We Give You...Inclusion ("Princess Diaries")

I will be referring to the disabled kids in the movies with she/her pronouns and as girls.

At the time of posting this article I cannot find answers at to whether or not the disabled people in the Princess Diaries movies are actual wheelchair users and not able-bodied or nondisabled people pretending to be wheelchair users. However, I’ve never seen an able-bodied or nondisabled kid pretend to be a wheelchair user (it’s always adults) so I personally don’t see a reason to be worried in that aspect for these movies.

The first Princess Diaries movie shows a wheelchair user a little over 1 hour in.

Mia gets to school and there is a huge crowd of people - people asking for her autograph and news crews wanting to talk to her - outside said school.

The first person she stops for is a little girl in a wheelchair. Mia crouches down to the girl’s level, signs something for her, and talks to her.

This is huge to me because it’s simple. They didn’t put the focus on her disability - that is important but, also, a disabled kid is still a kid. A kid having a disability doesn’t automatically mean they don’t have the same wants and interests as nondisabled kids.

And they didn’t try to hide her in the crowd. That is something I see a lot, if a movie has a wheelchair user character said character is hidden as well as possible from view. It was - and still is - really amazing to see a physically disabled kid interact with a princess.

I remember watching this movie as a kid (the same age as the girl in the movie seems to be) and I was automatically in awe and pulled in.

I was born disabled and I have always been a wheelchair user and I have rarely ever seen another disabled person or wheelchair user - especially at that point in my life - and seeing that was just magical.

Seeing that as a kid, being shown and knowing there are other people like me happy and living a good life, was absolutely amazing and incredibly important. It was part of the things that showed me I - as a wheelchair user - can act and be in movies.

When it comes to the second Princess Diaries movie, the representation isn’t the same and that makes me so happy.

In this one, Mia has a birthday party at her palace and she invites many other princesses. One of those princesses is a wheelchair user. (It’s also important to mention that the disabled princess is not play by the same girl from the first movie.)

This representation is huge to me because it is full on and explicitly showing a disabled girl as a princess. It shows a disabled person as royalty. just as much as an able-bodied or nondisabled person.

This makes my heart so happy because I don’t ever see that. Even to this day, this movie is the only piece of media I can think of that shows a physically disabled person as royalty. It’s not even a considered possibility.

Wheelchair users are just as capable as able-bodied and nondisabled people to be royalty. Just like some able-bodied and nondisabled people aren’t able to, the same applies to wheelchair users.

Neither movie is perfect, I fully understand that. There should absolutely be more than 1 wheelchair user in each.

I fully hold this belief for every movie and show.

We [wheelchair users] are all over the world. We exist everywhere and that deserves to be seen.

That being said, early-2000s movies having wheelchair users fully visible is huge. That can be a huge thing now, much less then.