The Princess and the Frog???

[MammaB21]

Has anyone seen this movie? DP bought it for DD because she's been asking for it. To be honest I haven't sat down and watched the whole thing through, so maybe I'm getting the wrong impression. But this movie is seriously not what I expected. I'm finding myself quite bothered by it, and I'm not sure if I'm having a reasonable reaction or not. Anyone seen it? Anyone have any initial thoughts/reactions to the movie?

ETA: Mods, thanks for moving to the appropriate place

[Arduinna]

I loved it from beginning to end, saw it in the theater and bought it on blu-ray on release day.

What is bothering you about it?

[Chloe'sMama]

DH and I watched it and I agree that it was a bit much for little kids. I think 8-10 would be the age I would let DD watch it...

[Storm Bride]

DH took dd1 and ds2 to see it in the theater, and they loved it. We've since bought it, and ds1 and I really enjoy it, as well. It's been watched here quite a few times.

What are your reservations about it, OP?

[lolar2]

What were you expecting that is different from what it is?

[MammaB21]

Okay, so maybe it is just me.

The toys and what not started coming out long before we saw the movie. DD is obsessed with those little poly pocket princess dolls lately. I was really excited to see that there was a black character and I promptly bought her the doll. The reason it was something on my mind is because DD has been making observations about the color of peoples skin lately. (Actually she's been making observations about all things appearance). And we've had some issues with her making comments out loud that could be hurtful. We've been talking a LOT about how skin color, hair color, eye color, height, weight, etc don't have any impact on who we are as people. We're all born to look different and it's the person inside that makes us who we are. So now right in the middle of this learning experience for her we get this movie. Like I said, I was happy that the princess in the movie was a different race from us. I thought it would be a great example to DD. I don't like the whole princess stigma in the first place, but that is one thing I think our society should have remedied a long time ago. So I watch the first 15-20 minutes of the movie and find out that the main character is from a low income family and is the waitress/friend of/server for the princess....who is white blond and spoiled rotten. I didn't catch all the details, and maybe the lesson was a good one, but my initial reaction was to be a bit irritated and let down.

[Storm Bride]

The blonde white girl isn't a princess. She wants to be a princess, but she isn't one.

[BMG580]

Originally Posted by MammaB21

So I watch the first 15-20 minutes of the movie and find out that the main character is from a low income family and is the waitress/friend of/server for the princess....who is white blond and spoiled rotten. I didn't catch all the details, and maybe the lesson was a good one, but my initial reaction was to be a bit irritated and let down.

That is really the point! Tiana is able to pull her own self "up" without a prince by hard work and the desire to succeed. I think that is a great message for little girls to see, to be honest! Tiana lands the prince and achieves her dream despite some very long odds. The spoiled blonde doesn't.

[MammaB21]

Originally Posted by Charbeau

That is really the point! Tiana is able to pull her own self "up" without a prince by hard work and the desire to succeed. I think that is a great message for little girls to see, to be honest! Tiana lands the prince and achieves her dream despite some very long odds. The spoiled blonde doesn't.

Ya okay. See, I knew there was probably some lesson that I was missing by not sticking it out and watching the whole movie. I guess it still bothers me a little for kids DD's age because those more in depth lessons and messages can easily be lost on a 4 year old. It sounds like it would be a great movie for say, a 10 year old. I'll have to watch the whole thing through and then have a talk with DD about the real message the movie is trying to portray.

[Norasmomma]

My DD is 3.5 and I have zero reservations with this movie, it is a great movie IMO, my DD LOVES it. It's waaaaaayyyyyy better than most of the Disney princessy movies. Tiana is a tough girl, she works her bottom off. To me it shows in various ways you don't get the easy road in life, but you can make the best of the life you have. I mean the *butler* gets conned into thinking that by taking the easy way(by magic) he's gonna get rich. The "princess" girl learns that you can't always get what you want, even if you can buy it.

That's my take.

[NiteNicole]

My four year old loves it. I think it's kind of boring. It's Disney, so the message isn't exactly subtle and I think it would be hard for even a four year old to miss it.

[Storm Bride]

Originally Posted by MammaB21

Ya okay. See, I knew there was probably some lesson that I was missing by not sticking it out and watching the whole movie. I guess it still bothers me a little for kids DD's age because those more in depth lessons and messages can easily be lost on a 4 year old. It sounds like it would be a great movie for say, a 10 year old. I'll have to watch the whole thing through and then have a talk with DD about the real message the movie is trying to portray.

DD1 (almost 7) and ds2 (almost 5) both picked up that message easily. It's not terribly subtle.

[Smokering]

I loved the movie. I think it'll age as well as Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King etc - the quality of the writing, voice acting and animation are all superb.

The point of the "princess" thing is that Disney's poking fun at its own genre. The white "princess" was simply a spoiled Southern belle - good-hearted, but with a typical Disney princess "Some day my prince will come", happiness-is-tied-up-in-wedding-a-royal attitude, albeit exaggerated for comic effect. Tiana (who is a waitress, not Lottie's server - Tiana's mother was Lottie's seamstress, and stated to be the best in the city) is working to fulfil her dream of owning a restaurant, and utterly uninterested in marriage, let alone marriage to a prince. This is stated as blatantly as can be - the lead-in to the movie's " I Want" song, "Almost There", goes into it, as do numerous bits of dialogue and part of the song "When We're Human". It's sort of the whole point of the movie - wishing on stars is lovely, but you have to work hard to achieve your dreams (while at the same time being open to magic and love). Unless your kids were dropped on their heads at birth, I think they'll pick up on it.

I'm not saying the movie scores 100% on the racial sensitivity stakes. For one thing, I'm a white chick who doesn't have the experience to make that claim. For another, I've read on blogs about race that a lot of POC were upset by the miscegenation aspect (Naveen wasn't Black, he was vaguely brown vaguely European), wishing that a Black couple were shown and a Black man got to be the hero (although I'd argue that Tiana's father was a better role model than Naveen, but anyhoo). There were also concerns about the portrayal of Voodoo, and some disappointment that the first Black character spent much of her screentime, well, green. And some people objected to how un-racist the movie world was - it was definitely a sanitised version of New Orleans, with only one statement that could be taken to be racist (or not) by one character. Then again, it's a Disney film, and not meant to be a gritty representation of the real world - just as Belle's life was rather nicer than the life of the average medievalish French peasant girl. On the blogs I read, the films sparked a lot of discussion and there wasn't a general consensus on whether it was "good" or "bad" as a whole.


But all that said, I think Disney rectified a lot of past mistakes with this movie. Tiana was resourceful, self-confident and hard-working; love found her, she wasn't pining for it; she saved the day in the end, not the prince (think a reverse Little Mermaid - Naveen made the deal with the devil in this one, and Tiana saved him); the Disney-parent-death actually had a point for once, and it was her father, not her mother (!) who kicked the bucket; and Mama Odie's "Dig a Little Deeper" song, with its theme of "what you want and what you need aren't the same thing", was positively paradigm-shifting philosophy for a Disney film.

Plus, the music was awesome and the film had honest-to-goodness banter. Since when did Disney films have banter? I loved it. So yes, I think your attitude is a little reactionary. Watch the film through. I don't think a film that featured a Black princess who started off at the top of the social ladder would necessarily have a more positive racial message, and it sure as heck wouldn't have had such a good story. (Plus, you'll see at the end of the film that being a princess doesn't relegate Tiana to a boring polished marble castle...) Belle from Beauty and the Beast and Mulan from Mulan also started out in fairly lowly/non-princessy positions, not to mention Cinderella. The point is where they ended up, and how.

[MammaB21]

So, I'm not the only one who got this impression. DP and I hadn't talked about the movie yet but I brought it up to him last night. I started by saying how excited I originally was that Disney FINALLY came out with a film (in 2010!) that featured a black princess. DP's response? "Ya, and then they go make her a waitress " Okay, we honestly have nothing against lower class families. We are one....lol. But it was his initial reaction as well to be disappointed by the very basic character outlines. It sounds like a wonderful outcome and lesson in the end, I'm just not sure why Disney chose this movie to be the first with the main character being black. So I guess my real issue is that they didn't do it sooner.

Originally Posted by Smokering

Plus, the music was awesome and the film had honest-to-goodness banter. Since when did Disney films have banter? I loved it. So yes, I think your attitude is a little reactionary. Watch the film through. I don't think a film that featured a Black princess who started off at the top of the social ladder would necessarily have a more positive racial message, and it sure as heck wouldn't have had such a good story. (Plus, you'll see at the end of the film that being a princess doesn't relegate Tiana to a boring polished marble castle...) Belle from Beauty and the Beast and Mulan from Mulan also started out in fairly lowly/non-princessy positions, not to mention Cinderella. The point is where they ended up, and how.

I promise I'll watch the whole thing through. Your explanation was great and like I said, it sounds like a great story in general with the lesson being an important one.

For those who have said that DD at 4 should get this message easily, I'm not saying she wont just that she'd also have to be dense to not see the very obvious character placement. I like the message that anyone can be what they want with some hard work and I'm sure she'll pick up on that.

[Smokering]

So I guess my real issue is that they didn't do it sooner.

I know a lot of people are sorta reserving judgment on the whole thing until they see if Disney's ever going to make another movie with a Black princess/prince/main character. It's very possible, sadly, that this will be THE Black Disney princess (just as Disney hasn't revisited Native American, Middle Eastern or Asian leads, unless you count the fairly terrible sequels). I'd definitely love to see another Disney film that mixed up Black characters in a different setting - a futuristic film, a Black male lead, a film set in Africa, whatever. But I'm skeptical... after all, Rapunzel is their next film and she's as blonde as it gets! They seem to have reverted back to an Anglo-Saxon princess after the box office "flop" of PATF.

One thing I liked, though - Louie the gator was voiced by a Black actor when he didn't "have" to be. So they made an effort.

[LuckyMommaToo]

But I'm skeptical... after all, Rapunzel is their next film and she's as blonde as it gets! They seem to have reverted back to an Anglo-Saxon princess after the box office "flop" of PATF.

Just one quick note (and not that I disagree with your point): Rapunzel has been in production for....oh, maybe seven years by now? So any decisions they're making after Princess and the Frog wouldn't be noticed for quite a while.

Except, well, it did make them change Rapunzel's title to "Tangled" because apparently then it'll appeal more to boys. Sorry for the diversion -- back to the topic at hand.

We loved PATF as well. We buy very few movies these days, but this and Ponyo are ones I definitely wanted DD to watch multiple times.
-e

[Storm Bride]

Originally Posted by Smokering

...(just as Disney hasn't revisited Native American, Middle Eastern or Asian leads,

Unless I'm mistaken, Disney's first non-white Princess was Jasmine, in the early 90s. Since then, the "princesses" have been Pocahontas, Mulan, Giselle (Enchanted...a little different) and Tiana. They've done a bunch of other movies, of different kinds (POTC, the various Pixar movies, etc.). They did Lion King, and a bunch of animated movies that didn't have princesses (lots with animals). But, it's not like they threw out Jasmine, Pocahontas and Mulan, and then ran back to a horde of new white, blonde (although I think Aurora was the only blond, initially...Cinderella became one for the "Princess" merchandise) princesses.

But I'm skeptical... after all, Rapunzel is their next film and she's as blonde as it gets! They seem to have reverted back to an Anglo-Saxon princess after the box office "flop" of PATF.

But...Rapunzel has been in the making for years.

[Smokering]

Storm Bride: OK, fair points! I looked up a chronology of Disney films and their white princesses were mostly earlier in the canon (Sleeping Beauty, Aurora, Ariel, Belle - plus non-Princess white characters such as in Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland). The Lion King remains problematic because of its relatively white cast - being set in Africa and all, it would have been logical to use an African voice cast, but most of the leads were white. (Not that Jeremy Irons wasn't awesome as Scar...). And that was in production at the same time as Pocahontas. There's also Megara from Hercules, who's technically ancient Greek but looks blandly white, and the very English Jane from Tarzan... what did they do with Esmerelda in the movie? Did they make her "real" Romany or was she swapped at birth as per the book? I can't remember. Anyway, you're right - they have made a greater effort to include princesses of different ethnicities in recent decades.

Nevertheless, when the Princesses are all grouped together for their merchandising shots they're still a bunch of white girls, with "one of each" thrown in for the ethnic princesses. So Rapunzel is still problematic, even if it's been in the making for the better part of a decade. They could have looked at the list and gone "OK, we've already got a few white blonde princesses, who else can we make a story about?" - and if that meant they had to change the story, so be it. You know? I mean, the story of Rapunzel isn't that crash-hot. It hardly screams "You MUST make me into a film!".

[Storm Bride]

The preponderance of *white* in the Princess marketing is definitely off-putting. But, I'm hesitant to think they should avoid doing the stories they want to do, in order to change it up. I'm hopeful - not necessarily optimistic, but not pessimistic, either - that they'll mix things up a little more in the future. But, they've got decades of lily white animation to catch up with, yk?

Rapunzel doesn't seem crash hot to me, either...but I have no idea what kind of mental picture the animators have. Maybe it does feel crash hot to them.

Disney's animation really started with fairy tales. While they've expanded past that (mythology, other fiction, etc.), I'd really like to see them expand out into non-European folklore...but I don't know when/if they'll do that. Their tradition is to take stories Americans (well, North Americans, I guess) already have some familiarity with. Considering how much they tend to change them, I don't know why they bother, though!

Good point about Meg from Hercules. I kind of like her character, and just think of her as looking...Meg-like. But, she does have a generic "white girl" thing going on.

Esmerelda...they never really went into detail about her background in the movie, but she was presented as being Romany, and she was not white...or bland. (Esmerelda is one of my favourite female Disney characters.)


I think the other problem with the princesses, from a merchandise standpoint, is what they're selling. Jasmine, and now Tiana, are the only non-white (actually, I think of middle Eastern as white, but Jasmine is still outside the previous mold) princesses who have the glimmer and glitz going on. Disney is selling glamour with their Princess line, and Mulan and Pocahontas aren't really glamourous. (Personally, when I was a little girl, I'd have loved a Pocahontas or Mulan doll...but I wasn't into glamour, either.) I'm not sure if that can be realistically addressed or not...although they could certainly do a story with an Indian princess (I don't know if the title is Rani, or something else - anybody?) and load her up with glamour!

I'd like to see some Eastern European stories (although then we're back to white) and some African folklore, and something from China, and something incorporating Australian Aboriginal mythology (re-read a book with this as the basis a few months ago, and it would give them lots of room to create...although it might be more up Miyazaki's alley...so different from European myth), and at least one each from North and South American native mythology...not a "native" story that's as much, or more, about Europeans (as in Pocahontas and Squanto). We'll see if they're ready to step that far outside their box or not. I'm guessing...not yet, if ever.

[Smokering]

I like Meg too. Hercules is a VERY patchy film, but Meg's spunky attitude and the song "I Won't Say (I'm In Love)" go a long way towards redeeming it! Esmerelda I'm not keen on, but only because I was disgusted Disney took such an awesome book and made it - well, compare Phoebus in the book and movie and you'll see what I mean. I'd love to have been a fly on the wall at the meeting where some genius says "So, there's this book about rape and deformity and evil priests and racism, and at the end the heroine is hanged because her lover is a scumbag and the main character twines his deformed body around her corpse until he dies - I think it'll be really good for the preschool demographic". "Sure, sounds great, but we'd better tone it down - hey, how about a song about lust?" Cue a film which successfully managed to be neither appropriate for kids nor remotely true to the books. Bizarre!

The trouble with Disney adapting genuine ethnic folktales is the people whose folktales they picked aren't likely to be super-impressed. Disney's track record with race is hardly glowing, you know? If I were a minority I might not be too thrilled at a big American company sanitising and cute-animal-sidekickising my nation's history and turning the story into McDonald's cups. (Heck, I wasn't too thrilled at them Disneyfying "my" literary heritage with some of their Western tales!) So it's possible Disney's actually trying to avoid offending people. Maybe.

I agree about the glamour thing too, although I'd prefer they had less glamorous females for other reasons. I notice they sell Tiana dolls in the green wedding dress she wears for oh, twenty seconds of screentime, not her everyday clothes! (At the Disney shop website, anyway; maybe they sell "waitress Tiana" or "restaurant Tiana" elsewhere?)