Princess Movies: Superheroes with better clothes and less vigilantism.

So, since I've started this blog I've come to realize my taste in movies and TV falls largely into two categories:  sci-fi/fantasy, and teenybopper bullshit (I suppose "High Camp" could also be a category, but that's less of a type of entertainment and more of a way of life).

I make no apologies for this, as those two categories are infinitely entertaining.

Anyways, lately I've been burning through a whole mess of Young Adult fiction (thanks to Katie F. for providing most of it) and I decided to rewatch the Princess Diaries movies.  I'd seen them when they came out and vaguely remembered liking them (although the first is far superior to the second, for reasons I'll get to in a moment), and then figured I'd throw in a review of The Prince and Me, because what the hell, I like Julia Stiles AND it's set in Wisconsin.





Semi-Academic Tangent Alert: Avoid this section if things like "problematic" and "paradigm" make you want to throw things.

As I was watching the princess movies and reading approximately 1,000 Meg Cabot books (she wrote the Princess Diaries series, and also a bunch of others including Abandon, which is AMAZING and I guess kind of like Twilight*, only well-written and not super damaging to feminism), it occurred to me that 1) I was vaguely ashamed to be seen reading those books and watching these movies, and 2) my husband does not have the same problem with his extensive collection of comic books (excuse me, "graphic novels.")  It got me thinking about the similarities between "princess" stories and superhero stories, and I realized they really aren't that different from one another.  (In fact, it's probably accurate to say that princess stories pre-date superheroes, so the feminine version came first.)  Think about it:  an average kid wakes up one morning, and discovers that either through a freak accident or genetics, they are no longer "ordinary."  Through trial and error--and usually a momentary rejecting of their newfound role-- they learn to accept who they are *now* and wield their new power with responsibility.  Really, what's the difference?  The difference, of course, is that superheroes get to beat guys up while wearing a costume and win the girl, and princesses get to learn how to run a country while wearing a pretty dress and win the guy.

And here's where I get to the feminist academic tangent:  the fact that superhero stories have achieved relative acceptance in society but princess stories are relegated to "silly girl things" demonstrates just how much our society privileges the masculine over the feminine.  Superhero movies get to be dumb-but-cool, but admitting that you like a princess movie or rom-com is like wearing a sign that says "hello, I shouldn't be taken seriously."  (Also, I'm using "princess story" here instead of "fairy tale," because fairy tale implies a lack of agency on the part of the princess, and that's not true in these cases).  There really isn't much difference between Spiderman and Princess Mia, but one does manly things and the other does girly things, and as a result one is cool and the other is stuck in the Girl Ghetto.  This division is, quite frankly, bullshit, and I now refuse to be ashamed for liking girly things, because girly things are fun, dammit.


*By "kind of like Twilight" I mean it's about a high school girl who finds herself involved with a dangerous non-human guy (it's the Persephone-Hades myth, set in present day), but it's more of a Beauty and the Beast situation, in that he's mean because he loves her SO MUCH and he also has bad manners.  It's problematic to say the least, but it's not as problematic as Twilight, where Bella basically shrugs when Edward disables her car so she can't see her friends without his approval.  Still, it's a great book (and part of a trilogy).  Unfortunately, Abandon has 100% less shirtless wolfpacks** than Twilight, which is a shame, because shirtless wolfpacks are always a plus.

**My favorite part of the Twilight books is when Stephenie Meyer explains that the wolfpack doesn't wear shirts in their human form because they're poor and can't control their "wolfing out" moments.  So they wear old sweatpants and no shirts to minimize the amount of money they have to spend replacing clothes destroyed by spontaneous wolfing.  Stephenie Meyer, you magnificent idiot.

End of Semi-Academic Tangent that took an unexpected detour into Twilight-ville.


With that little rant out of the way, I present reviews of the Princess Diaries (1 and 2) and The Prince and Me.  (While adding the Prince and Me to my Netflix queue, I discovered that there are THREE SEQUELS.  I've seen the first sequel, and I swear to god, I thought it was a hangover-induced hallucination, because it was terrible and starred almost no one from the first movie, and now I find out there's TWO MORE? And the fourth one appears to be sort-of-racist? It's subtitled "An Elephant Adventure" and is about the two white main characters saving an Indian princess from an arranged marriage.  Scratch that, it's not sort-of-racist, it's definitely-racist.)

The Princess Diaries I:
The first Princess Diaries movie is about Mia learning she's a princess, learning to act like a princess, and deciding if she wants to be a princess.  And now, princess no longer looks like a word to me.  Princess.  She also has to deal with your typical high school shenanigans, like being bullied and having annoying friends and finding a boyfriend.

This is Mia (or Princess Amelia if you want to be formal about it).

She's Catwoman now.  Think about THAT.

Mia is an average girl with frizzy hair living with her single mom in San Francisco in a massive loft that no artist could ever afford, making me think that Mia is a bit dim for not realizing something is up with her absent father.  She's in love with a boyband-looking dumbass at her school, and is tormented by said dumbass's girlfriend, played by an excellently bitchy Mandy Moore.  Shortly after her father's death, her grandmother announces that Mia is now heir to the throne of Genovia, a totally-not-Monaco country in the south of France.  Somewhat confusingly, Mia is devastated by this news, instead my reaction, which would be screaming "I'm a princess" for an hour and then trying to invade Ireland, because what are they gonna do about it.


Mia's grandmother is none other than JULIE ANDREWS.

I hope I never meet Julie Andrews, because I'd probably
just spontaneously hug her, which would be weird
and might get me arrested.

JULIE ANDREWS is gracious but strict, and convinces Mia to get a makeover that basically consists of blowdrying her hair and plucking her eyebrows and it's treated like a miracle, like, you really had to hire someone to do that?  Still, it's JULIE MOTHERF*CKING ANDREWS, so she's lovely and inspiring and kind, and everything you could want in a grandma.


The *real* love interest (because we all know boyband is just a red herring) is this dude:

I'm 80% sure he's a time-traveling Beatle.

Michael is all right, although he's a bit bland.  He's sweet (and her best friend's older brother), and you can't have a high school semi-rom com without a love interest.  Also, the actor is in the band Rooney in real life, which always makes me think of the OC episode where the characters are going to a Rooney concert, and they can't stop saying the band's name.  They're all "Are you going to ROONEY tonight?  Did you know ROONEY is in town?  Have you heard that new ROONEY song?" to the point where I think the writers must have been paid $100 a mention or something.  Anyway, I love the OC unreservedly, so Michael gets some extra points for reminding me of that.

Verdict:  Solid and enjoyable.


Princess Diaries II: A Royal Engagement.

So, the second installment is where things sort of go off the rails for the movies.  The first was a decent high school rom com, and this one veers wildly between actual rom com and a movie for 6 year olds.  The script was written by Shonda Rhimes (making me amazed that there weren't two people in a horrible accident, and one looks like she'll die and the other will survive, but then an hour later the one you thought would live dies and you start crying and then you feel manipulated) but I'm guessing Disney kept pushing for them to make it more marketable to little kids, leading to a complete mess of a movie.  You have some scenes between Anne Hathaway and Chris Pine that are crackling with sexual tension, and then 5 minutes later you have a cat being chased by a dog and then JULIE ANDREWS sings a remixed duet with Raven Symone (of all people) in a naked attempt by Disney to sell the soundtrack, and then Mia delivers a monologue to a bunch of 6 year olds about how "everyone's a princess if they feel like they're a princess."  In the words of Liz Lemon, blerg.


Mia's back, y'all.

I can't help it-- I love Anne Hathaway, even if it seems like she tries too hard.
In fact, that's probably why I like her so much:
earnestness gets a bad rap these days, and that's a shame.

The driving mechanism behind the plot is that Mia must get married before she assumes the throne, as Genovia has a weird, usually unenforced law that says there can be no queen without a king.  The villain is Gimli (no, really.  It's the same actor, just shown at his normal size) and he's trying to push through this rule so his nephew Nicholas-- who is next in line-- can take the throne from Mia. Naturally, Mia and Nicholas fall in love, because that is how romantic comedies work.


This is Captain James T. Kirk as Nicholas Devereaux, pseudo-villain and actual love interest.

His hair is so big because it's full of secrets.

Mr. Gretchen Weiners here spends a lot of time lurking about, looking handsome despite a really terrible hair cut.  He whistles like he's a horror movie villain whenever he walks into a room, but I guess that's supposed to be charming.  Actually charming?  The fact that he's a world-class baker.  Anyway, as I said earlier, he and Anne Hathaway have some really excellent chemistry, and the movie is actually pretty good when it focuses on their interactions-- Mia has agreed to an arranged marriage with a very sweet but boring British guy, but Nicholas is just so ALLURING.  It's great, and I think if they'd swapped in a love story like this to the first movie and then left the rest of this travesty out to die, you'd have one great movie instead of two mediocre ones.

Verdict:  Disaster, with a few redeeming qualities.  (Also, sorry about the crappy quality of photos this time: as it turns out, fans of The Princess Diaries series don't have "upload high quality stills to the internet" on their list of things to do).


The Prince and Me

Like I said, I chose this movie because 1) I like Julie Stiles because she was in 10 Things I Hate About You, aka the Greatest Teen Movie of All Time, and 2) It's set in Wisconsin, so, GO PACK.  However, this movie makes me wonder about the grammar of the title:  Should it be The Prince and I?  I suppose it depends on the sentence this clause is in-- "The prince and I went to a county fair held in November for no apparent reason," or "My mom went to a county fair in November with the prince and me."


First of all, I have to complain about a few things.  Julia Stiles' character (Paige) is from Manitowoc, which is not too far from where I grew up, and she and the Prince attend UW Madison.  This leads to hilarious (to me) things like her taking the Prince to a county fair in Manitowoc over Thanksgiving Break, because that wouldn't be freezing cold, or anything.   Also, at said county fair the trees have all their leaves, they claim that Lawn Mower Racing is "a real big sport around here" (false: that would be go-karting) and at no point during Thanksgiving dinner do they discuss the Packers, which is a legal requirement in Wisconsin.  I think it bothers me so much because there was CLEARLY someone from Wisconsin on set (or at least someone who was a big fan of Wisconsin beers).  Paige and her girlfriends drink from Capital Brewery glasses, there's a sign for Point Beer in the bar, and Paige suggests Leinenkugels as a "fancy" beer.  (God.  So true when you're in college.)  Plus, this would be such an easy fix: instead of having all the action happen between September and Christmas Break, (which, would a girl as smart as Paige really agree to marry someone she's known for 4 months?) just spread it out more.  Have him go home with her for Easter or something, which would still be a bad time for a county fair but is marginally less ridiculous than November, and also solves the problem of when she goes to Denmark in December and no one's wearing a jacket because Denmark is apparently in the Mediterranean now.

It's nitpicky, I know, but man was it distracting for me.


Paige is a pre-med student, and is pretty hilariously intense about it.

I made this face a lot too.

Like Mia, Paige has a totally inappropriate reaction to finding out her (attractive, sweet, smart) boyfriend is a prince: she gets angry.  Like, really, really angry, as if there's no possible way she could understand his motivations for not saying anything in the ONE MONTH they've been dating.  Paige, get your shit together.  The correct reaction to discovering your significant other is royalty is screeching with joy for a bit and then requesting Ireland as your own personal fiefdom. (What?  I like Guinness and rainy days.)


Prince Edvard: the blandly attractive Prince of Denmark.

On second thought, let's not go to Denmark.
'Tis a silly place.

Eddie does a very serviceable job as Paige's sparring partner/love interest.  Let's be honest: he's really not the point of this movie.  The point of this movie is Paige realizing that you don't have to give up your dreams if you fall in love, and I think that's a worthwhile point.  I remembered admiring her goals when I first saw it, but on rewatching it, Paige is actually pretty mean about people who decide to get married.  She seems to think that marriage= education and career over; stay-at-home mom sequence: engage.  I have two problems with this line of thought:  1) What's so bad about being a stay-at-home mom?  It isn't what I would do (I don't function well when I'm not on a schedule) but I know several women who do, and they are great at it, and the *whole point* of the women's movement was for all women's choices to be embraced, not just the choices we would make for ourselves.  2)  The first time I saw this, the ending seems like a cop-out*-- she walks away from him when she realizes she'd have to give up med school to marry him, then he shows up at her graduation to tell her he'll wait for her/make it so she gets to be a doctor and the queen.  However, I've revised that initial assessment because I think it shows that yes, you can have it all (well, mostly) and that marriage is about commitment *and* compromise.  Granted, I'm probably biased in this assessment since I'm married to a guy who moved with me so I could finish my education, even though it threw up some obstacles in his own career.  But still: with the right partner, marriage doesn't automatically equal kids and a stalling career, and that's a good lesson for 12 year old girls.

*This is where I admit to my college roommate that she was right about this when we first saw it-- I fought her on it because I'm a sucker for happy endings, but deep down, I agreed.


Verdict:  Good for a rainy weekend afternoon, but not much else.