I recently went to see Disney on Ice with my two year old niece and having always loved everything about Disney I immediately recognized every princess and knew their stories by heart, well all but one. That one princess was Tiana, Disney’s first African American princess seen in the movie The Princess and the Frog (2009). Being that this movie came out when I was in high school, it was not one I was familiar with but I had definitely heard of it because it was such a milestone for Disney that should of happen 70+ years ago.
The movie was originally named The Frog Princess but after many were upset the name was changed to The Princess and the Frog, but if you ask me the first name was much more appropriate for the movie. I was excited to watch the movie because not once have I ever been disappointed by a Disney movie, it just is not possible, and before taking this class I think that would of stood true. I expected to see a tale of a young African American girl who against all odds found true love and had all her dreams come true and what I got was just that. Except there was one HUGE problem, out of the hour and forty seven minutes of the movie, Tiana was that young determined African American girl for maybe 20-30 minutes, the other hour+ of the movie she was a green frog.
I personally think the movie was wonderful and perfect for children but being such a huge step for Disney, I feel like they could of done a much better job giving young African American girls a role model to look up to. It is heart felt story of course and I hope there are more African American lead roles in Disney films in the future.
I’m glad you pointed out this time discrepancy. Until now I did not realize that for most of the movie, Tiana is a frog rather than a young African American woman. I’m not sure if Disney did this on purpose, but this situation reminds me of the movie “Red Tails”. George Lucas, the executive producer, had a hard time getting funding for this movie because it was a black-cast. There is a misconception that the general American audience won’t go see black people in leading roles. Whether this misconception applies to “The Princess and the Frog” is debatable. However, I would have liked to see more of Tiana as an African American woman. If Disney’s goal was to make a black movie, they also could have picked a movie where the lead character did not have to be an animal for most of the movie.
This very well could be looked at as a discrepancy because the black princess became one of the worse looking animals among the planet, but in a way it could not. It gives an insight into black expressive culture in New Orleans and this is conveyed through voodoo. Voodoo is a religion of spirits and the practitioners believe that the human world is shared with the world of spirits. The movie illustrated this by portraying a more kid friendly rendition of the practice to extract the moral of the story, which was for her to stop worrying so much and gain true love. It is also probably helpful to look at how she was portrayed as a frog throughout the movie, but as a human in advertisement and toy stores.
I am a HUGE Disney fanatic but since Princess and the Frog came out in 2009, I have yet to see the movie in it’s entirety. When the movie first premiered, I was very excited that not only was there going to be a new Disney princess for me to be obsessed with, but this princess wasn’t going to be just like the others. I was completely unaware that Tiana was a frog for a majority of the movie. Almost every advertisement I have seen for Princess and the Frog shows Tiana as a human. I agree that Disney did a great job portraying everything (from the parts that I have seen of the movie) in a way that would be kid friendly but I would have liked to see a movie slightly more similar to the set up of other Disney movies about an African American princess.
Yes I agree with your sentiment, but the biggest problem I had with this movie was that the original Princess and the Frog included a WHITE female kissing a frog and she did not turn into a frog. It makes me so angry that the one movie that they chose to tell differently is the one that they include black people in. There was no voodoo in the original story. I fell like the belittle black people by reinforcing stereotypes of them not being human and being evil worshippers. The kids don’t get it now, but wait till they get older. Also they over sexualized Tiana by making her naked as a frog. none of the other princesses got a nude scene. They also portrayed black themes in this movie. Why couldn’t her name be Ashley instead of Tiana? Do they think that is a black name? (of course) Also why couldn’t she have classical music and sing high ranges like every other princess? No, instead they said black people like jazz and rhythms. They went way out on this one and tried their best to reinforce horrible stereotypes that aren’t true for black people. It would have been great a better milestone if her name was Ashley, sang classical music, had basic witches instead of voodoo and how bout her not turning into a frog at all. The original story doesn’t go like that. Yeah, they said they were jazzing up the original story. The were making it racist.