Perfect Princess (11 page)

For some reason writers seem to think that if they throw a princess into a story, people will pay more attention to it. This must explain why there is a plethora of princesses in fairy tales, which were originally conceived (back in the days before the Cartoon Network and Seventh Heaven) to warn kids about the dangers of modern-day society.

But since these stories were written in the year 1200 or whatever—and modern-day society was, like, a cluster of thatched cottages protected by a feudal lord—the warnings, instead of telling the kids to say no to drugs and not get into cars with strangers, are all about the dangers of trading the family cow for magic beans or stealing cabbages from the local witch's garden.

Still, considering the fact that most of them were written a millennium ago, these stories have some staying power….I mean, they are still around. And while personally, I don't see the appeal of using royalty as a vehicle to propel your narration—I mean, who cares if the person playing with the spindle is a princess or just your average serf? The message is the same: Use caution when handling sharp objects! I guess it does make the story more memorable or whatever.

The following are a few of my favorite PC princesses, in no particular order.

Princess Lily (played by the luminous Mia Sara) has a problem: She is in love with Tom Cruise, who in the movie plays some kind of elf or something—I was never too clear on just what, exactly, Tom is supposed to be. Anyway, Lily, aka Mia (ha!), throws this ring into the river and tells Tom that if he finds it he can marry her (which if you ask me is being way demanding, even for a princess. I mean, guys are scared enough of commitment without us making things even more complicated by forcing them to go deep-sea diving for our engagement rings. But whatever.). While Tom is underwater looking around for the ring, some kind of troll-like thing who looks a bit like Satan takes over the kingdom (it could happen) because he is in love with Mia Sara too (who wouldn't be?).

The thing is, everything would have been okay, if Mia/Princess Lily had listened to Tom and stayed away from the unicorns. But no, she had to go and pet one, and well, there's this whole thing about how virgins are the only ones who can catch unicorns, which is like this legend from King Arthur days, which Lilly Moscovitz says is totally sexist, and that the unicorn's horn is this phallic symbol and that you shouldn't like them because if you do it means you want to touch boys' you-know-whats, but whatever. The POINT IS (get it???), because Lily-in-the-movie touches the unicorn, Satan Troll's henchmen are able to trap it and drag it and Princess Lily to their underground lair, where Lily is forced to dance around in a tacky black dress that looks like the one Cher wore when she won the Oscar for Moonstruck. After a lot of networking with dwarves and fairies and a couple of deadly battles, Tom is finally able to save the day and put things back as they were.

But none of it would have happened if Princess Lily hadn't thrown that stupid ring into the river. So the moral of the story is, Don't try to force guys to perform over-the-top feats of athleticism to prove their love for you. Be happy with what you have.

Mia's Random Act of Princess:

Be like Lily: Admire the pretty unicorns from afar, but for God's sake, DON'T TOUCH THEM!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, so there was this princess and she was all snotty because she had all this long, shimmery blond hair and a perfect body and all the guys in the kingdom were in love with her and she was captain of the junior varsity cheerleading squad….

Oh, no, wait. That's somebody else.

Anyway, this princess was all perfect and stuff, and so one day when she was playing with her golden ball (whatever… just go with it. Golden balls are what princesses used to play with before there were Gameboys) and it fell into the royal pond, she was way bummed out, because nothing bad like that had ever happened to her before. Obviously HER dad never made her take Algebra. But whatever.

So when this big, ugly frog hopped out of the pond and was all, “I'll get you your ball back if you kiss me,” the princess was like, “Ew, gross, no way,” because kissing a frog has got to be even worse than kissing a mouth breather who wears a bionater and tucks his sweater into his pants….

Oh, no, wait. That's also somebody else.

But the princess really wanted her ball back, so she told the frog she'd kiss him, and like a lame-o he went and gave her her ball back before making her follow through on her end of the dealio, which if you ask me is like paying the cab driver BEFORE he gets to the airport, but whatever. Anyway, the princess was so overjoyed to have her ball back she took off (no big surprise). Well, the poor frog really had no choice but to hop in and interrupt the royal dinner that night and tell the king how his daughter wouldn't keep her word. The king was understandably embarrassed (although if a frog hopped into the dining room at the Palais de Genovia and started talking, embarrassed would not be the word to describe my dad's reaction), and told the princess she had to kiss the frog. The princess was pretty grossed out by this but she had no choice: She kissed the frog.

And of course the minute her lips touched the frog's, he turned into a prince, who was not only good-looking but also willing to marry her on the spot, which if you ask me is the most unbelievable thing in the whole story, because hello, it took some of us, like, eight years to get our handsome princes even to ask us out, let alone propose, but whatever.

The moral of the story is: Don't judge amphibians by how they look.

Mia's Random Act of Princess:

Be like the Frog Princess: If you've done something wrong, don't make up excuses: Just apologize. And then don't do it again! People—even princes—will respect you for it.