So I was watching “The Princess Diaries” this past week, the movie being as delightful as always. For those of you who have not seen, or read it since I was informed it was also a book, Mia Thermopolis finds out on her sixteenth birthday that she is the heir to the royal line of the fictitious nation of Genovia. While this is the dream of many little girls, especially if you were born in the 90’s when much of what you watched were Disney movies centered around princesses, Mia is not keen to run a nation. This mostly revolves around her lack of self-confidence due to her low social status at her high school. Eventually, she does find the courage to make a decision that she can be confident about, and it is done in a truly touching and memorable way.

Now while I was enjoying this nostalgic walk down memory lane, I couldn’t help but make an observation about how guys never seem to want this stuff. They don’t want to be princes or knights or really anything that is involved in fairy tales or magic. Most of the movies where boys get the chance to participate in some grand opportunity is almost always having to do with sports. “Little League” and “Like Mike” are just some of the few examples of what I mean, with “Harry Potter” being one of the few exceptions to this.

I feel that movies like these, coming of age stories, are meant to instill hope in their young viewers that they can do anything in life, and it seems that the movies catered towards young boys are severely limited. The movies I have seen featuring young girls has them becoming super sleuths, successful authors, royalty, rock stars, space travelers, and other things that are meant say that women are capable of anything they want to do.

So why do we not have these same messages for boys? Why do we seem to say that boys are meant to be great sports stars or masters of video gaming? I realize that as they grow up, boys will find what they like to do on their own and they will pursue it then, but the movies never show it to them as a possibility. In that sense too, they may be subjected for liking what they do by others because it doesn’t fit in with the status quo. Anyone who plays something outside sports, in movies and television, are actively considered nerds and unable to be successful in a school setting.

Kids are very influenaceble, so they will take what they see people their age doing as the acceptable way. I realize that sports are very important to Americans and that a lot of men enjoy doing it, but we should show them that there is no limit to the types of interests and professions they could take on. Maybe even one of our very own could become a prince or king, but hopefully he has the same instruction as Mia did so he can be a fair ruler.