The Princess and the Frog

I was invited by the kindly folks at Disney to catch The Princess and the Frog at Disney studios for their new movie and event. If you’ve never been to one of these, they generally have them at the El Capitan in Hollywood, charge a pretty penny for your kids to see the movie and then go “backstage” to either meet the princesses or engage in whatever extra activity they have set up; usually it is a very cool thing to do and worth the money. This time it was set up in the backlot at Disney, itself a fun way to spend the evening, and in the tent all of the princesses had been assembled. It is here that we get a gander of the idols our little girls are being raised to admire. Old princesses like Aurora and Snow White join new princesses like Ariel and Mulan. If you’ve raised a little girl in America chances are you are well acquainted with each and every princess they created.

It’s a little strange to me that it took them so long to deliver a “black princess,” and it’s even odder that it would be this year, President Obama’s first year in the White House. We enjoyed the movie as it wasn’t just your run-of-the-mill princess story – here was a young girl who was raised to work hard for your dreams (as opposed to wishing on stars) and to do something with your life. This isn’t propaganda for rolling the dice genetically and having your good looks carry you through to happy ever after.

So it was somewhat disappointing to me that, after waiting for so long to Disney to right the whole princess thing, that the princess would spend most of the movie not as a princess but as a frog. Here is what the NY Times Manohla Dargis said:

It’s not easy being green, the heroine of “The Princess and the Frog” discovers. But to judge from how this polished, hand-drawn movie addresses, or rather strenuously avoids, race, it is a lot more difficult to be black, particularly in a Disney animated feature. If you haven’t heard: Disney, the company that immortalized pale pretties like Snow White and the zip-a-dee-doo-dah of plantation living in “Song of the South,” has made a fairy tale about a black heroine, a character whose shoulders and story prove far too slight for all the hopes already weighing her down. It’s no wonder she’s soon jumping into the bayou, green legs and all.

And the Village Voice’s Scott Foundas echoes Dargis:

So writer-directors Ron Clements and John Musker (whose 1992 Aladdin proffered a sinister, ear-cutting Middle East) send newly anthropomorphic Tiana and Naveen hopping off into the bayou rather than continuing to dodge ol’ Jim Crow on the streets of the Big Easy. There, Princess‘s rampant a-historicism gives way to a veritable Mardi Gras parade of risible stereotypes: an Acadian firefly with the most exaggerated Cajun dialect this side of celebrity chef Justin Wilson, I gua-ran-tee; a 197-year-old voodoo priestess named Mama Odie; and, lest no Deep South caricature remain unturned, a trio of toothless hillbillies.

That they transform the princess into a frog for such a long time sends the message they were somehow uncomfortable with Tiana’s real story – where would they put her? How could her story become universal enough to appeal to all little girls? Sure, Ariel is both a girl and a mermaid but her identity is well-intact throughout. Perhaps Disney was making the point that it doesn’t matter what color you are – you could be green, purple, white, brown, etc. And it’s possible I’m reading too much into it – I can hear the comments now bemoaning the PC-ing of film in general. It isn’t that I felt it needed to be PC – it’s just that I wasn’t much into watching a long movie about two frogs hopping around the bayou. Cute but a little less than we’ve come to expect from the glorious films like Beauty and the Beast, Mulan, etc.

But Entertainment Weekly’s Lisa Schwarzbaum really loved the film, giving it an A and tying it into Hurricane Katrina:

The Princess and the Frog happens to introduce an African-American heroine, a Disney animation first. The story also ‚Ä® happens to be set in an idealized New Orleans of an earlier time, a city whose historic beauty and cultural importance will forever be ‚Ä® filtered by contemporary adults through grimmer awareness of the natural and man-made disasters of Hurricane Katrina. It’s all the more effective, though, that this Big Easy of a movie needs no overt mention of Katrina to move our hearts, and inserts no overt lesson in the history of civil rights to distract from the groundbreaking matter-of-factness of Tiana’s equality. What matters is that Tiana triumphs as both a girl and a frog, that dreams are fulfilled, wrongs are righted, love prevails, and music unites not only a princess and a frog but also kids and grown-ups.

If you think about the story, it’s hard to imagine what direction they would have taken it – Tiana needs money for her restaurant so she decides to marry a prince she doesn’t love to get the money for it – she becomes a whore. Scratch that.

Tiana falls in love with the prince who is really a frog and must search the bayou for a spell that will undo it; she isn’t technically a princess so kissing him doesn’t help. I’m picturing Snow White with the forest animals as Tiana makes her way through the bayou, charming the alligators and the frogs and lightning bugs. That could work. But how do we turn Tiana into a princess so that she can kiss the frog and have him become a prince, etc.?

Tiana is secretly a princess but she doesn’t know it. So she never tries kissing the frog because it won’t do him any good. At last, she discovers that she really does love him and so her kiss is genuine. No, too much bestiality.

Either way, that is only the minor flaw in an otherwise enjoyable film. It should be considered one of the strongest contenders in the animated race — Up still dominates in every way possible, from box office to critical acclaim, etc. Up should have some competition with The Princess and the Frog, The Fantastic Mr. Fox (even if the animators are angry at Wes Anderson for bailing on the set, they should reward their own for all of their hard work). A Christmas Carol should be one of the contenders but who knows whether it will make the cut. Mary and Max, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs — it’s a very good year for animated films.