Netflix posted a trailer for “Steps,” an animated film due Nov. 20, and asked, “Think Cinderella’s stepsisters were the villains? Think again.”
Ali Wong voices Lilith, the “misunderstood” sister who steals the Fairy Godmother’s wand, wrecks the ball, and still gets billed as the one who deserves a happily ever after.
Joel Berry called the pitch one of the most satanic inversions in recent kids’ fare.
Truly one of the most satanic inversions I’ve ever seen
— Joel Berry (@JoelWBerry) September 17, 2026
Others on X said the same thing in fewer syllables: Invert reality. Good is evil. Evil is good.
This is peak woke. Show evil as just “misunderstood,” invert classic non-woke stories, and present the rebel girl-boss as the cool option. It feels like a parody, but unfortunately, here we are. 🤦♂️
— is it woke? (@isitwokeornot) September 18, 2026
This is not a new trick. It is the only trick left.
Do you have a Netflix subscription?
Hollywood has spent a decade rehabilitating every monster except the ones in the mirror. The witch is empowered. The wolf had a hard childhood. The stepsisters were just misunderstood girls in a toxic home.
Cruelty is recast as insecurity. Envy is recast as justice. The girl who scrubbed the floors becomes the problem the camera has to solve.
Moral relativism always starts as a joke. Then it’s a lesson. Then it’s the only lesson.
The serpent’s first move in Genesis 3 was not a pitchfork. It was a question. “Did God actually say?” Blur the line. Then erase it.
A children’s fairy tale exists to draw that line in crayon. Cinderella is kind. The stepsisters are cruel.
The slipper fits the girl who suffered, not the girls who piled it on. Children do not need a seminar on “narratives.” They need to know that meanness has a cost and that virtue is not a costume.
Flip that and you have not updated a classic. You have catechized kids into the idea that cruelty is a branding problem.
The timing is not random. The Western Journal reported that Netflix is already sanding the Christian bones out of Narnia — keeping the wardrobe, emptying the Lion.
Same company. Same appetite. Keep the brand. Empty the meaning.
Parents who still think a kids’ movie is just songs and sidekicks are the market. The product is the sermon: There are no villains, only narratives.
Some people will still fall for it because the animation is pretty and Ali Wong is funny.
The playbook is tired. They run it because it works on the tired.
If the stepsisters were the heroes, the story was never about virtue. It was about who holds the camera.
Did God actually say the cruel girls lose?
Netflix’s answer is on the poster. Think again.
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