BACKGROUND
Most Disney Channel Original Movies are just that: original movies created by Disney Channel, produced by Disney Channel, and airing exclusively on Disney Channel. However, there have been a select few that have, rightly or wrongly, gained the title “Disney Channel Original Movie” without fitting these criteria.
That could be because the movie was actually released in theatres first, though was still quite obviously linked to Disney Channel, by being a continuation of one of their television series or movie franchises. The Lizzie McGuire Movie (2003) and High School Musical 3: Senior Year (2008) are two examples of this.
There have also been cases of movies being produced by a completely different company, in partnership with Disney Channel, that have gone on to be dubbed Disney Channel Original Movies. One of these happens to be Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars.
Now, it is not currently named on the official DCOM lists, nor was it part of that Movie Marathon Weekend in 2016 that led up to the release of Adventures in Babysitting (2016), the 100th official DCOM. And yet, whilst being advertised ahead of its premiere date on Disney Channel, Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars was promoted as a Disney Channel movie and as a Disney Channel World Premiere movie – whatever that means – on the channel itself.
I’ll get into the specifics of the channels and production companies involved with Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars later on, but as it was once viewed as a Disney Channel movie, it would’ve been unfair to disregard it from my DCOM reviews, so I watched it – reluctantly.
Getting to the movie itself, I did not enjoy Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars. The fact I did not watch this as a child, and had never ever heard of it before, did not help as it is clearly not aimed at adults. I’m also not old enough to have read the original book, nor was I old enough to have watched the 1996 Nickelodeon movie Harriet the Spy when it was released.
I came to this franchise completely blind, and, despite it being about blogging, which, as you can see, I dabble in myself, it was uninspiring. The whole idea of Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars was to move the 1960s-set novel into the 21st Century and what used to be popular online in the early 2000s? Blogging. And as Harriet is a writer and observer of people, this would be a natural way of modernising the story. But Harriet is not a likeable character and her methods of obtaining information, by spying on a celebrity actor in this case, are dodgy and unethical to say the least.
PLOT
Sixteen-year-old Harriet is a writer and “observer of life”. Well, that’s what she tells herself. In actual fact, Harriet spends most of her time looking in other people’s windows and following them around so that she can write about them in her notebooks in the hopes that these secrets can lead to her becoming a great writer. But now is the time for her private thoughts to become public as Harriet’s big aim is to become the class blogger at her school.
Harriet lives with her movie producer father and board member mother, however, since they are so busy, Harriet spends most of her time whilst at home with the nanny, Golly, and is currently in the midst of a war with her family’s chef, who wants her to expand her culinary horizons. Harriet just wants a plain tomato sandwich. Every day.
Anyway, at school, Harriet is completely focused on her goal of becoming the class blogger, until her friends, Janie and Simon, also known as Sport, remind her that it’s all a popularity contest, so it will inevitably go to Marion Hawthorne once again. Marion is obviously nominated for the position by her friends, and Janie and Sport do the same for Harriet, so their teacher has no choice: it’s time for a “blog-off”. They’ll both write their blogs and the class will vote on the best one in a few weeks.
Harriet is excited to get started, knowing that she has so many thoughts she can write up on to her blog. But this excitement is short-lived when she learns that Marion has already posted, writing about their day at school. And what’s worse is that people actually seem interested in it! Harriet knows she needs to act fast and thinks about her first post.
Meanwhile, Harriet’s father teases Harriet about a new business deal he’s been involved in but wants it to be a surprise for her. That evening, Harriet discovers that teen actor, Skander Hill, the lead in the Spy Teen movie franchise that Harriet actively despises, is at her house. It turns out her dad will be producing Spy Teen 2, which, instead of impressing Harriet, actually horrifies her.
The next day at school, Harriet is pressured by her teacher to get moving with her blog and write her first post. Harriet writes her first one that evening, about a con artist on her street who seemingly scams women out of their money. There is little engagement on this post and Harriet can’t work out why. She tries again the next day with an entry about a pampered pooch and its owners, but still, no-one is interested, not even her friends, and the Comments Section is full of complaints about Harriet’s lame blog.
Harriet asks Golly for some advice. Golly tells her that perhaps she should try a different approach and write about things that are more interesting to the general student body, rather than just writing about what interests her. Harriet isn’t convinced by this change of direction, but gives it a shot. She writes about Skander Hill “invading her home” that night he came to visit her father to talk about Spy Teen 2. Even though Harriet isn’t nice at all about Skander, the post gets plenty of discussion and engagement from her class and the people want more. Marion says that Harriet can’t possibly know Skander Hill, making Harriet’s blog basically dead in the water. Harriet lies and says she does, and plots to write an exposé on Skander Hill, his whole shallow world, and his meaningless career. Nice…
Harriet manages to convince her parents to allow her to come to the set of Spy Teen 2, saying she wants to spend time with her father; she actually just wants to get information about Skander for the blog. Harriet is allowed to come to set one day, supervised by Golly, but is told to be on her best behaviour as Skander doesn’t like visitors being on set whilst he’s there. They are shown around the production site briefly, before sitting in on one of Skander’s song rehearsals – because Spy Teen 2 is a musical, obviously – with his co-star, Poppy, who he is supposedly dating. The rehearsal does not go well and the two argue loudly, giving Harriet the perfect scoop for her blog. Naturally, she films this argument on her phone, but is quickly ushered away when Skander notices visitors on set.
Harriet’s next blog entry allows her to take down Hollywood’s latest power couple which is of huge interest to her class, especially the girls who would obviously think that if Skander isn’t with Poppy anymore, then it makes him available for them. Ah, the delusions of young girls with crushes on celebrities; I was just like that too… Then I grew up.
Harriet learns from her father that the set is going to be closed to any outsiders, meaning that Harriet’s access to Skander has been severely limited. No problem, because Harriet is a spy, and manages to find Skander’s schedule in her father’s office. She finds out a wardrobe fitting will be taking place at Skander’s hotel and plans to sneak into the hotel room to get some gossip. Hiding in the clothes rack of the wardrobe fitter, Harriet easily makes it into Skander’s room and hides behind the sofa. She discovers that Skander has a birthmark on his shoulder, which Harriet refers to as disgusting on her blog. Judgemental much? It’s hardly nice to make comments on people’s skin, Harriet!
Again, this post goes down well with the students at school, however, Harriet is soon being warned by her nanny not to become like the tabloid press, writing sensationalist gossip just to tear someone down. This falls on deaf ears though as Harriet continues with her spying, following Skander to the gym; whilst he’s out running; sneaking onto set, and into his hotel again. This time, she steals a room service bill, with Skander catching her in the act, making him incredibly anxious and paranoid that someone is stalking him. Later, she takes photos of a food fight on set. Harriet also continues to lie to Marion and her popular crowd about knowing Skander, going so far as to have her friend, Sport, pretend he is Skander and sit in a taxi, so that Harriet can pretend to be talking to him as Marion watches from a window during a sleepover she was randomly invited to.
Whilst Harriet’s star is on the rise with her writing abilities, she soon becomes suspicious of her nanny who is having secret conversations with Coop, the owner of Harriet’s favourite book and ice-cream shop. What a great store combination! Harriet follows Golly to Coop’s house and accuses the two of dating. She runs off back home, with Golly running after her. Golly explains that actually she is going to buy the bookstore from Coop and will be leaving Harriet, not being her nanny anymore. Harriet is furious, feeling that Golly is abandoning her. I mean, does Harriet really need a nanny at sixteen? And won’t she just see Golly at the bookstore? She’s there every week. So overdramatic, Harriet.
At school, Marion demands that Harriet show proof that she knows Skander, or else Marion will reveal to everyone that Harriet’s blog is all lies. Harriet is once again motivated to go on set by Marion’s threat, but luckily, it’s a day where there will be 100 teenage extras on set so she can blend right in. Harriet, dressed as a beefeater – because Spy Teen 2 is partially set in London, though filmed in the US, with incredibly stereotypical British props and set designs – attempts to follow the choreographed number but fails. She might be a good writer but a natural dancer she is not! Skander instantly recognises Harriet as his stalker and launches into a huge tirade about fans not allowing him any privacy. Which is a completely fair comment to make – but not when someone is recording it. Yes, Harriet being the “super spy” that she is records all of this onto her phone and posts it as her latest blog entry. At the same time, her mother accuses her of having a crush on Skander Hill and tells her that her stalking attempts have gone too far now. Oh yeah, NOW it’s gone too far.
The next day, Harriet discovers that her blog post with that video has been leaked to the media. Their school blog is password-protected so only students of the school can access it, but Marion, jealous of Harriet, decided to post it outside of this blog. Skander threatens to sue Harriet’s father and leave Spy Teen 2 unless that extra who broke onto set and filmed him is found. As Skander is at Harriet’s house, it won’t come as a big surprise to find that Skander soon comes face-to-face with his stalker. Skander is shocked and scared, reiterating that he’ll be suing Harriet’s father and won’t be working on Spy Teen 2.
At this point, Harriet finally learns that her actions have had devastating consequences, with this potentially ruining Skander’s career. She vows to make amends and apologises to Skander. Skander says he’ll forgive her and continue with the movie if Harriet promises not to blog anymore. Harriet is about to agree when her father cuts in; he says she’s a good writer and won’t allow her to stop blogging. Skander has no option but to quit and walks away into a sea of reporters and photographers. It then turns out that Skander’s rant has given him a new movie opportunity and he runs over to thank Harriet, even kissing her on the cheek. She’s saved his career, apparently.
At school, Harriet’s teacher says that they won’t have a class blogger this year as Marion broke the rules by posting outside of the school blog, causing this mess. However, the rest of the students stand in support of Harriet as their class blogger, having enjoyed her posts, even if they lacked any ethical reporting whatsoever. Their teacher relents and officially names Harriet as class blogger.
So, everything ended happily, with Harriet getting her dream and enjoying her life again. But then, the movie decides to end in a really stupid way by having magazines allude to the fact that Harriet and Skander have become a couple… Excuse me, what? An actor ending up with his stalker? That’s not sweet, that’s disturbing. A fan, fine, but a creep that spies on you, no way. What a ridiculous ending to an already disappointing movie…
CHARACTERS & CAST
Harriet has to be one of the most unlikeable protagonists I have ever seen in a movie. From the beginning of Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars, I found her to be entitled, pushy, judgemental, and just generally strange – and it only gets worse as the story goes on. Harriet never seems to think that her spying – sorry, “observing” – is a problem despite everyone being allowed to live their lives privately, without fear of being followed and stalked, celebrity or not. She also isn’t nice to her friends, instantly ditching them when the popular girls suddenly become interested in Harriet’s “friendship” with Skander. She shows no remorse for her lying or spying until the rant that she was quite happy to post on a “private” school blog goes viral after it gets leaked. I don’t understand how Harriet can be so selfish and self-absorbed that she doesn’t have any guilt even though she claims to be a great observer of people. You’d think all those observations might have made her an empathetic person but no, it’s done the opposite and just makes her think she’s entitled to comment on everyone else and their lives. I don’t understand this character at all.
My thoughts on Harriet have no relation to my thoughts on the actress who played her. That actress is Jennifer Stone, best known for her portrayal of Harper on the Disney Channel series Wizards of Waverly Place (2007-12), a character I did like. Stone also starred in Mean Girls 2 (2011) as Abby Hanover. After this, she was cast as The Babysitter in the horror-fantasy series Deadtime Stories (2012-14) for Nickelodeon. Most recently, Stone co-wrote and starred in the movie The In-Between, which premiered at the 2019 Twister Alley Film Festival in Oklahoma.
It’s probably a good idea to look at Harriet’s home life to figure out why she is the way she is. Harriet has lived quite a privileged life, with her parents having household staff and paying little attention to Harriet because they’ve got their careers to think about. This has meant that Harriet spends a lot of time with her nanny, Golly, the only person in the house Harriet feels actually cares about her. And the two are quite similar, swapping literary quotations with each other, and enjoying spending time with each other. Golly is Harriet’s shoulder to cry on and the person she can go to for advice. Harriet is probably too old to have a nanny – I’m sure she can be left in the house on her own at sixteen – so I’m glad that Golly finds her next career path in the film, even if it did make Harriet angry for a bit.
Golly was played by Kristin Booth, who starred alongside Ryan Reynolds in the heist film Foolproof (2003), this being one of Booth’s earliest film roles. Booth has since gone on to star as Shane McInerney in the Signed, Sealed, Delivered series of television movies, which has, so far, reached fourteen movies in the franchise, with a fifteenth coming in 2025. For Harriet’s parents, her mother, Violetta, was played by Shauna MacDonald, and Doug Murray played her father, Roger.
Then we have Harriet’s friends, Sport and Janie. Janie is an eco-protestor, as well as being very intelligent. She likes to do science experiments at home after school, even though these can sometimes go terribly wrong. Sport’s real name is Simon with this nickname being quite ironic because he is actually bad at sports, although he does manage to be somewhat successful in basketball by the end of the film. These two are loyal to Harriet, however, they cause her downfall, by not being supportive of her writing about people she’s encountered, instead telling her just to write about Skander Hill, even if that means having to follow him around, and lie about knowing him, and ultimately end up forgetting about her friends to continue with her escapades and keep up with the popular crowd. But as most teen movies end up, all bad moments are forgotten and friendship wins out in the end.
Melinda Shankar was cast as Janie. Shankar was playing Alli Bhandari in Degrassi: The Next Generation (2001-15) and Indie Mehta in How to Be Indie (2009-11), which aired on Disney Channel, at the time that she appeared in Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars. For her role as Indie Mehta, Shankar won a Gemini Award and a Canadian Screen Award for Best Performance in a Children’s or Youth Program or Series. Sport was played by Alexander Conti. Conti had previously been cast in movies such as Cheaper by the Dozen 2 (2005) as Kenneth Murtaugh, and the horror film, Case 39 (2009) as Diego, alongside Renée Zellweger and Bradley Cooper, for which Conti was nominated for a Young Artist Award for Best Performance in a Feature Film – Supporting Young Actor. He was nominated for another Young Artist Award for his performance as Sport in Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars.
On the other side of that, we have Harriet’s enemy, Marion Hawthorne. She’s popular, pretty, and thinks she’s the best at everything, including blogging. Although Marion is meant to be the mean girl here, she’s not exactly Harriet’s bully. There’s no real dissing here, apart from calling Harriet a liar, which turns out to be accurate; no girl fights, nothing like that, just a milkshake spill on one of Harriet’s notebooks. They trade a few barbs with each other but really, Marion is annoyed and a little jealous of Harriet but not very antagonistic. She also has two sidekicks, Beth Ellen and Rachel, who also aren’t unkind to Harriet. In fact, these two are big fans of Harriet’s posts on Skander Hill, so much so that they push for Harriet to become the official class blogger. In terms of trying to represent “mean girls”, Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars doesn’t do a very good job.
Vanessa Morgan was cast in the role of Marion. She had previously appeared in the teen sitcom The Latest Buzz (2007-10) as Amanda Pierce, going on to star as Sarah in the 2010 movie My Babysitter’s a Vampire, and its subsequent series, which ran from 2011 to 2012. Morgan was later cast in the Disney Channel movie Geek Charming (2011) as Hannah Mornell. More recently, Morgan was cast in the role of Toni Topaz in Riverdale (2017-23) and stars as Max Mitchell in the Canadian series Wild Cards (2024-present).
Beth Ellen and Rachel were played by Aislinn Paul and Kiana Madeira. Paul went on to be cast as Clare Edwards in Degrassi: The Next Generation (2001-15), winning two Canadian Screen Awards for her performance, and as Phoebe Frady in Heroes Reborn (2015-16). Madeira went on to appear in the Disney Channel movies Bad Hair Day (2015) and The Swap (2016) as Sierra and Sassy respectively. In recent years, Madeira played Deena in the 2021 Netflix horror trilogy Fear Street, and voiced the character Supergirl in the animated series My Adventures with Superman (2023-present).
Finally, we have Skander Hill, the teen actor and heartthrob of the Spy Teen movie franchise. He doesn’t come across well as a person, with Harriet’s primary goal being to expose him as a terrible person, but he’s not all bad. Unlike Harriet, I found Skander to have some redeeming qualities. Although he is egotistical, easily angered, and difficult to work with, Skander is struggling to figure out his career as many child and teen actors do when they want to make that leap to mainstream roles. Skander is not able to find work outside of Spy Teen, finding that he has already been typecast. This is a common problem for many actors and trying to break that perception can be difficult and disheartening to say the least, so I do have sympathy for Skander Hill in this sense. There’s also the fact he’s being stalked by Harriet which makes Skander paranoid and jumpy, not able to trust even his co-stars and production crew. Harriet really does cause Skander all manner of problems, but somehow, she manages to fix it, because obviously, having an actor go off on a rant about how bad their fans are is a good way of getting more work, right?
Wesley Morgan was cast in the role of Skander Hill. Morgan had roles in Canadian series Overruled! (2009) and Majority Rules! (2009-10) prior to his role in Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars. He later had roles in the sitcom Really Me (2011-13) as Brody, which also starred Kiana Madeira as Julie, and the science fiction drama Between (2015-16) as Kevin.
MUSIC
Unsurprisingly, Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars is not a musical, although the movie-within-a-movie here is. Therefore, we get a few songs but none of them are particularly special as the whole point of the Spy Teen franchise is that it is meant to be a parody of teen musicals, so the songs are supposed to be cringey and bad. One of these succeeds only too well in that, and that is the song “I Spy a Lie”, which features in a trailer for the Spy Teen DVD that Harriet sees on television early on in the movie, and then again when she is “forced” to take part in the karaoke edition of Spy Teen at the popular girls’ sleepover, much to Harriet’s dismay as she hates this song. For once, I can actually agree with Harriet! It is performed by Chad Doucette as Skander.
Spy Teen 2 is filming during the events of Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars and we hear two separate songs. The rehearsal number that Harriet sees on her first visit to set is heard briefly, although Skander and Poppy can’t seem to work out their choreography so not much is heard. It seems to have been titled “Love on Display” and is performed by Chad Doucette as Skander and Jennifer Walls as Poppy.
These two then sing again together for the Spy Teen 2 finale number, “Hello to the Future”, which is also used as the End Credits song for Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars. It continues with the teen musical parody, of being a big song to end the movie, about moving on with your lives and being excited for the future. Although it is the best original song within Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars, that’s not saying much! All three Spy Teen songs were written by Marco DiFelice, Benjamin Pinkerton, Jody Colero, Alexandra Clarke, and Heather Conkie. Clarke and Conkie also wrote the screenplay for Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars.
For the additional music, a few pop songs are used, which were written and performed by Canadian songwriters, singers, and bands. I only remember hearing one and that is “Another Way to Cry”, written by Justin Hines, performed by Robyn Dell ‘unto, used during the scene of Harriet seeing her nanny, Golly, leave the household. It is a melancholy song to fit with Harriet’s sadness.
Outside of that, there are four other songs. Early on in the movie, during Harriet’s visit to the bookstore and ice-cream shop, Book Scoop, the song “Summer Girl” by Stereos can be heard. Towards the end of the film, as Sport gets called into the basketball game and surprisingly does well, the song “Time to Win”, performed by rock band Down with Webster, is played. The other two songs, “Get to You”, performed and co-written by Shiloh, and “You and Me”, performed by Justin Blais, have been harder to find in the film. I think “Get to You” is played at Book Scoop when Marion and her friends talk to Harriet about Skander and Poppy’s on set argument. “You and Me” might be playing as Golly and Harriet drink milkshakes a little earlier on and discuss why her early blog posts aren’t doing well.
Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars is not known for its music, and I don’t think many people will have found a love for these artists’ songs from the movie as the majority of them are only used as background music in the store so they can barely be heard.
PRODUCTION
Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars is not technically a Disney Channel Original Movie, despite being promoted as such, or in slightly different terminology, prior to its Disney Channel air date.
This movie was first released by Canadian media company 9 Story Entertainment and is credited as a 9 Story Entertainment Production during its opening titles. The reason it can be attributed to Disney Channel is because the movie was co-produced in association with Disney Channel and the Canadian channels Movie Central and The Movie Network. Disney Channel may have wanted to claim it as a DCOM at the time, and for a while afterwards, because it was a good fit for their target audience and starred one of their actresses, Jennifer Stone, who was a well-known figure on Disney Channel at the time, thanks to her role in Wizards of Waverly Place (2007-12).
Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars is not the only movie to have been made and promoted in a similar way. 16 Wishes (2010), starring Debby Ryan from The Suite Life on Deck (2008-11), was also a co-production between different entertainment companies. Unlike Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars, I do remember 16 Wishes being promoted as a movie premiering on Disney Channel and always believed it was a DCOM until recently, when I was trying to work out why 16 Wishes is not on Disney+ in the UK.
Regardless of who made Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars, the movie is based on the novel from the 1960s, although it is a modern-day adaptation of the novel, since kids of the day were unlikely to be familiar with the character of Harriet or the original book. The whole concept of blogging is included as the basis of the movie to set the story in the 2000s.
The first blog was written and published online in 1994, and became a way for anyone to publish their thoughts and opinions. Ty, the company behind the best-selling Beanie Babies, started the first business-based blog, which had 1.6 billion visits by 1997. With the premiere of WordPress, the well-known blogging platform, in 2003, more and more people started writing their own blogs, with 50 million being available online in 2006. With the advent of YouTube in 2005, vlogging became fashionable as did “microblogging” thanks to Twitter’s arrival in 2007[1]. Basing Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars around blogging was on trend for its 2010 release date. Nowadays, though, thanks to social media, blogs are now seen to be less interesting and less necessary. Wow, I wish I’d been told that two years ago! Just kidding. I actually don’t care; I love my little blog, even if it is “out of fashion”.
Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars is based on the book Harriet the Spy, published in 1964 and written by Louise Fitzhugh, who also illustrated her book too. She had begun her career in publishing by illustrating Suzuki Beane, which was written by Sandra Scoppettone.
Similarly to the movie, Harriet in the book is a girl who likes to watch people and record her observations. In the book, she is only eleven-years old, but she does live in New York City as Harriet does in Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars and has a nanny called Katherine or “Ole Golly” in the book, whereas in the 2010 film, she just goes by “Golly”. The novel then follows Harriet as she finds that her nanny is going to get married and leave her forever, which shocks and saddens Harriet. Things get worse for Harriet when her notebook of writings goes missing and is read by everyone at school, who hate what she’s written about them – even her friends, Sport and Janie. They then torment and bully Harriet, to stop her spying on them, with the ring leader being Marion, editor of the class newspaper. Harriet slowly starts to become depressed and is eventually consoled by Ole Golly once more, who tells her she will have to apologise to everyone for what she wrote. Eventually, the bullying stops and Harriet regains her friendships with Sport and Janie. She also replaces Marion as editor of their newspaper, which becomes a success from Harriet’s writing. Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars follows the same general premise of the book, with a few changes.
Fitzhugh herself has referred to her character of Harriet as being a nasty little girl, writing awful things about her friends and classmates. Harriet the Spy, the book, was even banned in some areas of the US later on its lifetime, despite being popular with critics at the time of its release and in present day; it has been added to lists of the best children’s novels in the US. This was because Harriet was not seen as a good role model for children, with all that spying, lying, and talking back to adults. I’m not one for banning books but I can certainly see why Harriet the Spy might have been problematic for impressionable children!
On the other hand, Harriet was also seen as a comfort to others, because of her tomboy qualities, refusing to dress “like a girl” and conform to 1960s gender roles and society’s view of what women should and shouldn’t do. She is still seen as a progressive character and an icon of feminism in some ways. Harriet sneers at conventional femininity as Fitzhugh did, even when she was a girl growing up in the South, showing that Fitzhugh put some of herself into her most famous character[2].
Two sequels to Harriet the Spy were published, The Long Secret in 1965, and Sport in 1979, which was published posthumously five years after Fitzhugh’s death. Two further sequels were published, but not by Fitzhugh. These were Harriet Spies Again, published in 2002, and Harriet the Spy, Double Agent, published in 2005. Fitzhugh was credited as a co-author and these sequels were approved by her estate. They were actually written by Helen Ericson and Maya Gold respectively[3].
It is possible these 2000s novels were published in response to the first movie adaptation of Harriet the Spy. This was the 1996 Nickelodeon Movies film, starring Michelle Trachtenberg as the titular character. It was again a slightly updated version of the novel, specifically changing the parent-child relationship from the formal 1960s to the current 1990s. There was little reference to technology though so as not to date the film. The movie is still set in New York City, although it was filmed in Ontario, Canada, as was Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars. The 1996 film received mixed reviews, with many liking Trachtenberg as Harriet, who won the Young Artist Award for Leading Young Actress in a Feature Film for the role, as well as the dark side of school being shown with all the bullying incidents and mean comments, although the movie itself was deemed to be a bit slow and boring. It made a decent profit at the box-office.
RECEPTION
So, how did Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars do with critics and audiences?
Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars first aired in Canada on The Movie Network and Movie Central on 19th March 2010, and was then shown on Disney Channel in the US on 26th March 2010. It was later shown on international versions of the Disney Channel throughout 2010. It is not known what viewing figures at the time were for this film.
But the reviews are clear. Although some said it was a faithful retelling of the novel, just with some modern updates, and that it was a good film for kids, many said that they did not like the character of Harriet, finding her disrespectful and spoilt, with no understanding of personal boundaries. Others said that it was a boring story and that they preferred the 1996 film. This is an interesting thing to say as the stories of both Harriet the Spy (1996) and Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars are similar, with the character of Harriet therefore being similar as well. I can only think that Harriet’s behaviours of lying and sneaking around are easier to accept in an eleven-year-old character, who has time to learn from her mistakes, rather than a sixteen-year-old girl who should already know how to act around people by now, and understand that following people around and writing offensive things about others is not ok.
I haven’t watched the 1996 film, but I think I’d feel sorry for Harriet to see her being bullied by her peers and would want her to learn from this and not make the same mistakes again. Watching Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars, all I could think was that this girl was never going to learn how to behave properly and that I’d never have wanted to know someone like her when I was that age.
LEGACY
Disney Channel didn’t progress further with Harriet the Spy as a movie franchise, not adapting any of the Harriet the Spy written sequels.
But this was not the end for Harriet the Spy, as an animated series was released on AppleTV+ on 19th November 2021. Beanie Feldstein voices Harriet; Jane Lynch voices Ole Golly; and Lacey Chabert voices Marion Hawthorne. This is yet another opportunity for a new generation to see an adaptation of this popular children’s novel. Despite receiving mixed reviews, mostly around this series not being as good as the book, a second season was released on 5th May 2023.
Harriet the Spy, as a character from the book, has continued to be relevant, even without the screen adaptations. She has helped numerous kids not feel alone for being different and has allowed them to celebrate being an outsider, or the odd one out, instead of fearing it. It was comforting for some to read about a character who does not conform with “normal society”[4].
FINAL THOUGHTS
Instead of being a wholesome story about a teenage girl determined to be a great writer, Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars seems to me to be more of a morality tale. Harriet has to learn that she can’t follow people around just to dig up gossip on them, and it’s not something she learns quickly, which makes her unappealing as a movie character for most viewers.
I can only hope that nobody watched Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars and tried to emulate this character. I understand that being a great writer is a dream of many, and to do that, observing people’s characteristics and behaviours is important to develop characters and find real-life events to base a good plot on. That is all fine, however, Harriet here blurs the line between observing and stalking, telling herself that following a celebrity around is all for the greater good of her career, which is completely wrong; she should never have rationalised and excused her behaviour.
Harriet didn’t deserve to be class blogger from her actions in this story. What she actually needed was a restraining order. Perhaps that might have taught her a lesson!
REFERENCES
[1] Credit: James Hardy, ‘The History of Blogging: Unraveling the Mystery of the Web’, HistoryCooperative.org, 29th July 2024.
[2] Credit: Rebecca Panovka, ‘The Tragic Misfit Behind “Harriet The Spy”’, NewYorker.com, 9th December 2021.
[3] Credit: Stacy Conradt, ’11 Facts About Harriet the Spy’, MentalFloss.com, 11th June 2011.
[4] Credit: Kat Patrick, ‘Harriet the Spy helped me come to terms with my queer identity’, TheGuardian.com, 5th October 2019.
The Disney Purist 