Harmful Construction Of Kindness

Is anger the opposite of kindness?

In the re-make of Disney’s Cinderella from 2015, the definition of kindness is clear: you must never get angry with others. The film depicts the heroine, Ella, as she controls her anger and remains kind no matter the amount of mistreatment she endures.

As a reward for her diligent kindness, a fairy godmother and a prince come to Ella’s rescue and she soon becomes Queen of the kingdom.

In light of Dr. Kristin Neff’s research on “self-compassion,” this construction of kindness teaches audiences (mainly children) to expect external rewards for ignoring their feelings and remaining passive in painful circumstances.

As Dr. Neff’s definition of kindness shows, sometimes getting angry is the only sustainable way to embody kindness – in no small part because doing so encompasses kindness toward the self.

Defining self-compassion

A scale to measure self-compassion was first created by Dr. Neff in 2003 when she split the concept into three components: mindfulness, common humanity, and self-kindness. Dr. Neff uses the term mindfulness to describe the act of acknowledging and accepting our feelings when we find ourselves in a given painful situation. Without mindfulness, we would not be able to address suffering because we would be ignoring (either consciously or unconsciously) our feelings.

Common humanity refers to accepting that suffering is part of the human experience – it is what allows us to not feel isolated in our pain.

Finally, self-kindness is the wish to alleviate our suffering and do what is necessary to change our situation.

Kindness = putting your own needs second?

Let’s first look at the mindfulness component of self-compassion and how Cinderella’s version of kindness opposes it.

In the film, Ella receives a “golden childhood” from her parents and because of this happy upbringing, she puts aside her own needs to meet those of others. Ella is so full of love from her childhood that she can give it out to others who are incapable of love. Containing her anger is considered “kind.” As her mother tells her, “have courage and be kind.”

While there is nothing wrong with “having courage” and “being kind,” it becomes clear as the film progresses that Ella’s understanding of these concepts keeps her from facing reality.

When Ella’s father marries another woman and she and her step-daughters move in, Ella remembers the words of her mother – bravery means meeting these people with compassion and understanding. Even though her step-mother looks down on her, Ella does not take this to heart. After the death of her father, Ella then becomes the maid of the house and her new step-mother manipulates her into moving up in the attic. She is the recipient of spiteful comments from her new family, who ill-use her and rename her “Cinderella.” Still, Ella is kind toward them and accepts her new role in the house without complaint.

Cinderella pretends everything is OK

As Ella performs all the household chores and endures her new family’s abuse, she only feebly acknowledges that her situation is hard. A talk with a friend, a horse ride in the forest, and a good cry near the well are all important scenes because they show her letting her emotions out in frustration about the unfairness of her situation. In a sense, they are moments that embody Dr. Neff’s concept of mindfulness.

However, for the most part, Ella represses her dissatisfaction with her step-mother’s treatment of her. In one scene, for instance, the family is seated in the dining room while Ella serves breakfast. Ella is about to take her seat when her step-mother asks her to return to the kitchen, stating that “it seems too much to expect you to prepare breakfast, serve it, and still sit with us. Wouldn’t you prefer to eat when all the work is done, Ella? Or should I say Cinderella?”

Ella makes a grimace, then bites the sour apple and does as told. The viewer can see the mental work Ella goes through, of first having a natural response and then controlling this emotion in order to execute the step-mother’s order. She doesn’t allow herself to get angry or show her natural response.

In effect, Ella doesn’t address her own suffering, the first component of Dr. Neff’s definition of self-compassion. She pretends everything is fine as it is.

Cinderella passively endures her situation

Since Ella does not acknowledge that her situation is difficult, she cannot take steps to change it.

When her step-mother locks her up in the attic, Ella lets it happen without a fight. Instead of trying to escape, she sits down on the windowsill and sings.

Her understanding of “kindness” prevents her from taking action to alleviate her own pain, the third element of self-compassion. She thinks that putting herself first would be unkind.

Don’t get angry and you shall go to the ball

The moment Ella acknowledges that her situation must change, her Fairy Godmother magically appears. Lucky for Ella, her Fairy Godmother helps her go to a royal ball where Ella meets the prince.

Ella is later saved by this same prince when she is sitting in the attic singing. He helps her out of the grip of the evil stepmother.

In the film, it is therefore not necessary for Ella to take active action on her own side to change her situation. Whenever she needs help, others come to her rescue.

As a result, the film’s message seems all the more strong: be kind toward others, don’t get angry, endure mistreatment, and you will be rewarded by external forces.

The courage to be self-kind

Instead of “having courage” and “being kind” enough to let others have their way, as Ella does, we should celebrate having the courage to be kind toward ourselves. Kindness for the self is a courageous act. The easy thing is to ignore what is happening and letting the status quo run its course.

Looking at Cinderella in this way invites the question -- what would the world look like if children looked up to characters who stand up for themselves and embrace self-compassion?

Would it be a world where children grow up knowing that anger, felt and expressed in a loving way, can be a form of kindness?  

TEACH YOURSELF | How To Add Feeling Through Composition

Artistic know-how does not need to be expensive or attained at a school like CalArts. That's why I research free online advice on drawing and encourage my readers to do the same. You can take your education into your own hands.

For this post, I explore the relationship between composition and feeling -- which is, of course, essential to understand for filmmakers. Conveying emotions through visuals is part of what makes filmmaking so exciting and creative!

My hope is that these handouts and videos, which I share below, can inspire students to learn the fundamentals of composition and feeling -- without paying a fortune!

Lines represent feelings

Here is a handout that was shared by Mark Kennedy on his blog Temple of the Seven Golden Camels. These illustrations, originally from the book Creative Illustration, show how different shapes connote different feelings. For instance, horizontals and verticals are calm, whereas diagonals are full of motion and tension.

(Source: sevencamels)

So depending on the mood of the piece you are working on, different lines and how they divide the canvas will aid in conveying that feeling you’re going for.

Brad Bird did a handout on how to add depth to your storyboards/compositions.

Pace and staging characters 

Here is also a video that analyzes the pacing of the camera moves in Brad Bird's movies and how such adds to the story of each film, respectively. Toward the end, there is a brief mentioning of symmetric vs. dynamic filmmaking.

Brad Bird- Playful Cinema from The Royal Ocean Film Society on Vimeo.

As this video highlights, how you make cuts and stage your characters has a great effect on the ‘feel’ of the movie.

Tony Zhou has made a similar video that explains why Edgar Wright’s filmmaking works so well – namely, because he takes advantage of the film medium and shows visuals that are funny, even without dialogue.

Edgar Wright - How to Do Visual Comedy from Tony Zhou on Vimeo.

I recommend taking a look at some (or all) of the videos Zhou has posted!

Characters and how they fit into the overall composition likewise connotes a lot about the feeling of a scene. For instance, a character can be visually depicted as taking up a large portion of a shot and we will sense that she or he is more important or powerful than any other given character.

This video, by Zachery Ramos-Tayolor, gives an example from the movie Steve Jobs. It highlights how the characters’ movement indicates who is in power.

Steve Jobs - Blocking & Realist Acting from Zackery Ramos-Taylor on Vimeo.

Similarly, Mark Kennedy did a blog post that analyzes the movements of characters and how such symbolize the power dynamics within a scene in Paths of Glory.

(Source: sevencamels)

The camera angle can also aid in power dynamics. When I was studying How to Train Your Dragon, I noticed that in scenes when Stoick was imposing, the camera angle was always placed up toward him and down toward Hiccup. This established a power relationship – Stoick seems authoritative, whereas hiccup is small and unsure.

Thanks for reading along! And as always, a thousand thanks to the artists who shared their advice online!

Good luck studying.

Why Tulipop Challenges Gender Stereotypes

Children’s books and films are ripe with gender stereotypes. Female characters are underrepresented, simplified, and typically hold back their anger to appear like ‘good girls.’ Meanwhile, male characters generally seem strong, domineering, and entitled.

Signý Kolbeinsdóttir, co-founder and creator of award-winning Icelandic design brand Tulipop, sees that these stereotypes have no basis in reality. Humans are complex and act in ways that transgress traditional ideas of gender. She wants her stories to portray such characters so that children may relate to them and find inspiration to be themselves.

Girls are not just pretty
Signý remarks that most children’s TV shows and books do not display girls in an interesting way. “I see stereotypes on TV that don’t exist in the real world,” she says. “I see girls who are fragile-looking flowers, who don’t dare to speak their minds and are just there to look pretty.”

As a little girl, the only books Signý related to were created by Scandinavian writers and illustrators such as the Swedish author Astrid Lindgren. She explains that these stories did not limit the scope of the characters’ humanity.

“Astrid Lindgren didn’t simplify what girls ‘like to do’ to mean only one thing,” Signý says. “Her female characters were brave and adventurous, but they could also be girly girls. Her stories didn’t make assumptions about what it means to be a girl.”

Relatable characters
For Signý, such depictions are essential because they are reflections of real human beings.

“No one is just their gender,” she says. “Human beings are far more complex. Not just adults; children are also complex. I want to create something that children can relate to. I do not want to create an ideal they think they have to aspire to in order to act their gender and please our world’s understanding of what it means to be a boy or a girl.”

Signý Kolbeinsdóttir the co-founder and creator of Tulipop

Kids learn from TV
Without a focus on creating multidimensional characters, Signý  believes that children’s TV shows and books may harm how children perceive themselves. “The fictional worlds we create for children become their reality. They learn how to behave, they learn what it means to be a boy or a girl, in part, from the stories we tell.”

“When a boy sees Spiderman, he might think masculinity means being physically strong and protective,” she continues. “We don’t have a representational balance whereby we show little boys that it’s also ok to show emotions, to read books or play with dolls if that’s who you are and what you like to do.”

Storytelling as healing
As children observe characters in books and films that challenge gender stereotypes, Signý hopes each child will find characters they can relate to – characters who freely express themselves and who can help children feel free to be who they are.

“TV shows that use gender stereotypes don’t help kids figure out how they feel,” she says. “For me, that’s a big part of storytelling – helping children process their own feelings. That’s why I like to create stories.”

Instead of telling children how to behave through stereotypical portrayals of gender roles, Signý is cognizant that her stories could help children question such roles. Confident that fictional characters can support children as they process the world and their feelings, Signý stands by Tulipop’s aim to transform limiting perceptions of gender.


This article first appeared on Tulipop's blog 

TEACH YOURSELF | Character Design

Can anything be appealing?

In animation, the answer is typically "yes." Character designers can make any design appear appealing based on the attitude and personality of the character. Even a villain needs some form of appeal, something that communicates who that character is -- else, the audience will be distracted by the design. 

If you'd like to study appeal, I'll share some advice and links to blogs online so that you can 'teach yourself' and use the knowledge available on the internet.

Defining "appeal"

As I hint above, appeal is not necessarily "beauty" – it’s a conscious design choice to make different forms and proportions stand out in a character, based on who that character is and what the designer wants the onlooker to feel. 

Appeal can take many different forms -- in Disney's Bambi, the designers chose to make the appeal apparent through contrasts; the head is big, compared to a small body. The legs are long, compared to the small body. The eyes are huge, compared to the rest of the head. These contrasts make the proportions 'appealing' to the eye because they give the eye various shapes to look at. 

The importance of negative space

In contrast, a design that has the same proportions might not be as interesting to look at or give the eye periods of "rests." The negative space (the places where not a lot of things are going on) in Bambi's design functions as a type of break for the eye. If you give the eye too much "sameness," the eye won't know where to look and you might automatically find the design 'unappealing' without consciously putting a finger on it.

Glen Keane put this concept very simply -- three shapes put right next to each other is not as 'appealing' as three shapes where two of them are closer to each other than they are to the third.

Coming back to Bambi, the designers also chose to make Bambi appealing through round shapes, which connote softness and typically 'cutifies' anything (whether or not it is appropriate to "cutify" in animation is a topic worthy of its own post).

As Bambi grows up, these proportions change. His head is smaller than his body and his legs appear shorter. However, his design is still made of varying, round shapes that make for an appealing design.

Advice on the web

Griz and Norm share a lot of tips about appealing design on their Instagram, Griz & Norm. Here is an example:

Mark Kennedy also has many posts devoted to appeal on his blog, The Temple of the Seven Golden Camels.

I hope you'll find helpful tips on these sites and that my explanation of appeal has made sense to you. Enjoy studying these concepts! 

You can read more of my Teach Yourself tips here

TEACH YOURSELF | Sincerity

How do you take a drawing from "good" to "amazing?"

Many mentors from all corners of the internet believe the answer lies in "attitude." According to them, putting personality into your gestures/sketches is the single most important thing you can do to make your drawings stand out and have people connect to them on an emotional level.

Disney's Nine Old Men referred to this concept as "sincerity" and described it as the act of transcribing on paper what makes a character unique -- and therefore believable.

So how can you go about practicing sincerity in drawing? The answer from online sources: observation.

In a few lecture videos below, Glen Keane explains how he likes to make mental notes about what is going on with the pose he is sketching. He will ask himself what it is about the subject he’s drawing that makes them unique and worth depicting. He will not only put a verb to the action of what is going on but also observe exactly how the character performs the verb. 

The drawing has to be saying something – it has to communicate a feeling or a unique characteristic of the subject. Capturing this attitude takes a gesture drawing to the next level.

Keane begins his lecture at 2:17.

All the things that you observe out in real life help you put truth into the characters you animate. Your observations help you make each character unique. Just think about it – when you sit down to animate, you start with nothing and have to create a believable performance out of that thin air. You’ll need to know a lot about human behavior to do that; you'll need to know where to draw inspiration from. 

So what are the little things that people do in real life? How do people differ? How would a shy person walk? A confident one? Through these observations, you'll have a reservoir of impressions to pull from when the time comes to animate or create a character design.

As Glen Keane says in the above video:

“If there’s anything that I want to communicate to you guys, it’s not principles of animation in terms of squash and stretch and overlap and anticipation. I mean, there are a lot of things that are really essential. But the most important thing that I want you to come away with is learning to see. Or I guess I should say, learning to observe.”

Here are a few extra quotes on the connection between sincerity and observation:

“My sketch books and the figure drawings are the source for everything I’ve ever animated. It’s all these observations. The little things that make a huge difference. You don’t see it unless you are drawing it, and you have to draw it. In order to draw it, you have to have observed it. You can see it, or you can really see it” – Glen Keane

“DUUUUDE, we live in permanent Christmas-land. There are all these presents, all these great faces, moments and stories just surrounding you, and you only have to open your eyes and look at them to have them. Incredible!” – Iain McCaig

Lastly, here is a link to a brief documentary about animation. About halfway through the film, Glen Keane and Joanna Quinn explain how they use their sketchbooks to make sincere observations that can later be used for their animation.

I hope these explanations prove helpful.

As always, thanks to the artists who have shared their advice online for us to teach ourselves.

You can read more of my Teach Yourself blog posts here