Cinderella

Most versions of Cinderella have the same things: A young child, usually a girl, forced into a life of hardship. Some sort of disguise and/or fancy outfits (usually three). A magical creature, whether it’s a fish, a tree, a cow, a fairy godmother, etc.
  

There’s differences, of course. The hardship is started by different things: in “Yeh-hsien”, “Cinderella” (both the Brothers Grimm and the Disney version), “The Story of the Black Cow”, and “Lin Lan”, the father remarries to an evil woman who treats the Cinderella character unkindly. In “Donkeyskin”, “The Three Gowns” and “The Princess in the Suit of Leather”, the father tries to remarry his own daughter, forcing her to flee. In Pretty Woman, the audience doesn’t get to see Vivian’s “fall” from a good life to a worse one; she starts the movie as a poor woman struggling to make rent. *Rhodopis doesn’t have a hard life mentioned; her story is an outlier.
   

Look at how in love they are!!

Crazy Rich Asians is a very recent example of a rise tale. Certainly, Rachel Chu’s situation is not quite as bad as most Cinderella’s; she may not come from a wealthy family, but she’s not dressed in rags or enslaved by evil relatives. In fact, her mother is still very much alive and very supportive. But Rachel, like Cinderella (and Rhodopis, and Yeh-hsien, and Donkeyskin, Rosa, Catskin, the Brahmin’s son, Beauty, Juleidah, and Vivian) winds up marrying rich through some combination of luck and happy accident. Rachel wasn’t trying to marry into a rich family, unlike Vivian from Pretty Woman who specifically goes after Edward cause he looks rich and she wants to squeeze money out of him. In fact, kind of like Disney’s Cinderella, who doesn’t realize she’s danced with the prince, Rachel doesn’t know Nick’s family is rich until they’re on the plane to Singapore. And even then, it’s not because Nick tells her but because they’re in super luxury seats that Rachel would never be able to afford. Crazy Rich Asians may not exactly qualify as a Cinderella story, between Rachel’s alive mom and the fact that she and Nick are already in a relationship at the start of the movie, but it is somewhat of a rags-to-riches story and shares some similarities with the Cinderella stories, and so feels worth mentioning.

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At least both Crazy Rich Asians and Pretty Woman have a better-developed romance than Cinderella and most of the stories we read, where the prince (or scholar) and the Cinderella character meet, and Cinderella/Donkeyskin/Rosa/Catskin is just SO hot that the prince (or scholar) has to marry her. (And in Rhodopis's case, it's her shoe that's so amazing the king must marry her. I don't understand "Rhodopis".) It’s not like lasting relationships are built on the relationship you have with the other person, or anything, everyone knows the only thing you need for a successful marriage is an attraction to the other person.
   

While the relationship in Pretty Woman develops relatively fast (since the whole movie takes place over a single week), they don’t get married or even engaged at the end, so it’s not that unreasonable.

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But the question I’m supposed to be answering is not, “How realistic is it for two people to get married after they’ve known each other for three days, maximum?”. It’s “Can someone reach success or riches with magic, marriage, charm, etc.? How realistic is that?”
   

Well, I think it’s very unrealistic for someone to reach success or riches with magic, because most people hold the not-unreasonable belief that magic isn’t real. So, anyone hoping for a fairy godmother to save them might want to come up with a Plan B. I suppose it depends on your definition of “success”, but in terms of riches, it is very realistic to become rich through marriage, if you’re marrying a rich person. From what I understand, most non-rich people who marry rich people get the benefits of the money of the family they marry into; like Rachel Chu. Although it wouldn’t work like that if the rich person you were marrying was only formerly rich, or if they were the child of rich parents who cut them off from the family wealth (like Prince Naveen from Disney’s The Princess and the Frog). Charm might be the reason you reach riches through marriage; as in, you can charm them into liking you. Charm can mean either charisma or good-looks, and depending on the person they’re probably equally likely to land you a date. Although good looks are more likely to attract a stranger’s attention (like in pretty much every Cinderella story we read, and Disney’s Cinderella, and Pretty Woman), but charisma might be why your best friend falls in love with you.
   

So in conclusion: magic is not likely to get you wealth or success. It is realistic that marriage will get you riches if the person you are marrying is rich, and charm might be the reason that marriage is happening. However, in general, it is not realistic that most people will be able to achieve success and riches, by any means, because it’s really hard to become successful (ie: famous), and you can’t marry rich if you don’t know any rich people. I know exactly zero rich people, and I’m pretty sure that’s the case for most people. If you’re marrying rich, it is very realistic to expect you will therefore become rich. But it’s unrealistic to expect you will be able to marry rich.
   

The Honest Trailer for Cinderella is mostly humor but does actually bring up a few good points. Most notably, the parody of “A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes”, which reinforces my point. Their version contains the lines: “This song is about deception/most dreams just don’t come true. /But I am the rare exception/I’m skinny and pretty and cute.”
   

Certainly gaining success and riches is not impossible. But the odds of it happening to you? Sorry to say it, but they’re pretty slim.

These are probably my favorite parody lyrics from the Honest Trailer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Pt1_VvVZVY