Like every other girl born in the mid-'90s, I’ve watched the Disney Channel seminal classic "The Princess Diaries"approximately half a dozen times. In the film, there’s a very famous scene where the main character, Mia Thermopolis, (Anne Hathaway, in her breakout role) is descended upon by her royal grandmother’s stylist Paolo and his pink-rubber clad assistant. (Ah, the early aughts.) They blow her curly, frizzy hair straight and shiny and break her glasses in half so that she has no choice but to wear contacts. "I took this, and made you a princess," Paolo boasts.
I’ve worn glasses since I was in sixth grade. Well, technically, I’m supposed to have worn glasses since I was in sixth grade. More often, I don’t. I “forget” them on my desk or just decide it’s not worth it to take them out of my purse or backpack. I’ve tried contacts on several occasions to disastrous results (I’ve got twitchy eyes). I tend to only bespeckle myself when it’s an absolutely necessity, like when I’m driving or at the theater.
“You’re going to get yourself killed,” a friend said, when she saw my face contorted, squinting, at the blur of the world before walking into an intersection and the vague shapes of oncoming cars. “Why don’t you ever wear your glasses?”
The honest answer? The honest, shallow answer? I don’t like how I look in them. I don’t like how people look at me when I’m wearing them. Why would I?
From "Princess Diaries" to "Clueless" to most 1980s movies involving John Hughes, glasses and frizzy hair are symbolic of an ugly, awkward nerd who will never be loved or accomplish anything. Until someone takes pity on them and makes them over, that is. America Ferrera's character, Betty Suarez, has braces and glasses and frizz, and stars in a television show called "Ugly Betty." Even in "Gattaca," which is a science fiction masterpiece rather than a teen wish-fulfilling one, the protagonist hides his glasses during job interviews because society literally considers him inferior for needing them.
Media controls so much of a young person’s sense of self-worth, and the message it has sent to me and others like me is clear: glasses and wavy hair are disgusting, you’re a loser for having them and they need to be eliminated immediately. Otherwise, you’ll never be a princess.
I think it’s too late for me. I’ll never love my glasses. I’ll always do my best to flatten my hair as straight and shiny as science allows. But for the next generation of little girls (and boys!), could Hollywood please kill this trope? I’m sick at the idea of dozens of other children growing up and seeing themselves as the “before” picture in every goddamn makeover montage.
