The Princess Diaries 2 - A New Kind of Fairy Tale?

Today I stumbled across the end of The Princess Diaries 2 on the Disney Channel and decided to watch it. Having seen the movie before, I knew the plot, but had never looked at the film critically. Upon doing so today, I found quite a few things to be very interesting. The angle of the movie is Disney's attempt to showcase what being a "real" princess would be like, and they try to show Anne Hathaway's character's obligations that come with being a princess.

The plot of the sequel, however, is an interesting one. As she prepares to ascend the throne of her country, Princess Mia's Parliament tell her that she is forbidden to take her place as queen unless she is married. She prepares to enter into an arranged marriage with a man with whom she has no passion or love, all for her country and its people. This is obviously an interesting choice on Disney's part, choosing to show a character who will sacrifice her happiness for other people and who needs a man at her side in order to enter into a powerful position.

Then, when the wedding day arrives and Princess Mia has a breakdown. After a conversation with her grandmother, who explained that she must choose between her country and herself, it appears as though Mia is ready to sacrifice her happiness for the "greater good". Then, she approaches her betrothed and stops him, freeing him from obligation by saying that even they deserve to try to find true love, after which he graciously thanks her from excusing him from doing the proper thing for once. Mia proceeds to the alter to give a speech - a really corny one, at that - in an attempt to convince the members of Parliament to let her been queen without a husband. As she is trying to stand up for herself, her love interest that has been taking shape throughout the movie is dashing to her aid...on a unicycle. After this situation has served its purpose of comic relief, he trades a farmer his unicycle for a horse, thereby attaining the proper "knight in shining armor" look. While Mia is trying to do something for herself, she needs the presence of a male in order to convince Parliament to let her be queen and to save her from a treacherous fate. When he walks through the doors, she looks relieved and happy to have him interrupting those trying to go against her, reinforcing that she does, in fact, need a man to watch out for her and rule alongside her. At the end of her love interest, Nicholas' speech, he says, "Think how lovely she'll look on our postage stamp". Here, after convincing a group of men to allow a single woman to rule their country, he adds this comment to the end, returning to the importance of her appearance and placing her as something to look at. This is an interesting end to his speech.

This scene ends with the marriage of Mia's grandmother to her head of security, brought about by Mia telling her grandmother, "Just because I didn't get my fairy tale ending, doesn't mean you shouldn't."Of course, Mia does get her fairy tale ending right after this scene, even before her coronation. While she is crowned queen as a single woman, all indications signify that this will not last long, especially given that Nicholas' declaration of his love for Mia is done while on one knee. Clearly, this movie is an attempt to show two strong, independent, and powerful women, but it fails in the end, forced to leave both of them with a man at her side.