Welcome to Pop Culture Princess, the version of this letter that appears at the Last Quarter of each moon cycle, where Addison tugs at a piece of her brain lint and makes you look at it too.
I’m in Germany with a head cold.
I came all this way, across an OCEAN mind you, to visit my friend and spent the whole of today struggling to sleep on her couch while my sinuses locked up tighter than a German train schedule. A brutal reminder that the viruses of the olde worlde pre-pandemonium can still kick my entire immune-compromised ass.
Since wandering around Hamburg in the 45-degree (don’t come into my home yelling about Celsius or you will be escorted across the border) drizzle wasn’t an option, we hopped me up on German pharmaceutical goods that are ‘not so chemical-ly’ and looked to a faithful cornerstone of our shared culture for relief: the 2004 adaptation masterpiece, “A Cinderella Story”.
This film has everything! A silly costume montage scene with throwaway one-liners! Teen movie stars waltzing, and by waltzing I do mean twirling about 30 times in a row, surrounded by fake ivy and even faker candles! A car chase that involves a Siamese cat twins costume and a pre-Instagram understanding of Botox! Jesse McCartney singing like the rent was due last week and he spent all his money on bad highlights!!!
“Once when I was younger, I went to a theater production of Cinderella with my grandmother and they actually did the original version where the stepsisters cut off their heels and toes to fit into the glass slipper,” Celina, the German friend whose couch I have co-opted, told me, like, kind of immediately upon starting the film. Umm. Okay. I guess that’s why it’s the Brothers ‘Grimm,’ huh.
Anyway. For all the Gen Z girlies selling #Y2K tops on depop for $80 who are doing literally anything other than reading this newsletter, you’re missing out! Because this rusty ole romcom is absolutely filled to the gills with some incredible early aughts fashion choices, and they’re much more authentic than the search results for “Y2K aesthetic teen movie high school” on Pinterest. Hilary Duff as Sam and her baseball cap and long-sleeve-but-tightly-fitted T-shirt and navy cargo pants were the literal BLUEPRINT. Pick me girlies would follow her “I’d choose a Big Mac over a rice cake” lead for generations to come.
The bejeweled flip phone clipped to a strappy heel beneath a strapless ballgown. A ponytail with not a single notion of a grasp on the waterfalls of hair relentlessly straightened to hang as much in one’s face as possible. Cringey fitted cap-sleeved women’s tees. The long-forgotten zig-zag part. The low-rise midriff that signaled ‘cool girl’ before the high-rise midriff ever dared to. Speaking of low-rise pantswear… when Madame Hilary (not Secretary) slings her thumbs through a couple of loose belt loops….. you best start believing in teen dramas Miss Turner, you’re in one.
Even with a sprinkling of fat-shaming, a light dusting of AAVE appropriation, and, like, five jokes about girls and their eating disorders, this film (yeah, FILM) holds up pretty well in comparison to its contemporary cohorts. Plus, it delivered what was certainly intended to be an iconic catchphrase. And then it surprised us at the end with an actually iconic catchphrase. The kids online will claim it’s “laugh out loud” or “ribet ribet”, but they have never even heard of T9 texting so their opinions on this matter couldn’t possibly, well, matter.
“Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.” Okay?? I hate baseball and I hate men giving me advice even more. It’s not quite sticking the landing. Time to call in the angsty teen revenge scene where Sam dresses Mr. Ames all the way d o w n in front of his future frat star felon friends with a line that formed the foundations of a million Tumblr fireplaces.
“Waiting for you is like waiting for rain in this drought: useless, and disappointing.”
OOOUUUUUCCCHHHH!!!!
The lengths I would go to to use something of this caliber on a few of my exes…. and in a high school football locker room right before the big game!? THAT is the real American Dream!
We love to clown on Austin Ames for being so hot and dumb that he couldn’t recognize classically attractive blonde Sam under truly a wisp of an eye mask, but give him a break guys! He has soooo many feelings AND he wants to be a writer at Princeton but his mean daddy wants him to play football at USC! Student debt is for losers and he is pouting in a Fighting Frogs uniform!
He was still a blueprint of a different sort, though. Austin’s “Son! You’re throwing away your dream!” “No dad, I’m throwing away yours” walked so Troy Bolton could defy the laws of gravity and Scream.
Just so I can round out these paragraph-length lists into a comfortable triad, can we take a moment to appreciate the casting? Queen of teens Hilary Duff? Triple-named single threat Chad Michael Murray at the height of his rule? Jennifer Coolidge absolutely cvnting her way around the San Fernando Valley? The stereotypical nerdy guy who would later go on to make millions of dollars per episode as another stereotypical nerdy guy on God’s least favorite sitcom? That one actor who played the mean girl in nearly every 2000s movie who happened to share a pretty specific forehead scar in the exact same place as another typecast mean girl actor from the 2000s, a fact that truly haunts me every time I see either of them appear onscreen but nobody else on planet earth seems to register even a little? Regina King as a fairy godmother!??!
The film (I’m so serious) ends with one of the sloppiest teen makeouts ever to grace a DVD with incredible bonus features, a scene in which Hilary once again chooses to HOOK A SINGLE THUMB INTO A BELT LOOP, MID-MAKEOUT. Listen. She has a point.
I have one final *point* to make, and that is that layering Jimmy Eat World’s “Hear You Me” over the hyped-up chaos of a high school football game was a stroke of genius and should’ve secured the Oscar nom. A song you might remember well from another iconic scene in another CMM vehicle, One Tree Hill. What could this coincidence possibly mean. Is this what the Mandela Effect is?
Instead of a Really Good Tweet this week, I’ll be treating you to the emotional catharsis playlist your heartbroken 16-year-old self could only dream of, based of course on the aforementioned ballad. It’s okay sweetie. Let the tears fall down… and wake my dreams. Let them wash away… my sanity. Whatever shreds are left of it anyway.
See you at the new moon! And remember, loooove the dress. HATE her.
-Addison
Missed last week because you were very busy in important meetings? It’s okay, I was just shedding some layers of comp-het along with my hair.