Yes Virigina, She is Dead and Burned

I thought showing her a picture of the real Anastasia might help.  Nope, didn't help. More tears. Damn you Bolsheviks!

Penelope is a cinephile; one of those people who goes through life pretending to live in the world of whatever movie they are currently infatuated with.  Last year it was The Prince of Egypt, and 6 months ago it was Les Miserables.  She also went through a Hunchback of Notre Dame phase, and pretended to be a gypsy who was excommunicated from the Catholic church.

Recently, she discovered the late 90's animated flick, Anastasia.  It’s a cute movie; Meg Ryan gives the voice to Anastasia Romanov.  If you don’t know the story of Anastasia it goes like this:  The Romanov's were the royal family in Russia before the revolution.  The Bolsheviks revolted against them and basically slaughtered the whole family in July of 1918, including the young prince and princesses.  Sounds like a perfect plot for a kid movie right?  Well here’s the thing…for a long time people weren't sure that Anastasia, the youngest princess, had been killed.  Her body was reportedly missing from the grave. It was quite a legend in the mid 1900’s and there were lots of women who claimed later that they were the long lost princess.  So some movie exec was all,

 "Hey lets make a princess movie out of this and girls everywhere will fall in love with Anastasia all over again.”  

So they did. 

Nothing captures the spirit of the Russian Revolution like a talking bat with a genie hat.

It has lots of big songs and magic and talking animals, as well as a happy ending where Anastasia gets her title back and falls in love with  a handsome young man who just HAPPENED to be the boy from years before who helped her escape the slaughter. 

So great.

One small problem.  A few years after the movie was released some dude in Russia found a grave with a girl and a boy skeleton.  They were burned and charred and basically suffered a horrible, heinous death at the hands of blood thirsty revolutionaries.  DNA testing proved that they were a young Romanov Prince and Princess.  So now, all of them are accounted for….Anastasia was dead as a duck the whole time folks. 

Mr. Drug, who likes history and random trivia, watched the whole movie with Penelope one evening and when it was over, he turned to me and said,

“You know they found Anastasia’s burned body a few years ago right?  She was dead the whole time.”

YES I KNOW THAT MR. DRUG, THANKS FOR YOUR BIT OF HISTORY TRIVIA, but uh, Penelope has imagined herself to BE ANASTASIA, or haven’t you NOTICED her Russian accent lately?!

Penelope was just a tad upset.

“She’s dead?  And BURNED?  This never happened?  She never found her grandma and sang with her?”

A better mom than me would have said, 

“Well Daddy doesn't really KNOW that for sure, he just READ that on Wikipedia or saw it on the History Channel....those aren't necessarily vetted, scholarly sources.”

But that’s not what I said,

“Yeah she’s dead, lame huh?”

“So so sad,” Penelope sobbed.  “She’s DEAD and BURNED.”

Dead and burned is right my dear.  History sucks. Can I interest you in Pocahontas?