'American Princess' review: This summer comedy's bawdy slapstick humor is not everyone's cup of mead
*Spoiler Alert: This article contains spoilers for the first four episodes of 'American Princess.'*
If bawdy humor is your cup of tea, then Lifetime's 'American Princess' is your next go-to summer watch.
Lifetime's new hour-long comedy 'American Princess' begins with the dream wedding of socialite Amanda Klein (Georgia Flood) getting off on the wrong foot after she finds her fiance cheating on her with a hooker.
Klein ends up assaulting the seductress. Humiliated, heart-broken and clothed only in her bridal undergarments, she ends up eloping from her wedding on a cycle rickshaw, only to land up in a Renaissance faire that she first thinks is a themed wedding.
Surrounded by women wearing cleavage amped corsets as pub wenches or washer wenches, and men as mud beggars, knights, jousters or auctioneers, 'American Princess' will leave you shocked at the similarity between the original Renaissance faire lifestyle and now. Especially from the eyes of a bratty city girl who finds it hard to gel with the upstate vibes.
Finding herself stranded in Renaissance faire, Klein comes across accepting folk who act as an emotional refuge for her from her socialite lifestyle. Executively produced by Jenji Kohan who also worked on 'Orange Is the New Black', 'American Princess' might leave you confused for any regular one-off romcom but eventually slips into something dark and much more emotional than expected.
At first, the series makes it quite hard for us to root for Klein or even be interested to see what happens to her especially after she assaulted the hooker. But that's not all, Klein also seems to have an alcohol addiction which ends in her getting drunk and ripping off the nipple ring from her Renaissance faire love interest David a.k.a. Pizzle Humpsalot, the village's mud beggar (Lucas Neff) that leaves a gaping wound. She then tattles to her fellow performers about the time she saw the Faire Queen Elizabeth I's (Seana Kofoed) pubic hair and revealed how unruly it was according to her.
Through it all 'American Princess' reveals one thing is constant, that it uses bawdy humor to gain the viewer's interest in the series. But though they showcase Klein to be a dumb person, there is far more to her than what meets the eye. Through the course of the series, we get to know that she is a former English major and historian who works as a freelancer in NewYork.
Klein, though she enters the faire looking like a fish out of water, ends up making friends with David, and Delilah aka Prunella the Washer Wench (Mary Hollis Inboden). Neff and Inboden are two among the star cast that includes Broadway actors, Oscar nominees, etc.
The series also addresses alcohol addiction, parenting, ethical non-monogamy, aging and how feminism fits into a wistful, fabricated version of early Europe. American Princess' gnarled sexuality will not be everyone's cup of tea. Because, if you take a look at it from the perspective of someone from this generation and out of the Ren faire it would be nothing less than sexual abuse and objectification of women and which is included in their jokes as well.
Overall, during the first four episodes, you will come across a lot of muck, spit, blood, puke, pee, farts, lice, breast milk, used condoms, pubic hair, screaming orgasms, sex toys, oral sex, diarrhea and wounded nipple piercings. And by the just reading this if it gives you a grotesque feeling then you might want to sit this series out. But, if you are not traumatized by all this in just one series then you might end up enjoying the sticky humor that 'American Princess' has to offer.
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