Reread: "The Princess Diaries" by Meg Cabot

 

The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot
First read sometime around 2001
★★★

I first read The Princess Diaries when I was about thirteen, and it's a bit hard to separate out nostalgia from the rest of it when returning to these as an adult. (I still know Mia's full name, apparently—party trick?)

There's a lot in here that wouldn't fly today—jokes about sexual harassment, characters based entirely on racial stereotype, Mia repeatedly suggesting that because New York is in the US, foreigners should get with the program and spell their names differently / wear clothing differently / etc., jokes about eating disorders, bodyguards sitting around a school comparing firepower, Lilly crying 'racism' and trying to get the owners of a small Asian deli cancelled (to use 2023 parlance) because Asian customers sometimes get a five-cent discount. I didn't notice any of this as a thirteen-year-old, and it's a bit eye-opening to be reminded that it was always there. (Also kind of eye-opening, in a different way: dial-up! And pagers! Do the youth of today even know what those things are?)

Despite everything, I basically swallowed these books whole as a teenager. And they did occasionally teach me things: when I was fourteen or so, the (young, hot) French teacher was joking around with one of the boys in the class, and she called him a poulet. 'Wait, what does that mean?' he asked, flipping through his book.

Poulet is French for 'chicken'. It's also slang. 'She called you a hooker,' I said calmly. The class erupted, and our teacher stared at me, aghast—she certainly hadn't expected anyone to understand.

While I'm sure there was no seedy intent, a teacher calling a student a hooker—in any language—also wouldn't go over so well today. But I learned that slang from The Princess Diaries...and I think the French teacher might also have learned something that day.