CINDERELLA

In the 2015 live-action film, insights were given into Cinderella’s childhood, her relationship with her parents, and a more intimate and longstanding relationship shown with the Prince. This contrasts starkly with the original Disney animation, where Cinderella and the Prince fell in ‘love at first sight’ without having ever spoken a word to each other. Despite Disney adapting the storyline substantially from the 1950 animated version of the tale, the live-action film turned out to be a great success with a box office of 542.4 million USD (“Box Office Mojo – Cinderella”). But a prominent criticism arose: the size of the actor’s waist. The controversy started as soon as the official theatrical poster was released on the 19th of November 2014, ahead of the film’s release in March 2015 (PBADMIN). There was instant uproar with many newspaper headlines disapproving of how small Lily James’ waist appeared in her costume. For example: “‘If you’re nice to rats, you too can have a waist the circumference of a Coke can’: Cinderella makes $70m on its opening weekend, but filmgoers hit out over Lily James’s tiny waist” published by The Daily Mail (Robinson).

The image led many to believe that James' waist was digitally altered, and people were furious that Disney would set such an example for young girls. Some speculated that Disney must have used CGI in order to make her waist appear so minute, thus creating unrealistic standards for women. Disney vehemently denied this saying “Lily does just have a small waist” and that it was the voluminous skirt and corset that gave such an extreme hourglass illusion. Kenneth Branagh, Cinderella’s director, denied that airbrushing was used on James. In an interview with HuffPost Live Branagh said, "To all the airbrush conspiracy theorists I can answer now: no. The simple truth is, we didn't alter anything". In a Live interview with HuffPost James reflected on the negative attention by saying, "On one hand, it's upsetting. On the other hand, it's just boring. Why do women always get pointed at for their bodies? And why is this whole thing happening that I'm constantly having to justify myself? I'm very healthy and I always have been."

In 2015 Twitter and Facebook were the most prominent social media platforms (Martin), with the former specifically used for the sharing of opinions. The below screengrabs show the type of Tweets which were circulating at the time regarding James’ waist.