It’s a trope as old as time: the charming, yet conventionally unattractive girl gets a makeover, and suddenly her looks match her winning personality, opening an entire world of possibilities…and love interests.
And how do we know she’s conventionally unattractive? Glasses (because attractive people don’t read and can see perfectly, duh) and unkempt curly hair.
In pop culture, almost nothing instantly clocks a woman as less desirable or polished. At best, they can be the carefree bohemian or funny best friend. But you can bet you bottom dollar that if they are to be seen as a romantic love interest in any way, shape, or form, that hair is gonna be flat-ironed within an inch of its life. It’s screenwriting 101, people.
An era-defining transformation
One lasting example of this is the makeover scene in The Princess Diaries, wherein Mia Thermopolis (played by Anne Hathaway) goes from adorkable to refined thanks to a bit of hair straightening, plus some makeup, contacts, and intense eyebrow tweezing.
In a recent interview with People, Hathaway shared that the filmmaker never actually intended to promote the “curly = ugly” stereotype. It was actually just a logistical strategy.
“My natural hair is rather straight, so we had to create a contrast,” she shared, adding that going with her naturally straight hair meant “less time in the makeup trailer” overall.
…with “unintended consequences”
As a result, however, the message many audiences read was “curly hair is unattractive,” which Hathaway labeled as a “terrible, completely unintended side effect.”
If the comments section was any indicator, Hathaway was correct in saying the “unintended consequence” of that scene was the profound effect it left with viewers.
“I (a curly haired girly) started straightening my hair after I saw the scene at 12.”
“Yeah, watching this movie when it came out as someone who had curly hair and glasses did something to me lol.”
“I had curly hair and glasses when this movie came out and was bullied for both. I was in middle school and to this day I can’t watch this movie because it made me feel like the bullies were right. As an adult I know better but the gut feelings are still there.”
Granted, the creative decision might have been made in part for practical reasons, but let’s not forget that this movie came out in the early 2000s…a fairly rigid time period for beauty standards overall. The Princess Diaries was far from the only movie to portray curls (or glasses, or freckles, or anything past a size 2) as “ugly.” For all its good parts, the film was definitely a product of its time.
Straightening out the curl narrative
Thankfully, we’ve seen a lot of progress in this department. Not only do we see far more characters in media sporting their curls, but, thanks to social media, there’s a much larger wealth of knowledge for how to style and take care of curly hair.
Truly, there’s an entire language (I’m 2C to 3B type myself…iykyk) dedicated to curls now that simply did not exist at an earlier time. Not knowing that curls require an entirely different routine left many of us to resort to straightening or making peace with feeling like the ”ugly” one.
Even still, curls that aren’t styled and left in their Mia Thermopolis state are still often viewed by society as unprofessional, undesirable, or unclean in some way. That’s why representation matters. It’s so important to have our pop culture reflect a different reality so that we might start internalizing a different story and unlearning harmful stigma.
All this to say…Princess Diaries 3 should definitely let Mia’s curls go free. Just sayin’.
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