Harriet the Spy

In all the hullabaloo about female heroines these days, it's refreshing to pull from the past and find examples that actually get it right. Ellen Ripley in the Alien movies. Sarah Conner from the Terminator movies. Dr. Ellie Satler from Jurassic Park. Jodie Foster in Contact...etc. And that's crazy because it's not something that should be so hard to begin with, especially these days, this whole idea of a "strong female character" who is also human, maybe even flawed, but still gets the job done. That's like, an everyday thing. If anything, it should be harder to write emotionally deep and complex male characters who are also "heroic" (indeed, 'tis much more rare). Harriet the Spy though accomplishes both feats, and for that and many other reasons, it may not only be a defining movie of any 90s childhood, but an important movie for our current times of Twitter take-downs, "savage" hot takes, and "call out culture." Harriet knows why none of this is good. She blazed that trail, and we would do well to learn the easy way what she learned the hard way. And no, it's not just that "a good spy never gets caught."

I may be biased because when I was growing up and first saw this movie, I had a childhood crush on Michelle Trachtenberg, who plays our titular heroine Harriet. I was familiar with her as Younger Pete's tit-for-tat girlfriend on The Adventures of Pete and Pete, one of my favorite shows back then. Her antics were what made the later season of Pete and Pete worthwhile, and it was downright awesome that they saw her potential and gave her her own movie to boot. And as an avid Nickelodeon watcher, I was well aware of the fact that Nickelodeon was pumping their "first ever movie!" all over the airwaves, starring none other than "Pete and Pete" star Trachtenberg. Since then we've gotten used to Nickelodeon movies being sure bets of trad Nick properties (Rugrats, Good Burger, Jimmy Neutron, Hey Arnold, Spongebob, Wild Thornberries, Spongebob, Last Airbender, Spongebob...etc), or big dumb "boy movies" like TMNT, TMNT: Out of the Shadows, TMNT: Return to Ooze ... and 2017's Monster Trucks. Eek. With that track record, it's surprising to think that Nickelodeon once took a risk on their first movie and decided to do both a coming of age dramady, an adaptation of an old children's book... and one starring... a GIRL!? That just goes to show you how... far?... we've come since 1996? *shrugs*

(Okay... Snow Day was a hoot, I'll give them that. Not a good movie, but still a hoot.)

Which brings me back to Harriet. "Hoot" is not how I would describe this movie. Matilda was a "hoot." Harriet is what we would describe these days as "deep," or at least "woke AF," but that could just be because we're dealing with a girl for a change, and a particularly precocious one at that. She dreams of being a writer. She keeps tabs on people in her life, her school friends and enemies, and everyone she runs into in her neighborhood, including the family who owns the Chinese food restaurant in town, and she writes everything down in her "private" notebook. She's kinda spoiled, but headstrong. She's got rich parents who don't spend much time with her, so she bonds mostly with her nanny, Rosie O'Donnell, a wisdom-spouting Obi Wan Kenobi. Yeah. Speaking of Twitter gods, Rosie O'Donnell plays Rosie O'Donnell in this movie. It's amazing. Anyways, Harriet's other best friends include this boy named "Sport" who is a kind of "domestic goddess" in his own house because he's poor and his dad's a drunk, and a girl named Janie who performs dangerous chemistry experiments in her bedroom. See what I mean? Not only can girls do science, but boys can cook and clean house with the best of 'em! *mind blown*  1996 ftw!

Harriet's life changes one night when her nanny Golly brings a date over for an evening meal at the house, leading to the absolute funniest and most inexplicable "stare off" between any two characters in any movie ever. (If you're reading this, you know the scene!) Anyways, Golly burns the meal and three of them decide to go out to the movies instead. They have a great time and come back late. Too late. Harriet's mom and dad are home from their high class business lifestyle or whatever, and FLIP the F@%K OUT for no other reason than they're two snobby buttholes who object to Harriet bringing tomato+mayo sandwiches to school every day (and other stuff, but that was always the take away for me). They fire Golly on the spot, and then immediately beg her to stay. But Golly's got some pride and decides to leave anyway. And right there. That's some real shit. Golly could return and stay a part of Harriet's life, but she decides that it's better to be a good role model for Harriet and leave on her own terms and allow Harriet room to grow on her own terms as well. Right there ladies and gents, is a strong female character. Anyways, Golly tells Harriet to never give up writing and to channel all of her observations about people into a novel... so that she can one day buy an autographed copy. Then Golly rides off in a yellow taxi, in a scene that is WAY more heartbreaking than that little dickcheese Simba losing his dear ol' buttfart dad.

And so, in the absence of her mentor, Harriet goes full-tilt into the "spy" role she loves so much, which means suiting up in boots and taking along spy gear such as cameras and scopes, and for some unexplained reason a bright yellow trench coat (conspicuous much?). She even sneaks into a mansion at one point and spies on some old lady from the inside of the house's dumbwaiter in a scene as tense as anything you'll see in a Mission Impossible movie (and much more funnier when she's discovered). In all her travels, she records detailed notes on what everyone she's interested in is up to... and you can kinda see where it's going...

Harriet the Spy branded "spy" merch! Hell yeah! Back in the day there was a call in sweepstakes on Nickelodeon where kids could call an 800 number for a chance to get an exclusive "Harriet the Spy Kit" ... presumably a belt with a binoculars, a magnifier, a flashlight, and one of those black-and-white school notebooks with the word "PRIVATE" written on it. Awwww yeah. Needless to say, I was not one of the lucky few. Not like I couldn't make my own kit... which apparently many kids did... and I'm sure none of them got busted for "super sleuthing." Nope. I sure didn't. "A good spy doesn't get caught!"

So Harriet gets caught. As is the case with most coming of age girl movies, the main villain of the movie is a stuck up bitch ... I mean rich girl in their class, Marion Hawthorne, who seemingly spends every night and day plotting ways to torment our main cast. In doing so, the movie really sheds a light on just how mean and vindictive girl bullying can be, and also how accurate. There are scenes between Harriet and Marion as this thing progresses that get so real that you almost wonder how these characters are going to survive the movie without throwing a toaster in the bathtub (and this was before Mean Girls!)! Well, one day in the park, Harriet is playing with her friends and gets a little careless with her private notebook where she's been talking trash about everyone behind their backs. The notebook goes missing, only to be found in the hands of one, Marion Hawthorne, who proceeds to read Harriet's "observations" about everyone in attendance right from the page. Suddenly, everyone knows Sport is poor and his dad's a drunk, that Janie's science ambitions are strange, and that Marion Hawthorne's parents are never around or something. Indeed, no one is safe from Harriet and her pen! Immediately shocked, they all turn on her in probably the most played scene in the movie.

But this reveal is only the beginning. What really makes this movie interesting now is that Harriet knows she done goofed, and yeah, she sulks and apologizes and tries to do the right thing and move on. She even tries to give people space and give them time to get over it, but no one lets her live it down. She's pariahed. She's ignored. And just when she accepts her fate, they all start conspiring against her to make her life a living hell at the school and abroad, even starting a "Spy-Catchers" Club and dousing her with blue paint during class in the basic "tar and feather" routine of every angry mob in history. She slaps Marion in the face, and is immediately under the Gestapo as her desk is now checked daily for "notebooks."

This kid is so 90s it's funny...

The emotions get so raw here that Harriet then begins lashing out at everyone else in retaliation for their attacks on her, and the movie actually starts taking a dark turn. She spreads the fact that Marion's father doesn't love her to everyone in attendance in that most sacred of gossip areas... "the girls room." She sabotages Janie's science experiments to disillusion her friend. And then the worst: she spreads leaflets all over school to emasculate Sport, picturing him in a dress and a duster under the moniker "Man of the House!" Yikes. She is sent to one of those new-agey sycophant child psychologists who get paid 100 bucks an hour to play board games with kids, so nothing comes of it.

And that's it. It's over. And she spirals into a deep depression and probably contemplates suicide in the bathtub... But then, just as every bridge is burned... she gets her notebook back and Golly comes back into her life (now on good terms with her parents) and gives her some sage advice: "Beauty is truth, and truth, beauty." Basically, maybe the truth about people doesn't have to hurt them. Words can destroy, but they can also build, and Harriet has to learn to use her powers of observation for good. "I want to know everything" she says, but for what purpose if not to make the world better?

So despite the fact that her relationship with her friends seems shattered beyond repair, the only thing more factual is that Marion Hawthorne turns out to be an even worse star for all of Harriet's friends to have hitched their wagons to, suddenly realizing that they've all been turned into her little pets. They decide enough is enough one by one and sever their loyalties to the rich girl, but back to Harriet they still dare not tread, not until Harriet gets her opportunity to use her observation skills for good. She recounts to all of them in the class paper all the good things she likes about them, and that certainly chalks one up for her side. But she really gets her chance to shine when a series of fortunate events leads to a performance of the typical "healthy eating" school play becoming ground zero for a good ole' biohazard stink bomb blowout that her and her friends wage, all while Marion Hawthorne is playing the signature role! Woobah! I guess you could say, it's "curtains" for her!

So all is well that ends well. Harriet learns her lesson, her friends are back in her column, and we are all the better for it. So yeah, pretty important stuff for the "call-out" culture we are living under. Learn the lesson that Harriet  M. Welsch has to teach us, that if you can't say something nice about someone, don't... er... well, see, gossip spreads like a proverbial stink bomb in the wind. Let him who hath not been a douchebag cast the first blue paint... m'kay? Someone please get the message to Twitter users. Oooh snap!