Skip to main content

The Feminist Diaries

I have a deep and undying love for The Princess Diaries, and I will go to my grave insisting that they are great feminist works. This may be difficult for some to understand, but I will do my best to convince them otherwise. 
     If you're unfamiliar with the movies, I'll provide a quick rundown. In the first movie, Mia Thermopolis (Anne Hathaway) is a nerdy high school student who is entirely blindsided when told that she's a princess. She struggles with this fact throughout the movie, but decides that she will accept her royal responsibilities at the end of the movie. In the second movie, she is told that she must become queen of Genovia in her grandmother's (Julie Andrews) place. However, to do so, the law states that she must be married. She decides to marry a royal that she has absolutely no romantic connection with and begins to form a relationship with Nicholas (Chris Pine), who is trying to get the throne due to his uncle's persistence. In the end, she calls off the wedding and states that she doesn't need a husband to rule, and Parliament agrees. She then decides to pursue her relationship with Nicholas.
    Throughout the two movies, Mia is asked to give up parts of her identity and individuality to fit into the molds that have existed for centuries. She breaks these boundaries and insists that there's another way. In the first movie, the boy of her dreams is finally interested in her. When he uses her for a publicity stunt, she realizes that he was never really interested in her and goes after the boy who's been there all along, her best friend's brother, Michael. While stylists make her appear more "royal" with a makeover, she refuses to conform her personality and even finds the strength to stand up to her bully, Lana. In the second movie, she tries her absolute hardest to do what's best for her family and country. After constant humiliation, she remains steadfast in her desire to help others and even closes a royal vacation spot, much to the chagrin of the people that utilize it, and opens up a beautiful orphanage for the Genovian children. Throughout her royal journey, Mia stays true to herself and helps as many people as she can along the way without sacrificing her beliefs. Mia is an absolutely amazing feminist icon.
    #longlivequeenmia
Labels:

Comments

  1. SarahNovember 15, 2019 at 6:12 AM

    Ok, Unpopular opinion. Mia should have pursued Lily's Brother in the second movie. He just kind of becomes nonexistent, like you don't hear much about him, and he liked her before she knew she was a princess.

    Also, I looked up the cast of the first movie and Whitney Houston was one of the producers?? And the first movie only got a 47% rating on rotten tomatoes, which is absolutely absurd!

    ReplyDelete
  2. breedNovember 30, 2019 at 4:24 PM

    The class really enjoyed these movie clips and talking about the gender issues (I think). It is always interesting to look at old familiar works through a new lens.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Crickets and Kelp

This week in class, we discussed Kawabata's "The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket". Last week, we discussed a poem about kelp. In both cases, relationships/people are compared to these mundane creatures. This begs the question: how do you know if you're a cricket or kelp? Essentially, a cricket is something truly special; it's the end all be all person that you've been searching for and are lucky to have. Kelp means you allow someone to take what they want from you, leave, and come back as they please. Basically, kelp=doormat. But, how do you know if you're being treated like this? How do you know when you're a kelp when you think that you've been giving yourself freely but you've really been "being gathered" in a way? And what if you spend all your life thinking you're a cricket but you're actually a grasshopper? Or vice versa? And which would be worse? What if you really are a cricket and you end up with a grasshopper that t...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Fair Jilt: Feminism or Misogyny?

 Aphra Behn's The Fair Jilt details young, beautiful Miranda's exploits as she ruins people around her to fit her fancy. At the beginning of the work, Miranda is portrayed as a frivolous girl with simply far too many options to settle down. Cupid supposedly curses her to fall in love with someone she simply cannot have as a punishment. However, this "punishment" barely phases her. She puts in some work and is still kindly denied, so she ruins Henrick's life. He remains composed and does not even attempt to rectify is wrongful imprisonment. When Van Brune is put to death because of her, he is apologetic for failing his assassination rather than devastated that he was about to die. No matter what Miranda did, Prince Tarquin stayed at her side. Miranda was constantly in the wrong, and no one ever seemed to hold it against her. Was she entirely wrong, though? Truthfully, she did not force anyone's fate except for the friar. Was she a ruthless gold digger or a fem...
Post a Comment
Read more

Cotton-Eyed Bartleby

Herman Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener" is secretly about Cotton-Eyed Joe. We often talk about how poems resemble songs, so why can't the plots of short stories do the same? In the case of "Bartleby", I think that he as a person can easily be likened to our dear old pal CE Joe. We don't know where he came from, we don't know where he went (in the biblical sense). He has an air of mystery about him. He messes with the narrator's personal life. I know that this is silly, but I think it's fun to relate things that you don't necessarily enjoy to things that you do. If anyone can think of other parallels between the two, please feel free to comment them below.
Post a Comment
Read more