The Princess Diaries

The Princess Diaries occupies a peculiar position in the contemporary cultural timeline, released a full fifteen years before the specific social consciousness markers we now associate with progressive cinema became dominant. This is a film that predates the entire apparatus by which we might measure such things, which itself becomes the most honest way to assess it. What we observe is a 2001 family comedy operating in its own context, which is to say, a fundamentally different context.

The film presents a female protagonist who exercises agency, certainly, but within parameters that would now read as limited. Mia Thermopolis rejects initial pressure to conform, then accepts a rather thorough makeover that renders her acceptably feminine for royal society. The arc is not feminist in the contemporary sense so much as it is a girl learning to navigate existing power structures rather than dismantling them. She becomes a better princess, not a revolutionary. The casting includes Sandra Oh and other performers of color, but they exist in the narrative without commentary on their presence. This is not representation as a deliberate statement so much as representation as incidental fact.

The film's earnestness is perhaps its defining feature. There is no lecture energy, no sense that the audience is being instructed in proper thinking. Julie Andrews and Anne Hathaway share scenes that are simply warm and sincere. The makeover montage, now frequently read as problematic in its suggestion that transformation is necessary, was presented in 2001 as something closer to a fairy tale tradition. To score this film as if it were made in 2024 would be a category error. It is a period piece, though not in the way that term typically functions. It is a period piece of early-2000s sensibility, and as such, it scores low on contemporary progressive markers. This is not a moral failing of the film. It is simply what it is.