Perfect Princess (7 page)

BEAUTY FROM
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

The daughter of nonroyals, Beauty (which is Belle in French and in the Disney movie) is a bookish but undeniably attractive girl who, when a hideous monster threatens to keep her father captive in an enchanted castle, offers to be taken captive in his place. For her self-sacrifice, Belle is rewarded with her life, which the monster spares. She gets to hang out in this beautiful palace with all these new clothes that fit perfectly and read romance novels all day. Enchanted kitchenware even brings her her meals! She never even has to get up… except maybe when the Beast asks her to dance, which he does, frequently. Everything is going along just great, when Belle gets a vision that her dad is in trouble, and she has to go back home and save him. Poor Beast nearly dies of loneliness without her. Plus a whole bunch of mean villagers come along and want to kill him (in the Disney version).

Fortunately Belle comes back to the enchanted castle and confesses her love for the Beast and kisses him and breaks the spell. He stops being a Beast, and turns back into a handsome prince.* You just know that he and Belle are happy together for the rest of their lives, because they've both learned what it's like to almost lose the thing you hold most dear in the whole world.**

 

 

Mia's Random Act of Princess:

Be like Belle: Give that ugly guy in your Bio class a second look. Yeah, he might tuck his sweater into his pants and wear a retainer… but when he takes it out, he might be a totally excellent kisser! It's just like Mrs. Potts says: There may be something there that wasn't there before.

Clarisse Renaldo, nee Grimaldi, was just a carefree young debutante—educated in the finest finishing schools in Europe, and garbed in only the most flattering creations of top designers of the era, such as Givenchy and Dior—when she caught the eye of the handsome prince of Genovia one night at a ball given in his honor. Instantly smitten, the prince pursued Clarisse relentlessly, but she would have nothing to do with him, for Clarisse had aspirations of her own, and they had nothing to do with marriage and motherhood. No. Clarisse— though she had never admitted as much to her staid mother and father—wanted a career… a career on the stage! Not since Sarah Bernhardt had the world seen such an actress as Clarisse… or so she had been assured by all of her finishing-school chums, after she starred as Yum-Yum in the school's version of The Mikado.

It was only when Clarisse's mother pointed out that in order to be an actress, Clarisse would have to move to America, most specifically Hollywood, that the young princess-to-be knew her dream would never be realized… because while Clarisse would gladly live in Paris or New York, nothing in the world would ever induce her to move to Los Angeles. And so she accepted the young prince's proposal and became Genovia's most beautiful—and charismatic—princess of all time.

[I can't believe Grandmère managed to weasel her way into this section. And that she convinced Tina she wanted to be an actress. She told ME she wanted to be a brain surgeon.]

Tina's Random Act of Princess:

Be like Clarisse: Go to the animal shelter and adopt a small stray dog. Take it with you everywhere dogs are allowed. In places where dogs are not allowed, take your canine friend anyway, hidden in a large chic purse.

A Note from
Her Royal Highness Princess Mia

Sad but true: some of the world's greatest leaders have been overlooked by historians, simply because they happened to have been born lacking a Y chromosome! Look at Lady Jane Grey: she was queen of England until she was beheaded for treason,
^*
but does anybody ever hear about Queen Jane? No! Even the movie they made about her was called Lady Jane.

And okay, maybe it's because Jane was only queen for nine days, and that's not a whole lot of time to make sweeping social change. But they could still give the girl her props. I mean, she was a queen!

I'm just saying, we hear a lot about the men who ruled the throne, but not so much about the ladies. So here are some women who ruled not only wisely but well, and what we can learn from their triumphs as well as their mistakes.

 

by Lilly Moscovitz, Best Friend to Princess Mia, and writer, producer, and director of Lilly Tells It Like It Is.
[with comments by Princess Mia]

Cleopatra, the last of the Egyptian monarchs before Egypt was overtaken by the Romans, is perhaps best known for her memorable introduction to Julius Caesar. Always one to make a big impression, Cleo arrived at Julius's house rolled up in a carpet, from which she was dramatically revealed by Nubian slaves. In this way, Cleopatra was a lot like one of our modern-day pop princesses, Britney Spears, who once showed up at the MTV Video Music awards wearing little more than a five-foot banana snake around her neck.

It is doubtful however that Britney could have manipulated her boyfriends as skillfully as Cleopatra did (I mean, look at how messy her breakup with Justin turned out to be). Cleopatra's relationship with Marc Antony (after she dumped Julius) kept her, for many years, the most powerful woman in the world.

What is not generally remembered about the queen of the Nile was her fluency in nine languages, her skill at mathematics and military strategy, and her devotion to her country. Her profile graced the coins of not just Egypt but the Roman denarii as well, and circulated throughout the Mediterranean. It is unlikely the same will ever be said of Britney. Cleopatra truly was, as she considered herself, the New Isis, achieving in death by asp—Cleopatra chose to take her own life rather than become enslaved by her enemies—true immortality, according to the Egyptian religion.

 

Lilly's Random Act of Princess:

Be like Cleo: Make a big entrance at YOUR next party or school event. You don't have to roll yourself up in a carpet (dusty and impractical). But you CAN stride confidently through the doors, as if you own the place. Soon people will be looking up to YOU as the queen of the Nile.

Though she married King Louis VII of France at the age of fifteen, wealthy and intelligent Eleanor of Aquitaine wasn't content to sit at home embroidering tapestries. When the Second Crusade rolled around, Eleanor dressed up in armor and with three hundred of her ladies-in-waiting in attendance, descended upon the city of Antioch, where she pledged to help tend to the wounded.

A military strategist at heart, Eleanor disagreed with her husband's objective of reaching Jerusalem. This is not unlike my own mother, who frequently disagrees with my father when he opts to take Route 130 instead of the Turnpike when we are headed to the Jersey shore for a weekend of familial bonding. Unlike my mother, however, when Eleanor's husband, as she predicted, failed to reach his goal, she got the church to end their marriage by granting her an annulment. My own mother just gloats.

Eleanor enjoyed immense popularity throughout Europe for having invented the idea of the “art of courtly love”—proper courting techniques, which she insisted her knights use whilst wooing their ladies. Her second husband, Henry, who was not exactly faithful, could have used some lessons in the art of courtly love…. It might have spared him his wife leading his own children in a rebellion against him, causing Henry to imprison her for fifteen years… much like what the Donald did to Ivana over the whole Marla Maples thing. Only Ivana's prison was the Plaza.

Don't worry, though. Eleanor got her revenge on all of her enemies by outliving them, dying a very rich, very happy old lady.

 

[One thing Eleanor made popular in her court was picking lice out of her lover's hair, then putting it in a locket and wearing it around her neck, as sort of proof that you were allowed close enough to the owner of the lice to pick it from his hair. I kid you not. Thank God today we just use sticky cameras.]

Mia's Random Act of Princess:

Be like Eleanor: Compose a love sonnet dedicated to the object of your affections. You probably shouldn't show it to him, though. He might run from you like a startled fawn, alarmed by the strength of your ardor.