A simple woman in a plain dress. A dashing man in a pristine suit. She is a nobody. He is the most eligible bachelor in the room. Their eyes lock across a sea of strangers. And so begins a tumultuous love story. The world tries to tear them apart but, despite their differences, their love is strong enough to hold them together. And, as a nice little bonus, her romantic happily ever after comes with the perk of a whole bunch of money – and a healthy dose of social status to boot.
This is, of course, the basic premise of the Cinderella story. And it’s a tale as old as time. But it’s also one I kind of imagined we had left firmly in the past. After all, the most basic rules of #feminism are that we don’t need to rely on men for our own financially stable happily ever afters, right? Well, apparently, we have all started to become a little more open to the idea of a good old-fashioned Cinderella story of late.
Of course, the best love stories are always about star-crossed lovers: couples who are kept apart by… something. Sometimes it’s a misunderstanding. A family feud. Another romantic interest. But these days, the only thing we seem to be interested in seeing is a couple torn apart by class. Is it just me, or does everything seems to be a rehashed version of Cinderella RN?
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The most obvious is, of course, the latest season of faux-Regency era romance series Bridgerton. Maid Sophie Baek (Yerin Ha) is not like the other maids, because she has a perfect RP accept and speaks French, by the way. She takes a night off, dons a giant silver mask and attends the Bridgerton ball. There, she locks eyes with Benedict Bridgerton (Luke Thompson), who has recently been dubbed the season’s most eligible bachelor. After pining for the mysterious Lady in Silver for a while, he falls for the maid version of Sophie – and a whole lot of drama ensues, most of which, is all to do with their insurmountable class differences. It’s hardly a huge spoiler to reveal that Sophie will indeed get her happily ever after – in this case, a life of true love funded, of course, by the bank of Bridgerton.
Then there’s Hulu’s Love Story, another of the year’s biggest TV romances, which transplants the Cinderella story to ‘90s New York City. The Ryan Murphy show follows the real-life story of Carolyn Bessette (Sarah Pigeon), who married NYC’s most eligible bachelor John F. Kennedy Jr. (Paul Anthony Kelly) just a few years before they died in a tragic plane crash in 1999. Despite Carolyn’s cool girl status denoted by her all-black minimalist wardrobe and chic job at Calvin Klein, the show makes sure to inform us that, ultimately, she is kind of a social nobody who was plucked from the obscurity of a Boston mall. JFK Jr., on the other hand, is a tabloid darling, a People’s Sexiest Man Alive recipient, and, as a Kennedy, basically American royalty. Carolyn’s friends and family are flabbergasted that she has managed to land this modern day “Prince Charming.”
To give both Sophie and Carolyn a little credit: neither of them seem particularly interested in their respective love interests’ money and status. In fact, in both cases, they see it as more as a nuisance than a selling point. Nevertheless, both shows can’t help but paint their versions of the Cinderella story as the ultimate fantasy.
