—crownless;

101 Capspams: Favorite Movies Edition – 1. A Little Princess (1995)

Liesel Matthews and Vanessa Lee Chester on set of A Little Princess 

A Little Princess (1995)

But tbh i always saw her as French Desi in my head

I also thought her dad was an educated, Western assimilated Indian and her mom was the French Caucasian

I read the books

She always was desi in my head

It bothers me whenever they cast a blond e white actress for her

Like even the book i got , they gave her light brown hair in the cover and the ruddiest white girl face ever. "Why are you white??"

Like ok sure let her be white cuz shes ethnically ambiguous but at least keep the black hair??

Bro in the book Sara even had an insecure inner monologue about her color

…Nah because why DOES this sound like a mixed-race child internalizing white beauty standards??”

Only Studio Nippon got it right

I hate how Burnett openly lets Becky be black, most movies maintain that image

But im angry because its only for the fact she has to be used as a character that experiences oppression

Meanwhile Sarah, a privilege girl

Thats ambiguously white or poc

Burnett keeps beating around the bush what her heritage really is like you gave her black glossy hair, large green expressive eyes

And a love for Indian tales, deeply culturally inclined girl and also treated strange for her more open worldview

Like its not written like a white orientalist girl who happened to live in India

The way she talks about it has intimacy, like shes trynna connect with her roots despite living the Western way

A lot of colonial fiction treats India like:

decorative backdrop

mystical fantasy land

exotic scenery

But Sarah’s relationship to India feels emotionally personal. She carries it inwardly. It shapes her imagination, morality, storytelling, emotional sensitivity.

this interpretation feels less like:

“headcanon for representation”

and more like:

“reading the colonial subtext to its logical conclusion.”

And her father Mr. Crewe is also racially ambiguous they only say British officer who owns a mining business in India

Thats bullshit

Because the text says “British officer/businessman in India,” but Victorian Britain itself was full of complicated colonial identities:

Anglo-Indians

mixed families

Western-educated Indian elites

assimilated colonial subjects

people who moved between languages and cultures

So imagining Captain Crewe as an educated Indian man assimilated into British upper-class expectations is not historically absurd at all. In some ways it actually makes the social tensions of the story more believable.

I always imagined Mr. Crewe being played by Dev Patel

And it kind of makes the story dive deeper in the more complex prejudice for successful brown people in Victorian colonialist Britain

But of course its all in Sarahs pov

Shes simply a child to not understand such things

And her case is like the mixed desi experience in a white dominated country.

But the prejudice seeps in the story even if its not explicit cuz a child wouldny notice that

Maybe thats why the girls in her school were extra mean to her and Miss Minchin had always been disapproving and challenging towards her

She was only tolerated because her father was as rich as an Englishman

it reframes Miss Minchin’s behavior in a sharper way.

Because if Sarah is merely a rich white girl, then Miss Minchin’s resentment is mostly class envy.

But if Sarah is:

visibly culturally different

tolerated because of wealth

admired but never fully accepted

then Miss Minchin’s hostility gains undertones of:

imperial prejudice

discomfort

social gatekeeping

resentment toward “outsiders” occupying elite spaces

which fits Victorian society disturbingly well

But nooo this theme is so underdiscussed by readers

Because they assume Sarah is white

I see the story less as

“privileged rich girl loses status”

But more like:

“a culturally mixed child who only had conditional acceptance loses the protection wealth gave her.”

Sarah behaves like someone negotiating identity:

deeply imaginative

self-conscious about appearance

socially liminal

accepted conditionally

culturally attached to a place others exoticize

emotionally mature from observing hierarchy

Even the way she clings to dignity and performance (“every little girl is a princess”) can read differently through your lens. It stops being just whimsical optimism and starts feeling like a survival philosophy:

if society refuses to fully recognize your humanity or status, you create inner sovereignty.

That’s powerful.

But honestly i might be getting jumped by most people for this

But my thoughts are not coming out of nowhere

Idk if Burnett was going for that

Whether Sarah really was just an orientalist white girl

Or shes a desi girl who was raised to assimilate in white British rose life trynna reconnect with her roots

Its all up to interpretation

But like Burnett is a product of her time so Im not getting my hopes up

Don't tell me you still fancy yourself a princess! Good God, child, look around you! Or better yet, look in the mirror!

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get to know me meme: favorite movies [8/?] Titanic (1997)