premiered." On February 11, 2021, the day prior to the film's premiere on Disney+, Entertainment Weekly held a virtual reunion with the surviving principal cast members. On August 23, 2022, the cast once again reunited for a television special Cinderella: The Reunion, A Special Edition of 20/20, which was followed by an airing of the film, the first time it has aired on broadcast television in over two decades. Cultural significance Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella is considered to be a "groundbreaking" film due to its diverse cast, particularly casting a Black actress as Cinderella. A BET biographer referred to the production as a "phenomenon" whose cast "broke new ground." Following its success, Disney considered adapting the fairy tale "Sleeping Beauty" into a musical set in Spain featuring Latin music, but the idea never materialized. Brandy is considered to be the first African-American to play Cinderella on-screen. Newsweek opined that Brandy's casting proved that "the idea of a black girl playing the classic Cinderella was [not] unthinkable", calling it "especially significant because" Disney's 1950 film "sent a painful message that only white women could be princesses." Fans have affectionately nicknamed the film "the Brandy Cinderella". Brandy's performance earned her the titles "the first Cinderella of color", "the first black Cinderella" and "the first African-American princess" by various media publications, while Shondaland.com contributor Kendra James dubbed Brandy "Disney's first black princess", crediting her with proving that "Cinderella could have microbraids" and crowning her the Cinderella of the 1990s. James concluded, "for a generation of young children of color, 'Cinderella' became an iconic memory of their childhoods, of seeing themselves in a black princess who could lock eyes and fall in love with a Filipino prince." Similar to the film, the stage adaptation has consistently demonstrated color-blind casting. In 2014, actress Keke Palmer was cast as Cinderella on Broadway, becoming the first Black actress to play the role on Broadway. Identifying Brandy as one of her inspirations for the role, Palmer explained, "I feel like the reason I'm able to do this is definitely because Brandy did it on TV". According to Ruthie Fierberg of Playbill, Brandy's performance "immortalized the role on screen", while Hollywood.com's Jeremy Rodriguez ranked her seventh out of "10 Actresses Who Played Cinderella Like Royalty", praising her for introducing "a more independent version of the classic character." Fuse TV dubbed Brandy's performance as Cinderella "iconic" and "arguably the most