In case you missed the gorgeous billboards or swoony trailer, there’s a new live-action Cinderella movie coming out March 13. What’s more, an exclusive “Frozen Fever” short will run before the film. You’d think I’d be first in line for tickets with my princess-obsessed, tiara-wearing 4-year-old daughter, but no can do. Here’s why:

1. Dead Parents – Sure, Disney loves to kill off its characters’ parents (see Bambi, Frozen, Snow White, Tarzan, etc.) and we know Cinderella must be orphaned to set up the whole evil stepmother dynamic. But in the 1950 animated version, this all happens off camera. In the live action film, we’ll have a chance to meet and grow attached to Cinderella’s kindly mum and dad, played by Hayley Atwel and Ben Chaplin. I am certain their disappearance would cause distress for my daughter and bring up so many questions, we might miss the rest of the dialogue.

2. Mean Girl Behavior – Before Regina George and her band of Plastics, there were the original mean girls—Cinderella’s wicked stepmother and stepsisters. And they are super mean, not only treating Cinderella as a servant but also destroying her party dress and forbidding her attendance at the ball. At this point in my daughter’s life, the worst girl-on-girl crime she’s experienced was being called “poo poo” by a preschool classmate. Let’s hold off on the vicious cruelty for as long as we can.

3. Step-familes Get a Bad Rap – Speaking of the stepmother…I have one, and she is not evil. With so many blended families in our world these days, I don’t want my daughter getting the wrong idea and thinking that step-relatives don’t love and care for their family members. I’d rather she watched re-runs of the Suzanne Somers classic, “Step by Step”.

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