A Black Mother's Review of Disney's the Princess & the Frog

So I felt like I should take a break from the ordinary debauchery and share something from a friend and Spelman sister of mine, Dr. Mom. Aside from being a full time pediatric dentist, she is an awesome mother of three and wife to one. Anyone who can juggle all these jobs with finesse and look fly doing it is my kind of girl; I take her opinion fairly seriously.

As I have not yet been able to go and see the Princess & the Frog, and have gotten sooooo many plot spoilers from all you jerkfaces who went to sneak premiers, I was interested in what Dr. Mom had to say. she wrote this on her Blackberry IMMEDIATELY after going to see a the film with her husband and her 3 daughters. Some of it may have more of a stream of consciousness feel than an actual review feel, but doesn't that make it feel a little more honest? Here it is:

There is so much controversy surrounding a film that most people haven't seen as of yet, I felt compelled to write this. Early this morning my husband and I took our 3 princesses to an advanced screening of The Princess and the Frog which weaves the tale of Disney's newest and first Black princess.

Although we don't allow images in the media to define beauty for our daughters, we're well aware of the emotional effect it can have on young girls. When the concept of a Black Disney princess was first announced a few years ago I couldn't contain my excitement.

As we all know the princess in any culture evokes images of poise, grace and most importantly epitomizes beauty. Disney has several White princesses, one from the middle East, an Asian and even a Native American princess. However, there was no Disney princess my daughters could dress up as for Halloween and look authentic.

No Disney princess doll I could purchase that falls in line with their Black American Girl and Barbie dolls nor a Disney princess whose physical characteristics they can look at that remotely reflects them or anyone in their family. So yes I was excited not because my daughters finally had a damsel in distress to emulate but because my daughters and other little black girls would finally see themselves reflected in the world's most identifiable house of beauty.....Disney's Princess Castle.

The honeymoon ended when I heard reports that the Disney's newest princess' name had phonetic similarities to Mammy and her occupation was a maid....

Ouch.

Thankfully members of Black community made a fuss and our princess' name was changed to Tiana (odd name for a Black girl born in the 1930's but okay, its not Mammyish) and her occupation was changed to a chef. As the release drew closer I heard complaints about the presence of voodoo in the film, Tiana's toothless firefly sidekick as well as the fact that her handsome prince wasn't "obviously" Black.

I had my reservations but I kept an open mind for my daughters and for myself. I didn't want to become disappointed before actually seeing the movie.

Let's keep in mind the Princess and the Frog is a Disney Princess film.

All Disney princess films are set in the past. I'm not a Disney screenwriter but I would assume this is a recurring theme because it maintains an element of fantasy if the viewer can't relate personally to the time period.

Where's the element of fantasy if we were watching a movie about a would be princess that rides the subway. Too realistic, not characteristic of Disney animated princess film. Also Disney is telling the tale of a Black American princess.

All of the more recent Disney princess films try to sprinkle a little of the Princess' culture within the movie while still remaining entertaining for all ages. This can clearly be seen in Beauty and the Beast, Mulan and Pocahantas. So clearly Disney's most recent princess film had to be set in a predominantly Black city that is famous for the contribution that Black people have made to the culture. This brings to mind Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Harlem and New Orleans. The setting also had to be scenic....which automatically excludes everything with the exception of Atlanta and New Orleans.

New Orleans is a city that is famous not only for its African retentions but for its festive personality. New Orleans is associated with jazz music, great food and Mardi Gras.

Also what would a Disney princess film be without the element of good versus bad magic?

Its in just about every Disney princess film from some of their oldest princess movies such as Sleeping Beauty to some of their newer ones like The Little Mermaid.

The last time I checked within the United States the most identifiable genre of magic is voodoo. Short of just inserting a pointy nose, broom riding witch I'm really not sure how Disney would have pulled off magic in this particular film without including voodoo without it seeming contrived. So I don't really think its fair to be upset about voodoo being present in the Princess and the Frog.

Also we have to keep in mind the film is set in the 1930's. We're all well aware that educated, well to do Black families only made up a small percentage of the black population. The vast majority were poor. We also have to remember that many princess tales tend to be rags to riches stories, that's what makes them so great.

Do we really want to see a tale about a wealthy young girl marrying a wealthy prince? It just doesn't give the same effect. Look at Aladdin, even in his namesake film he's trying to marry his way out of street urchin status. So in this respect the Princess and the Frog doesn't deviate from its counterparts.

So on to the firefly.

Okay, okay, yes, he was missing a couple of teeth.

While I found the gold teeth/partially edentulous ethnically identifiable non-standard English speaking robots in Transformers 2 so offensive it made my stomach hurt because they seemed out of place and contrived. It seemed as if the writers of Transformers 2 said,

"You know what, I know every other talking robot speaks standard English, but you know what's really missing from Transformers? 2 jive talking robots that are partially edentulous and instead of making the actual words that come out of their mouth funny let's make their comedy entirely physcial....yeah, that's its jive talking, toothless, physical comedy robots."

I didn't find Raymond, the partially edentoulous firefly offensive. I'm not that familiar with New Orleans but based on what little anecdotal information I do have, people that live near the swamp or on it in Raymond's case are of a lower socioeconomic status. This is made quite evident by the three partially edentulous uneducated White characters that we also meet on the swamp.

Finally we get to our handsome prince. Again, there were some issues with the fact that the prince wasn't obviously Black as Tiana was obviously Black.

Yes, Prince Naveen was ethnically ambiguous as he was from a fictional country, his race at least to me was clear.

No, Prince Naveen wasn't a Black American but I thought the animators made it clear that he was Black. I mean physical distinction between Prince Naveen and his white counterparts was clear. He looked light a light skinned brother.

Some people might say,

"Well he couldn't be black because in 1930's New Orleans a wealthy white woman would never consider marrying a black man even if he were a prince."

I would disagree with this school of thought, because while there are elements of reality there are more elements of fantasy that keep the movie upbeat and characteristic of a Disney animated film.

Because if we go down that road one could argue, where the hell is Maldonia does that even exist, where are the "Whites Only" and "Blacks Only" signs I mean this is 1930's New Orleans, would a blonde haired, blue eyed, wealthy southern belle like Charlotte allow her black servant friend to walk through the front entrance of her family's mansion and actually wear one of her gowns to her family's huge masquerade where she's supposed to be serving beignets?

Do we really want this movie to be so authentic to the point of being depressed?

The last thing I want my daughters thinking about when leaving this film is,

"Man, Black people were really treated liked second class citizens back then."

There's a time a place for everything and Disney's The Princess and the Frog is neither the time nor the place to make a film so realistic to the point of depressing us. Disney did a fantastic job with the colors, the music, the tone....it was really a great film. I can't wait to enjoy the film again with my family when its released nationwide.

Thank you so very much Dr. Mom for your guest post.

SMOOCHES!!

SHINE ON!!!