Wicked Stepmothers

In these blog posts, I have recently become fascinated with movies that have stereotypical family relationships. Two I have talked about have been the evil uncles who wish to lead their nephews astray to get their power and fortune, and long lost twins, who always find themselves and lead their respective parents into love. This blog discusses the most famous of these stereotypical family relationships, the wicked stepmother, who is always trying to cause their stepdaughter misery.
The first and most obvious example of this is the beloved "Cinderella." Every little girl dreams of being Cinderella, or at least feels like it sometimes. I know when I had to do chores, I always felt like her, hoping one day my prince would come. Mine did, and so did Cinderella's, just after some hardship with her wicked stepmother and step sisters. I never really understood how her father died, maybe they didn't explain, or maybe I was just to young to understand, but from the very beginning, she is living with her stepmother, who has inherited all of her father's belongings. Cinderella is made to act as a servant girl, cleaning floors and cooking breakfasts. She is not allowed to go to the prince's ball, where he is to find a fiance. Yet luckily, her fairy godmother makes her into a beautiful girl ready for the ball, and sends her on her way. After dancing with the prince, and having to run away, since her time was up, she lost her glass slipper. That was how the prince found her. However, when the prince came to make all the females try on the shoe, the wicked mother locked her in her room, but she escaped, the shoe fit, and they lived happily ever after. There are so many remakes of this movie, it is crazy, yet each of them have a wicked step mother that is trying to ruin her stepdaughter's life.
Another movie that includes a wicked stepmother is "The Univited." In this story, a girl is put into a pysch ward after the death of her mother. When she is out and returns home, her and her sister begin to see the ghost of their mother, trying to tell them things. They also find their father is now married to their mother's nurse, who is extremely mean to the girls. The mother's ghost leads them to discover that the way their mother died was not by accident, but by the stepmother.
Another example is a movie I mentioned in the long lost twins blog. It is "It Takes Two" which stars Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen. They play identical looking girls who take turns turning one of their future-wicked step mother away. The woman is absolutely horrible to them, and is overheard saying how much she will change everything once she is married to the father. The girls use all sorts of tactics to make sure the woman does not become one of their stepmother's. My favorite tactic was putting gum in her hair, causing her to have to cut it off, making her look horrible! They save the day and run her off, down the wedding aisle screaming. Again, it is another example of the stepmother wanting to control the stepdaughter and change everything about the father, if their is one still alive.
It is crazy to see how many of these family stereotypes their are in movies. It is also interesting to see how many of these remakes have been made. it is definitely worth learning more about.