Lana Thomas is the main antagonist of Disney's 2001 feature film The Princess Diaries. She is one of the most popular girls in school, and a bully who enjoys bullying and making Mia's school life hard and miserable for her. She has friends whose names rhyme with hers.
Background[]
Personality[]
Lana lives up to the mean queen bee stereotype: being shallow, spoiled, and a constant bully to anyone not popular. She at first has no interest in Mia and only finds slight amusement in making fun of her, but after Mia is discovered to be a princess, Lana, instead of apologizing for her behavior, worsens it by deciding to use Mia's newfound popularity to her own advantage. She proved to be an attention-seeker as she tried pretending she and Mia were friends in front of the paparazzi, and later tried to act friendly in front of the teachers and reporters to mask her true nature. This proves that she is solely interested in Mia for her status rather than Mia herself.
Now no longer seeing a personal use in Mia, Lana decides to publicly humiliate Mia and use her status as a princess against her, such as exposing Mia in embarrassing moments and showcasing the scene to the paparazzi. However, Lana's motive for that was to get back at her ex-boyfriend Josh, who broke up with her so he could use Mia as well; this reveals her immaturity, vengefulness, and mean-spirited nature.
However, the end result of her actions finally comes without reward when, after further taunting Mia, the fed-up princess dirties her clothes and tells her off, saying that while she herself may grow out of being a "freak", Lana will never stop being a jerk, leaving her to silently and childishly fume in embarrassment, ultimately proving she is nothing more than a shallow bully. To further add to her karma, when she whines of this to Vice Principal Gupta, she too is unsympathetic, and advises her to simply send her outfit out for dry-cleaning.
Despite Lana's dominating popularity, she is shown to be clearly very weak and cowardly, as she does nothing but complain when something is being done to her. Two good examples of this would be when a foul softball flew in next to her feet and she immediately freaked out, or more prominently when Mia humiliated her and she merely screamed as this happened before complaining afterwards to the teachers, implying her preference for being the victim and relying on others to enforce the punishment rather than do it herself.
In the book series that the film is based on, Lana apologizes for her behavior and becomes friends with Mia in the final books, supporting her relationship with Michael Moscovitz.
Role in the film[]
Lana is a very popular girl at school, if not the most, but she is also a stereotypical bully who makes fun of others. She dated Josh Bryant and briefly made fun of Mia in class.
At one point, when Mia (having found out that she is a princess) is wearing a hat, Lana reminds the teacher of the no-hats policy, much to Mia's embarrassment when she exposes her hair. But when Mia's status as a princess is revealed to the public, Lana takes advantage of the press' presence and blatantly lies saying she is Mia's best friend to the paparazzi outside her school. It is unknown if Mia cleared any of this up later on.
One night, at the beach, Lana, looking for revenge on Josh for dumping her for Mia, removes the tent in which Mia is hiding in front of a paparazzi, which resulted in her being clad in only a towel and receiving a forced kiss from Josh Bryant, humiliating the poor girl. The next day, she is seen cheerleading as Mia does softball for gym class. Though she initially mocks Mia on her aiming, she does take pleasure in watching her hit Josh in the crotch, and mocks him for this later on.
A few days later, Lana and her friends see Mia and her classmate, Jeremiah Hart, and mock them. Mia then asks Lana if her cheerleading outfit goes well with anything, and Lana says it does, unaware that Mia was including something that wasn't clothing. As payback for the humiliation, Mia smears chocolate ice cream on her outfit. Lana tells Mia that she is such a freak, and Mia replies that she may grow out of it, but Lana will never stop being a jerk. The other students chant, "Lana got coned!" over and over, with Lilly Moscovitz joining in. When Lana complains to the faculty, Vice Principal Gupta just tells her to send the outfit to the cleaners.
In a deleted scene, her bullying Mia would have been exposed by a reporter.
She was briefly seen in The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement, having graduated with her friends.
Trivia[]
- Lana is portrayed by Mandy Moore who would go onto voice Princess Rapunzel 9 years later in the Tangled franchise.
Gallery[]
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