Cinderella--destructive love myth #8

I've done Beauty and the Beast, but I haven't done Cinderella. I think at first it just wasn't the fairy tale I loved the most, and then later I started to realize that there were problems with Cinderella for me. You know how Marx says that religion is opiate for the masses. Well, I think the Cinderella myth is the opiate for the masses. Lessons little girls are supposed to learn from Cinderella:

1. Everything that is wrong with your life is because all the people around you are just plain evil and mean.

2. Your best response to any challenge in life is to sing and keep doing the laundry and all other menial chores assigned to you. This will prove how morally superior you are to others.

3. People not genetically related to you will treat you badly.

4. If you run into the garden and cry, a fairy godmother will magically appear and solve all of your problems.

5. All you have to do is appear at the ball and the prince will fall in love with you immediately.

6. Running away from the prince (leaving him with a shoe) will of course cause him to chase after you. He will never give up until he finds you.

7. The other "little people" will help you against the evil of the world, and you will have a happy ending.

8. Big feet are a sign of true coarseness, and dainty little ones mean that you deserve better things. (Similarly, outer beauty and inner beauty have some correlation.)

I suppose there is nothing wrong inherently with a story about a girl in bad circumstances who ends up finding a better life for herself. There are versions of the Cinderella myth that I've read and loved (Ash by Malinda Lo, for instance). But I frankly am more interested in the stepsisters and the stepmother than I am in Cinderella.

Robin McKinkley never did Cinderella, either.