I just recently finished reading a book by Malinda Lo, entitled Ash. Naturally, when I finish a book, I automatically tend to cast the hypothetical movie for it. And this is basically a post where I hypothetically cast a movie that is probably never going to happen. At least with me as casting director calling the shots on who will get to play these beloved characters.
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| Scarlett Johansson as Cinderella by Annie Leibovitz |
Cinderella is a story we’re all familiar with, right? Girl is taken advantage of by her stepmother upon the passing of her father, is made to be a slave, basically. One day, the Prince decides it’s about time he picked a wife so he decides to host a ball and invites all the eligible young ladies to it (because he obviously has no female friends or love interests to speak of). Cinderella’s stepsisters get to go but she doesn’t. In a twist of fate, she meets a fairy godmother who gives her all the princess perks, with the only condition being that the magic wanes at midnight. Cinderella goes to the ball, catches the eye of the Prince and they dance and fall in love exactly the way it happens in real life. Cinderella loses track of time and at midnight, rushes away, losing her glass slipper in the process. The Prince keeps it as souvenir and because he is totally blind, he has to try the slipper on every woman in the kingdom to find the Cinderella he fell in love with the night before. He finds her, marries her and because Cinderella is such a forgiving girl, she arranges for her two evil stepsisters to marry lords and they all live happily ever after.
Although the story of Cinderella is ancient, and has many names and different versions that exist across the world, the version that we are probably most familiar with is the Charles Perrault version. It has been adapted into every art form imaginable and even works that do not make direct reference to Cinderella still do contain elements of the story. There’s just something really alluring and fascinating about people who live terrible lives only to suddenly gain everything in the world. Here are some Cinderellas I grew up with:
Disney Cinderella. Despite living a horrible life and having a cruel and abusive family, this Cinderella seemed to still be happy enough to sing songs in the morning and sing songs while cleaning. She aided her family without a care in the world, and she made friends with mice and birds.
Julie Andrews Cinderella. Julie Andrews just wins at all things. She was my favourite person when I was younger and when I picture Cinderella in my head, she’s my default.
Brandy Norwood Cinderella. Where Whitney Houston played the fairy godmother. And Bernadette Peters played the stepmother. Need I say more? The cast itself screams epic. Amazing music adaptations, very quaint set design that was perfect for a live action fairytale. The music of Rodgers and Hammerstein never fails.
Drew Barrymore Cinderella. A modern version of Cinderella that finally made her seem more human. Drew Barrymore played her perfectly and one of the greatest things about this movie is that it at least tried to be historically accurate - from the costumes to the way people swam back in the day.
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Anne Hathaway Cinderella. An adaptation of the Gail Carson Levine novel, which is a re-telling of the Cinderella tale, Ella Enchanted does not follow the story to a T plot point. The movie itself strays even further from the book, which was quite mature and deep for a children’s novel. I remember reading it at the end of grade seven and thinking that it was the cutest love story I had ever read. I had never really looked at love stories that way before, but Gail Carson Levine’s depth of writing pulled me into that world like nothing else. The movie, unfortunately, did not capture that, and instead turned the book into a cheesy musical movie, targeting an audience familiar with Cinderella but not necessarily with Ella Enchanted. Despite that, I still enjoyed the movie for what it was, and Anne Hathaway is adorable in it.
Hilary Duff Cinderella. I know this movie was meant to be cute fluff and catered to the Disney Channel generation but man, it was annoying. I have nothing against Hilary Duff but she isn't the best actress and this movie was like walking into a Claire's Accessories store and walking out having bought a bunch of ugly overpriced stuff that you're never going to wear.
Anyway, onto Ash, which, though not at all on the same level as the Gail Carson Levine novel, could be seen as the Ella Enchanted of the 21st Century.
Ash is a modern re-telling of the classic Cinderella story, but with a queer twist. I was drawn to it because a) It had pretty good reviews, b) As cliché as it sounds, I really like Cinderella stories, and Disney’s Cinderella, though it scared the crap out of me as a kid, was still a movie that I made myself watch everyday, c) Lesbians and d) LESBIANS. I’ll admit it, I didn’t really adore Ash as much as I expected to. Although I loved the concept and the fantastical world that Lo created with this story, I still felt that the main Cinderella character, Aisling or better known as Ash, felt flat. I hate to think this, but in terms of personality or lack thereof, she would give Bella Swan a run for her money. I guess Cinderella in the original story wasn’t much of an interesting character herself, but I would have liked for Ash to be maybe a little more evolved than her earlier counterpart. In a way, Ash’s blandness made her relatable, but it also made her incredibly boring as a narrator. Normally, I love reading stories from the first person perspective. However, when the first person has the personality range of a toothpick, there’s only so much emotion you can get out of the text. And I think that was my big problem with it, the fact that there was little to no emotion. The text itself is beautiful. Although her writing can seem repetitive and predictable at times, Malinda Lo has a great talent for fantasy writing. Her descriptions are lush and the world she has created is rich in detail and well thought out and put together. In terms of the characterization and the humanity of the story itself however, this is where the re-telling fails.
Ash has connections with several different characters in the novel: Sidhean a.k.a. The Fairy Godmother; Prince Aidan a.k.a. Prince Charming and Kaisa a.k.a. The Huntress a.k.a. The Love of Ash’s Life. I kind of got the idea that maybe Ash was bisexual, as throughout the novel, especially in the first half, there are hints that she feels an unwanted attraction towards Sidhean, a male fairy. Although she is clearly more attracted to Kaisa, I never felt that there was any real chemistry between the two characters. There was nothing strong enough in the development of either girls throughout the story to indicate that they were passionately in love with one another. Now, I’m not asking for straight up erotic Fifty Shades of Lesbian fantasy here. But when I pick up a book solely based on the fact that it is about two girls falling in love (yes, guilty as charged), I EXPECT SOME SEX STUFF. Well, not literal sex stuff, but sexual tension AT LEAST. I want to feel, as a reader, that these two characters want nothing more than to get the other in bed at the end of the day. For romance to be romantic, it has to have that element of sacrifice, of apathy, of understanding, of commitment. It has to be about love, yes, but for it to be truly romantic it must also have that other aspect. The aspect of desire, of passion, of an almost animalistic need to have someone. You all remember that library scene in Atonement? YES, LIKE THAT. It doesn’t even need to be played out. I mean, the presence of sex is possible even at the absence of sex, if that makes any sense. Like that library scene in Becoming Jane, where he tells her that for her to become a proficient writer of fiction, her horizons must be widened. I mean, they are in a LIBRARY and there are books everywhere and the two characters are like 15 feet from one another and they are separated by a million bookshelves and they are talking about books and yet that one line....HOLY CRAP if we all didn’t want to jump that character’s bones right then and there in the middle of that library.
And yes, I understand that I just referenced two movies of James McAvoy’s involving characters played by James McAvoy and I will confirm right now that none of my strong feelings for either of those scenes has anything to do with James McAvoy.
But you get what I mean. I will say that Kaisa’s character was more intriguing for me than Ash’s. She was the King’s Huntress, a royal official who exuded confidence, strength, authority and sexual appeal. There were segments in the novel that indicated that she was desired by many and that even though she wasn’t necessarily engaging in many relationships, people around her always assumed that she was. I pictured her as this really hot girl, and I definitely understood Ash’s attraction to her, though I never really grasped why Kaisa felt the same way about Ash. I felt a lot of the time that I as a reader was trying to put the pieces together in the main relationship of the novel. Though I was somewhat invested more in Kaisa’s character than I was in Ash’s, I never felt that I was invested in their love, because I didn’t really believe it. There wasn’t enough in the novel in terms of emotional investment for me to truly think that this relationship was real, or could be real. They were the equivalent of that couple you see in 90 minute feature movies -- the ones who meet across the room 15 minutes in, fall in love 5 minutes afterwards for no reason whatsoever other than the fact that they happened to make eye contact for 2 seconds, then kiss victoriously at the end and you just have to accept the fact that they belong together and will live happily ever after.
I have to give Lo credit though, I really loved the fact that girls falling in love with one another was not presented as taboo in the fantasy world of the book. There is no homophobia or implying of the fact that heterosexual relationships are the norm in this society. It was refreshing to read a book with lesbian characters that didn’t concern itself with the fact that these girls were lesbians. Too often I feel that books and television and movies portray queer characters as being characterized solely by the fact that they’re non-heterosexual, and giving them very limited qualities beyond being gay. Ash did not do this. Of course, having it set in a fantasy world where anything was possible, including the normalization and acceptance of homosexual people, probably helped in avoiding the current political aspect of queer culture entirely.
ASH
I feel like for them to make a film adaptation that would hook you from the get-go, they need to make Ash more interesting and 3-dimensional than she was in the book. All of these actresses have great range, screen presence and the charisma to carry a feature film as its protagonist.
1. Melonie Diaz
2. Imogen Poots
3. Mia Wasikowska
4. Alia Shawkat
KAISA
Kaisa, like I described above, is someone who is part role model, part heartthrob. I would choose the following actresses based on their stature, the fact that they could kick ass and also their voices. I feel that a heartthrob’s heartthrob status is largely based on how they sound when they speak. A good speaking vice melts hearts and minds like nothing else could.
1. Jennifer Lawrence
2. Jamie Chung
4. Lenora Crichlow
SIDHEAN
Sidhean is an enticing emo weirdo cursed fairy. I picked a handful of amazingly talented actors who are beautiful but in a way where you don’t really know why they’re beautiful.
1. Eddie Redmayne
2. Ezra Miller
3. Domhnall Gleeson
4. Ben Whishaw
So there is my dream casting. I really hope that whatever it is or however it goes, that this book does eventually get a film adaptation. Hollywood seems to be going through a phase of modern fairy tale adaptations, what with Beastly, Red Riding Hood, Mirror Mirror, Snow White and the Huntsman, Jack the Giant Slayer, and so on. Not all of these movies have been any good, unfortunately, but a film like Ash would fit into this mold perfectly. And to be quite honest, there’s nothing keeping us back from putting more queer representation in mainstream movies, especially ones that aren’t in token, stereotypical or supporting roles.
I will end this post with a performance medley by the original cast of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella, currently playing on Broadway.
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