Podcast Tuesday: "Garry Marshall is for the Children"

Anne Hathaway in The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement.

About a quarter of a century ago, author Meg Cabot had a revelation: girls like stories about princesses. Cabot herself liked stories about princesses as a child and still did as a grownup. And so she wrote The Princess Diaries (2000), a popular YA novel in which an American teenager named Mia finds out she is the rightful heir to the throne of a small European country called Genovia. Director Garry Marshall successfully adapted Cabot's book to the big screen in 2001 with Anne Hathaway (in her first major screen role) starring as the clumsy but endearing Mia. Cabot has since written many more books in the Princess Diaries franchise, while Marshall and Hathaway reunited for a sequel to the first movie called The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement in 2004.

I've yet to read any of Cabot's novels, but I have now seen both of Garry Marshall's Princess Diaries movies. To me, this is a classic "chosen one" narrative. At the beginning of the first film, Mia feels very un-special. Her prep school classmates either mock her or ignore her entirely. Even her one friend, Lily (Heather Matarazzo), treats her with some degree of scorn. But then, out of nowhere, her grandmother Clarisse (Julie Andrews) shows up with the very unexpected news that Mia is of royal blood. According to Clarisse, the unassuming American girl may be Genovia's last hope for survival. And so, Mia has to overcome her own self-doubts and rise up to claim her rightful place on the throne.

There's no denying that the Princess Diaries movies were made in the shadow of another, even more popular multimedia franchise about a chosen one. The first Diaries movie actually beat the first Harry Potter movie to theaters by three full months, but J.K. Rowling's books had been a worldwide sensation since 1997. To me, the influence of Harry Potter on The Princess Diaries (at least the movie version) is undeniable. It's a very short distance from "You're a wizard, Harry" to "You're a princess, Mia." Mia is Harry. Clarisse is Dumbledore. Clarisse's bodyguard Joe (Hector Elizondo) is Hagrid. Lily is Hermione. And throughout the film, Mia divides her time between a fancy private school and the Genovian embassy (where she studies to be a princess). Put these two together, and you've got Hogwarts. Mia even has a snotty, blonde-haired rival, Lana (Mandy Moore), the equivalent of Draco Malfoy.

This week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, we talk about The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement. Is this sequel merely a cynical cash grab or does it manage to tell a compelling, entertaining story on its own? That's what we're hoping to find out. Please do join us.