We Need To Talk About Amber's Job On Netflix's 'A Christmas Prince'

Like almost every other romantic Christmas movie that goes straight to TV, A Christmas Prince on Netflix has all of the usual predictable moments and misunderstandings that eventually result in the truth-telling climax and culminate with a happy ending. But of all the little questions that this particular holiday romance movie brings up, one of them has got to be — is the magazine from A Christmas Prince real? It definitely seems familiar, but unsurprisingly, it doesn't exist in real life.

At first, it’s almost impossible to find out the exact name of the magazine at all, since the signs on the walls of the office show an unclear logo that suggests the name of the fictional celebrity gossip magazine as either Beat Now or Now Beat, but then you can hear one of the receptionists off-camera answer the phone by saying the name of the magazine, which is Now Beat Magazine. (Not a great name, if you ask me.)

It’s still a pretty vague title and almost makes you wonder if whatever writer was in charge of coming up with that was looking around a news stand and saw Teen Beat and kind of ran with it. I mean, it works, because you can’t really be nitpicky when it comes to something as minor as the magazine name in a totally fictional story, and at the very least, it’s easy to see from where the inspiration was drawn.

Even though the world of Now Beat Magazine apparently places editors below the writers, which isn’t typically how things work in the real world, it’s pretty obvious right off the cuff that the magazine is supposed to symbolize the multitudes of celebrity news and gossip outlets that currently exist in real life. In fact, there’s a lot about the Hallmark-esque Christmas movie that seems to play on aspects of real pop culture.

The fictional country of Aldovia, for example, is clearly supposed to be at the level of the real life royal family in England, and even though Prince Harry was only ever considered to be a bad boy to the tamest degree, Prince Richard in A Christmas Prince could be partly inspired by him, even if it's just in regards to how much the world is invested in his personal and professional life.

There’s also an unknown Christmas song at the very beginning of the movie that almost sounds reminiscent of "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree", so it’s no wonder that the magazine from A Christmas Prince is also fictional. But doing so simply means that the movie can take as many creative liberties as the writers wish, since it’s a magazine of their own creation. Plus, it isn’t the first movie to go that route. Take 13 Going on 30, for example, which features the fictional Poise magazine that serves as the career epicenter for the main characters as adults. Likewise, in A Christmas Prince, the magazine is a big part of the story, since Amber’s editor is the person who sends her to Aldovia in the first place.

But hopefully this means that Netflix is going to continue to churn out the kinds of romantic made for TV Christmas movies that provide easy watches for some extra holiday cheer.

And even though we have to go through a few cleverly placed predictable moments throughout the movie, it’s kind of what romantic Christmas movies are all about, so who’s complaining? I don’t think anyone really watches movies like these for the Oscar-worthy performances, but more so for the feel good happy endings that inevitably come. And during the holiday season, I think we’re all entitled to that.

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