The Genuine And Entertaining Diaries Of A Well-Known Woman Of Status. Written By Herself. volume 1.

A Comprehensive Reread of the Princess Diaries Books 20 Years After Their Initial Publication

The Princess Diaries books were like an older sister to me. I always wanted an older sister. Instead, I had a ridiculously intelligent twin-brother who for the longest was deeply in love with my best friend. Jokes, aside, Mia and her whimsical entourage supported me gently through my adolescence, supplying me with ample information on dating, school performance, friendships and politics. Admittedly, the most interesting realization resulting from this enterprise is that a significant amount of my political views, values and even media preferences are built on knowledge that I first got hold of reading these books. Mia calling out Thanksgiving as a hypocritical glorification of genocidal tyrants, sci-fi for the lack of female characters, anime for the sexualization of women, respecting their trans neighbour, Ronnie and encouraging other to do so etc. were all snippets of valuable information for me, that growing up in the early 2000's in Eastern Europe, were otherwise not accessible to me. The other reason I'm attached to this series is the undercurrent of energetic, Austen-esque wit that sustains it.

"And when I’m at Miragnac, I notice that we never go out to eat anywhere. We always have our meals there, or sometimes we go to the neighbouring chateau, Mirabeau, which is owned by these nasty British people who have a lot of snotty kids who say things like, ‘That’s rot,’ to one another. One of the younger girls, Nicole, is sort of my friend, but then one night she told me this story about how she was Frenching a boy and I didn’t know what Frenching was. I was only eleven at the time, which is no excuse, because so was she. I just thought Frenching was some weird British thing, like toad-in-the-hole, or air raids, or something. So then I mentioned it at the dinner table in front of Nicole’s parents, and after that all those kids stopped talking to me."

So after having spent some time feeling weighed down by two chunky volumes of history I was reading – Black and British by David Olusoga and Among the Living and the Dead by Inara Verzemnieks, the letter being emotionally rather than physically chunky – I decided to take a refreshing dip in the cool waters of a Genovian seaside resort. Grab a bag of pear-flavoured popcorn and follow me through Meg Cabot's delightful world of flying eggplants, Star Wars underwear and tattooed eyeliners!

I find it difficult to pitch the Princess Diaries to customers, because the 2001 film – being as lovely as it is – obscured and to some degree, disneyfied the series and became a misleading advertising for them. For this very reason, I decided to approach the first volume from a bit of a comparatist perspective and highlight some differences between film and book that emphasize just why the books are very much worth rereading even though twenty years have passed and we no longer use landlines, frost our tips and 'N Syncs is no longer an ongoing concern.

Flattening and erasing characters

The womanizing yet golden-hearted European Prince father with his self-image still in tatters after having survived testicular cancer. The courageous, sensitive Arab Princess. The Russian violin virtuoso who keeps tucking his sweater into his pants. Grandmère having smoked so much that her French chateau has a security tunnel system built just in case she fell asleep with a lit cigarette and the premises need to be evacuated. Drs Moscovitz attending a benefit to the homosexual children of the survivals of the Holocaust. Shameeka, Boris and Ling Su are entirely erased from the films, so is most clues of Lilly's and Michael's Jewishness, and let me not even start about the disappearance of Ronnie. The Princess Diaries books have such an extremely loveable, diverse cast of quirky characters it's just impossible not to fall in love with them. They all have their odd, negative sides – how Lilly has a tendency to be overbearing and imperious, Philippe uses his suit-clad, smooth Princely ways for his personal gain, Helene neglects paying bills and not dating her daughter's Algebra teacher – but all of them, surprisingly even Grandmère, teach some solid lessons to our heroine.

The women of the Princess Diaries books all offer their own takes on womanhood to Mia, who at fourteen is exactly at the age when people are very busy being confused about gender roles and what is expected of them versus what they feel inclined to express. I for myself had crushes on exclusively makeup-wearing feminine men and I proceeded to assume that I am heterosexual. What a fool I was. Mia – thanks to her upbringing – at age fourteen is already highly critical of sexism, and doesn't shy away from rebelling against toxic beauty standards, or sexualized women used for mere decoration purposes – on Mr Gianini's pinball machine. Take beauty for example. Mia is deeply insecure about her appearance. She ceaselessly comments on how she feels bad about having small breasts, dishwater blonde, frizzy hair or being too tall etc. In the beginning she dismisses Grandmère's patronage in the art of style and grace as superficial, patriarchal nonsense. Mia is being quizzed in lipsticks and Marx for god's sake! She's biting her nail extensions off and thinking up ideas for getting rid of her blonde highlights. And most of these rules are repressive and dumb. But the books – as opposed to the film – critique them. As the princess lessons go on, Mia realizes that dressing herself with some effort makes her look into the mirror and like what she sees there. Finding a balance between taking pleasure in fashion and beauty and obsessively conforming to them is a great challenge facing adolescent girls.

Mia also improves her assertiveness, something she used to struggle with. After Tina shows Mia how friends can be purely supportive and positive sometimes – as opposed to Lilly staying acerbic and critical in situations in which her friend clearly needed loyalty and encouragement – Mia confronts Lilly and vocalizes her needs.

I have never told Lilly to shut up before. Not ever. I don’t think I have ever told anyone to shut up before. It’s just not something I do. I don’t know what happened, really. Maybe it was the fingernails. I never had fingernails before. They sort of made me feel strong. I mean, really, why was Lilly always telling me what to do?

Tina by the way has grown to be one of my favourite supportive characters of all times alongside Wendy's witch aunts in the 1998 classic that is Casper Meets Wendy, Luna Lovegood and the Baroness from The Sound of Music. Women who at the first glance are perceived outlandish but are later established as strong, wholesome characters who are experts in their admittedly specific fields.

Invisibility?

As mentioned above, book Mia's social circle is much larger than film Mia's. She's not so much an outcast, as an integral member of a group of eccentric, but rather brilliant people. She frequently helps producing Lilly's TV show, stays over at Tina's place reading romance novels by an indoor fountain and she even talks about a time when she went to see Rocky Horror Picture Show with Lilly, Shameeka and Ling Su and stayed out until 2:30 AM. In the 2001 film when Mia is told about her heritage and duties, she famously argues against it by stating that:

"My expectation in life is to be invisible... and I'm good at it."

In the books, Mia never writes anything like this. She's clearly not invisible. She's concerned about her abilities in public speaking, etiquette or algebra, and leaving her friends and family behind on moving to Genovia, but she's generally enthusiastic about the platform that comes with being royalty. Her list of inspiring women she completes for her princess lessons mostly contain women active in some form of political activism or leadership roles. In the sequels, readers can see her grow into her role and experiment with her power to enact change by legislating parking fees and keeping rubbish from being thrown into Genovian harbors.

Meg Cabot uses the whole princess enterprise a literary device to help accentuate the trials, goals and joys that come with growing into womanhood. Most of us never have to deliver a speech to crowded room of ball attendees, wear tiaras or suspect that the blue-eyed jock only invited us to the Cultural Diversity Dance because we're the sole heirs to the throne of a small European nation, but a lot of us experience school presentations and uncertainty about the expectations and motivations of men. And as far as YA literature goes, that's what I want from a book; to transport me into an engaging universe that still answers some real-life questions of the target audience. And because audiences associate the Princess Diaries so much with the film, when I pitch the series to young readers they automatically conflate the two, assuming the books to also be a harmless, but altogether bleached and limp affair. Which they are far from being. Let's compare the closing scenes as a good example. In the film, Mia accepts her role as the heir to the Genovian throne mostly because she is won over by Julie Andrew's charm and because her bodyguard saves her. This is followed by a sparkly, gratifying ballroom scene and the next thing we know is Mia is being shipped off to Genovia wearing a flocculent pastel blue ensemble that still haunts me in my dreams. Compared to this, the first book closes with Mia willingly sharing her misadventures with Josh with Grandmère and inviting her to see the view of Manhattan from the top of their apartment building. For a moment they all – Mia, her parents and Grandmère – share a moment of connection and relief. Mia feels like she has come a long way and maybe, just maybe she will be fine with the whole princess thing.

And as we stood there I couldn’t help thinking how great it was that we could all put aside our differences and just watch a sunset and really be in the moment, you know? And my heart was totally filled with this sense of inner peace, and I thought to myself, You know, I think it’s true. It’s really true. I’ve finally achieved self-actualization . . . At least until my mom went, ‘For God’s sake, Phillipe, must you breathe so loud?’

PS.: I deliberately chose not to talk about Micheal in this establishing bit, just because his trajectory becomes clear in the second book, and I aim to use explaining his character as a sort of bridge between this post and the next one. But otherwise, yes, please be prepared for some elaborate exploration of Michael Moscovitz, eggplants and icicle dresses in my discussion of Princess Diaires 2 Royal Disaster.