If we’re grading the Christmas movies available this year on cheese factor and cheese factor alone …well, The Princess Switch – the Vanessa Hudgens led Prince and the Pauper style rom com is probably the cheesiest one there is.
Does that make it the best one? Well, it depends on why you watch these movies, but if you watch them to feel good, and to get caught up in an improbable romance that, somehow, ends up happily – against common sense, then it might just be one of the best out there.
That is, of course, if you can turn off your brain and banish that pesky common sense that makes you ask questions like: Is it okay for princes to just marry anyone? If that’s so, why was the prince in an arranged marriage to begin with? Where is Montenaro? Do they care about the Duchess marrying the prince? Also, did the King know that his son wasn’t really marrying the Duchess? Did he suddenly not care? How did his wife convince him?
Wait, I’m not done with the questions: What happened to Stacy’s store when she moved to Belgravia? Did Kevin keep it? Did he buy her out? How many tiny kingdoms’ are we supposed to believe exist in the world? Is Belgravia next to Aldovia? Where’s Genovia in this scenario? What is Margaret actually going to do in Chicago? She can’t bake, can she?
But, of course, the answer to all of these is not just who knows, but frankly, who cares? There’s cheese to go around, and that’s why this movie will probably feature heavily on my rotation of movies to re-watch this holiday season.
I will just probably have to do it while skipping a scene.
Oh, yes, I’m talking about that scene near the beginning of the movie, where, once they get to Belgravia, Stacy and Kevin are setting up for the contest and Stacy’s arch nemesis, Brianna Michaels shows up. Now, of course, Brianna is the typical mean girl we see a lot of in these types of movies, the one who OF COURSE, at one point, dresses in all black and lets out an evil laugh as she attempts to sabotage her opponent, an attempt that, of course, the brave heroine rises above because reasons, a stereotype I don’t really love but I could learn to live with, if it weren’t for the fact that they have to add a line with Stacy basically slut-shaming her.
No. Just no.
This was a script written by two women, and in an otherwise delightful and pretty damn progressive comedy, this stuck out like a sore thumb. We don’t need to put other women down to prop ourselves up, and we really, really don’t need to reinforce dumb stereotypes about women needing to sleep around to get ahead.
We’re better than that.
In fact, we’re more like Stacy pointing out to the Prince (as the Duchess) that she has an opinion, she has interests, and she’s not just going to marry him to sit down in the shadows.
We’re more like Margaret (as Stacy) giving Kevin some overdue credit for the job they’ve done together. We’re more like Olivia, who takes absolutely 0.2 seconds to see through the ruse, and then becomes a valuable ally, and truly the only reason Margaret even gets through the rouse of pretending to be Stacy, because she clearly didn’t pay attention when Stacy was explaining all that she needed to know.
Typical Duchess move.
So, my advice? Ignore that faux pass at the beginning, or if possible, fast forward through it. Brianna Michaels doesn’t matter anyway, I promise! What you’ll find, otherwise, is a charming, romantic, beautiful and perfectly in season movie – with some weird ass cake design, I’ll give you that – that’s bound to make you feel like Christmas dreams can really come true, and like hey, those dreams can also include minorities!
Yay for Vanessa Hudgens.
And even sort of yay for Prince Wonderbread (aka Edward), who I swear ends up being more interesting than he seems at first glance, thank Santa, and for Kevin, who is actually so freaking nice that, at times, he’s not as interesting as he could be, but this is a Christmas movie and we want nice.
No, we need nice.
And The Princess Switch is that, the nice, cheesy, turn your brain off and just enjoy kinda movie. Kinda like A Christmas Prince was last yer. The kind that goes really well with the holidays and a steaming cup of hot chocolate and marshmallows.
What are you waiting for?
The Princess Switch is streaming now on Netflix.
OUR ‘SO BAD IT’S GOOD’ RATING 8.7/10 ?
REALISM FACTOR: ?
DOESN’T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT REALISM FACTOR: ????????
CHEESE FACTOR: ??????????
ROMANCE FACTOR: ????????
TROPEYNESS FACTOR: ??????????
