The Princess Diaries (Without Anne Hathaway, Julie Andrews, and Everything Else You Loved about The Princess Diaries)

This past New Year’s Eve my parents’ friends brought their children Liam and Kaitlyn (ages five and four respectively) to our house.  I can’t help but be stereotypically nostalgic when talking with little kids.  They have the best goals.  They want to fly, save the world, battle dragons, and other mythical and impossible but still metaphorically poignant things.  By the time you become an adult, your goals shift from “I bet I could be the fastest person in the world” to “I bet I could eat that whole doughnut in one bite.” 

But one thing for which I felt absolutely no nostalgia was playing princess – mostly because I legitimately never had.  I mean, Jess had certainly played princess, and I definitely played with her, but I would generally opt to be Batman.  We Rush girls played fast and loose with our genres.  It’s not that, from the ages of three to ten, I was ideologically opposed to princesses, it’s that I was plagued by one, all-consuming question:

“OK, but what do princesses do?” 

Kaitlyn gave me a look of rapidly depleting patience.  I had briefly won her favor by pitching the idea of Princess Club. (This after Kaitlyn had gravely approached me, saying, “You can’t be in the Princess Club.”  Not incredibly surprised by this pronouncement, I still felt compelled to ask why.  “Because there is no club.”  Unable to argue with that logic, I nodded.  “Ah.  I see.  I wonder, though, if we could make a Princess Club?”)  But it would seem that I could not ride on the coattails of that moment of brilliance forever, especially not if I kept asking impertinent questions.

From a young age, though, I had no interest in being a princess, simply because the functionality of those young girls eluded me.  If I were to be a princess, did I have to pretend to be in an enchanted sleep or helplessly circle around my “tower” for a half an hour until I was saved by someone doing something more exciting?  The appeal escaped me, as did plenty of normative consumer opportunities.  Many pink dresses were received as gifts and then distastefully handed over to my sister.

Kaitlyn assembled the members of the Princess Club.  Aside from me, other reigning members included Jess and my friend Shaina.  Criteria for membership included: a) being a girl (“This feels a little essentialist,” I mumbled to Jess, who elbowed me in the side) b) having at least one, if not more princess stickers, distributed by Kaitlyn (I had three.  One was given freely, another was begged for, and the third was stolen so if these stickers were declared currency in our new club, I would have a chance to be the richest in the land – a rare opportunity for a graduate student). 

As we gathered for our first meeting, Liam formed the rival Car Club which consisted of all the boys in the house.  Liam had already shown infinite patience with me when, earlier that night, I asked if I could color with him.  He was a meticulous colorer, a fact I pointed out admiringly when I promised to be careful with our joint-picture.  A minute later he sighed and said, “Um.  That’s supposed to be grass?  You’re coloring it black.”  And, yup.  Sure enough.  So I scribbled over it in green, and he grinningly declared that I had made “dead grass,” which was certainly a utilization of poetic license on his part, but cool.  To be honest, there was a dark period of the night when my shenanigans meant I was allowed in neither the Princess Club nor the Car Club.  Story of my life. Nonetheless, I was immediately suspicious of this gender divide between the groups, and necessarily had to focus my attention on subverting the norms of the Princess Club.

To do this I obviously had to become President Princess.  You may think, “Uh, Queen?” but you’d be wrong.  Everyone knows queens are old, evil, and vain, teetering on the ever-present edge of losing their beauty and their sanity.  So, inspired by the youthful ambition all around me – Liam wanted to be a car, for God’s sake - President Princess was my goal.  My multitude of stickers did not seem to be convincing Kaitlyn of my propensity to rule, so I took Shaina downstairs to my mother’s office.  My mother is an independent beauty consultant, and her office is covered with material befitting for princesses – pink, silver, and lots of sparkles surrounded us, and, out of place as I was in this color scheme, I grabbed a pink scarf from a dressing table, placed a tiara on my head, and fumbled with some dangly jewelry.

Shaina meekly fiddled with a bracelet, not wanting to disturb my mother’s office.  This attitude is exactly why she will never truly be President Princess. 

“Uh, should I…dress up?”  Shaina asked, as I [princess] motioned for her to follow me upstairs. 

I looked around the room and grabbed a travel pillow that fits around one’s neck.  Thrusting it on Shaina’s shoulders, I barked, “There.  You’re beautiful.  Let’s go – I have a throne to usurp!”

This had all started out as an exercise in reflection.  I wanted to ask my young friends why only girls could be in the Princess Club.  Why couldn’t I wear a car sticker on my hand next to the princess stickers?  But since these opportunities to explode gender norms had not been embraced by the youths, I decided I would rule the Princess Club and then let (or forcefully make) everyone a part of it.  So, essentially, I started out hoping to teach the children about social justice, and then I ended up teaching them about benevolent dictatorships. 

Despite the fact I was clearly the most princess-looking of all of us – I had a tiara!  I have never worn a tiara in my life and still don’t understand why people want to, but isn’t that supposed to be mean something dammit – Kaitlyn never once declared me President Princess.  Even after, joints cracking, I pseudo-sat in the tiny princess chair my mother had purchased for Kaitlyn’s visits (then she only looked at me with irritation and honest to God told on me to my mother, who exasperatedly scolded me for not sharing), I was still not considered fit to rule.

“You can be President Princess,” she said, walking over to Shaina and sitting in her lap.

“What?  But she’s wearing a pillow on her neck!”  I said, choking slightly as I inhaled some glitter from my scarf.  “She looks ridiculous,” I coughed into my arm.

Kaitlyn shrugged as Jess guffawed.  Liam approached the scene shyly. 

“Could I be in the Princess Club?”  The number of boys at the party was slim, and while Liam had quietly been amusing himself, he clearly wanted some companionship. 

I anticipated having another patient conversation about embracing gender deviance with Kaitlyn, but she surprised me.

“Yeah. C’mon.”  Looking at us she said simply, “Liam can be in the club because he’s my friend.”

Well, then. 

So, yeah, I’m unsurprisingly bad at playing princess, but not just for all of the reasons one would suspect.  To be fair, I am 23 years old and still have vivid memories of looking for girls in the media who were being active in a way I could appreciate, finding none, and having to turn to role models outside of the normative framework.  But I also see more nuances now than I did then.  I see how as a princess you have the power to make friends with, like, singing animals and magical fairies.  You also have the power to let your friend into a club they maybe aren’t socially ideal for.  Action and power do not always manifest themselves in the stereotypically masculine manner of sword fights and dragon slayings.  Therefore, while my question of functionality is apt, we must acknowledge the social biases that codify our ideas of strength in order to honestly answer my question of “What do princess do?” 

*My friend also blogged about princesses, and you should totally check it out. 

** I have recently taken up the role as editor of another friend’s website, where I will be guest-blogging a few times a month about being young and negotiating the challenges and opportunities that can arise from your career.  So please keep an eye out for those posts, which I’ll link you to from here.  Definitely check out Matt Arch’s blog, as it will certainly teach you more about being a young professional than I can teach you about being a princess.