A Modern Cinderella Fairytale

A story turned movie that resembles the plot and morals of Cinderella is that of Memoirs of a Geisha. There are several connections we can make among the characters within each story, as well as the message each one is portraying. It will be easy then to discover that Memoirs of a Geisha is actually a Cinderella story. Having lost her parents and family, a young child grows up in a place that institutionalizes the tradition of the Geisha. As she trains to be one herself, she is tormented by an older Geisha that resides within the same roof. This woman resembles the evil stepsisters which torture Cinderella, and who constantly place her in trouble. The young child is then shunned, because of the corrupted older Geisha, from becoming one herself; therefore beginning to live a life of servitude to her gardian--with no prospects of ever ascending to a higher role in society. It is in the end that everything takes a turn: A woman with an interest spurred on by the attention of an older man takes on this now-not-so-young girl and turns her into her dream of being a Geisha. This woman is symbolic for being the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella, and the man her prince, who she inevitably ends up with in the end. Not only does Memoirs of a Geisha re-tells the Cinderella Fairytale, it also ties in with the "Pretty Woman Myth" for it also sheds a lighter view on the profession of being a Geisha, a woman who uses her body for the entertainment of men, our equivalent of a prostitute.