12 Movies You Didn’t Notice Were About Mental Illness
10. Cinderella
Poor little Cinderella. She spends all day slaving away for her evil stepmother and stepsisters only to be the brunt of their insults, but passively puts up with it all determined to please the people around her however abusive. Combine this with her emotional dependence on her stepmother and her inability to make decisions on her own and youre looking at a classic case of dependent personality disorder. Not to mention that shes even inspired her own pop psychology phenomenon, the Cinderella complex: a term coined by psychotherapist Colette Dowling in the early 80s that refers to women who fear independence and are overly reliant on men. Considering that the only reason Cinderella escaped her dismal situation was by being saved by Prince Charming, effectively going from one dependent situation to another, its not surprising the complex was named after her.
