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The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot
The Princess Diaries is all about an American girl who is given a diary by her mother because her mother thinks she can’t ‘express her feelings’ to anyone. This girl, Mia, is flunking Algebra and thinks she has lots on her mind. Little does she know that she’s about to find out she’s a princess of a small country called Genovia. I love Mia because her diaries show a look into the mind of an American teenage girl who considers herself to be the most unpopular girl of the school. These books are an interesting edgy observation of the troubles, stereotypes, humour and love in a 14 year old princess’s life. Mia is a 5 “10 freshman at Albert Einstein High. Her best friend is Lilly Moscovitz and runs a cable TV show. They are considered the rejects at school. They use the subway to get to school until one day Mia goes to meet her Dad at the Plaza hotel. Over lunch Mia is informed that she is the sole heir to the Genovian throne. Mia takes this badly as she dreads what people will think of it at school. This is a classic example of peer pressure and the social hierarchy of high schools. Apart from these books being funny and about a “normal life” they have an interesting view on social system’s and “post Cold-War American teens”. Lilly’s cynical view and educated vocabulary really makes me laugh a lot, but she can be rather bossy to Mia and often complains about how she has no self assertiveness. Her parents are psycho-analysts so I can understand where some of that came from! The books go through seeing Mia go to princess lessons, to dances, to first dates. All this is happening with an edgy opinion of an over worrier princess. The Princess Diaries movie is a lot different. It has the same basic plot but they change different details about the character’s to make them seem more comfortable to you – more innocent. This is called the Disney treatment. See the diaries, are not for small children. They use “big words” and talk about sex and other teenage areas of life. Lilly Moscovitz is actually much less pretty than they portray her in the movie, because the best friend of the main character couldn’t be portrayed as a pug like, squat girl. They portray Mia’s grandmother as a sweet royal who is just like Mia. In the book her “Grandmere” is actually loathed by Mia, has tattooed eyebrows and is considered evil. Mia’s mothers relationship with Mia’s Algebra teacher isn’t as focused on as in the book and Mia is shown as being able to tell her mother about her feelings (which is actually the reason she gets the diary in the book – because she can’t)t. I believe that this life would be a lot better for Mia and much happier for her. This is again the Disney treatment. I become exasperated though when I watch the movies though because I can’t just help comparing the differences they’ve made in the movie to the book. The first movie is to the plot apart from small miscarriages such as giving Mia a car, when actually she does not believe in cars as they pollute the environment. In the first movie it is meant to end happily at Mia’s school dance with Michael having danced with her. I believe that they must have taken some poetic licence in the end of Princess Diaries 1 as Mia would never have to make a decision like that because for the whole book she complains about having no choice. They really go off the plot in the second movie though. I cannot compare the second movie very well because it went so far off the plot that it made up the whole movie. The movie’s themselves are good movie’s on their own, just not in standard to the books and the plot. Mia is 21 in the second movie and has to fight with a man she falls in love with ,for her throne. Nothing like this ever happened in Mia’s book life. What I like is that to make her seem real in the books (as she is meant to), they actually give her a reaction to these movies. She thinks they’re comical as her life is nothing like that, but rather flattering as Anne Hathaway “actually has breasts”. Mia is described as a flat-chested, large footed, really tall girl. She doesn’t actually realise how kind and nice she actually is. All her life she has been beaten down by Lana Weinberger and the cheerleaders. The things that Lana does in the book absolutely shock me. It is so shocking that someone could be that awful to another human being. I am happy though that Mia in both versions of the story is “assertive” to Lana and stabs an ice-cream cone on her chest. The only pity I have in that act is that such a nice ice cream was wasted! The other disappointment is that Tina Hakim – Baba is not included in the movie. She is considered the freak of the school because she has a bodyguard. She has no friends until Mia starts to hang out with her after Lilly argued with and therefore ignored Mia after Mia has her makeover. This argument is shown on a lesser scale in the movie than in the book. In the movie she makes it up in exactly the same argument. I like this because I hate people being ignored and excluded. This is of course the more comfortable version to the story. The Disney treatment. They would hate to think that friends could not talk to each other for a month. This also proves that they would like to show Lilly in a more nice way than she is. I’m not saying she’s not nice, but that they show her as if she isn’t “controlling or suffering from a borderline authoritarian personality disorder” as she confesses to when making up with Mia. My personal view to the books are that they are extremely good books, Mia is odd but funny and that they are a good read for anyone wanting to read about a real life take on funny situations with romance, crying and laughter. My view to the movies are that they are good movies to watch for a movie night if you haven’t read the book, but that they swap around the facts and do not keep everything in the right order or place. If you’ve read the book and seen the movie you would know that Disney is trying to soften and clique-ise the life of a young princess. This is another ploy of TV companies to make you believe that the world is much more happier and brighter than it is in actuality. A form of hegemony. My view is that movies should stick exactly to the book and make movies a proper length. Not one measly hour! Nobody would mind having longer movies! I certainly wouldn’t. Think of the advantages!
BOOK VS. MOVIE
