Cinderella, Tiana, and Disney's abysmal history: 8 notes on The Princess and the Frog

"We have no obligation to make art. We have no obligation to make a statement. To make money is our only objective." --Disney CEO Michael Eisner's internal memo

"I mean, really, Ariel gets a calypso-singing crustacean, Cinderella has mice that can sew, and the black princess gets a raggedy half-toothless firefly – when she isn’t spending the movie being the animal sidekick herself." --Shannon Prince

"The Princess and the Frog couldn’t just be a movie. It had to be a moment, complete with tie-in merchandise carefully trotted out well in advance of the premiere: The Dress! The Doll! The Hair Products!

Given all that, Disney’s first princess in 12 years has a lot to live up to. And its filmmakers tread a fine line between attempting authenticity and keeping the fantasy alive. This being Disney, there are certain tropes that must be in place: Spirited Heroine sets out on a journey. Encounters all sorts of travails along the way, travails which will prompt her to break into song. Animal friends help her in her journey; they, too, can’t help breaking into song. Handsome, often cross-cultural, prince pops up, but evil forces conspire to keep them apart. He sings, too. Back in the day, the Handsome Prince usually saved the day, but this being 2009, the Spirited Heroine generally gets to save the day—and Handsome Prince—thereby actualizing her own Inner Princess. The Handsome Prince and the Actualized Princess hook up; live happily ever after, etc., etc." --Teresa Wiltz

"LaToya Peterson, editor of the website Racialicious.com — which has been tracking much of the controversy surrounding The Princess and the Frog — says that she is hopeful and sceptical when it comes to seeing the movie. `I`m hopeful because Disney was so quick in making changes to make sure the portrayal of a black girl is a lot less stereotypical,' she says from her office in Washington. `Then again, Disney has such an abysmal history of representing characters of colour. I mean, they’re usually represented as animals.'" --Chris Ayre

"Who wants a puppy?" --Big Daddy La Bouff (John Goodman) in The Princess and the Frog

1) What exactly is Disney's abysmal history in terms of its depictions of race? Cracked.com provides a nice eye-opening summary.

2) What are some of the changes made to Tiana's character (Anika Noni Rose) in the course of making The Princess and the Frog? During the movie's composition, the writers at first depicted her as maid, but in in the movie's final incarnation, she's a waitress/aspiring restaurateur for much of the movie. Also, her original name was Maddie, but that name was changed as it was seen as being too close to Mammy. How else did Disney seek redemption? They visited with Oprah three years ago, sought her approval, and gave her the part of Tiana's mother Eudora.

3) I confess that I liked much of The Princess and the Frog, in part because I could sense the corporate media behemoth squirming as it tried to distance itself from its usual evil ideology.

4) If you study different versions of the Cinderella myth, you learn how Cinderella used to be wily, self-sufficient, and humorously conniving in her efforts to get the prince, that is, until the official Disney Cinderella came along in 1950. Disney's Cinderella passively waited around until a bumbling fairy godmother, some hard-working animals, and a handsome prince catapults her effortlessly to royal status. Now we have the Cinderella complex, popularized by Colette Dowling, which, in the words of the Wikipedia article on the topic, "is based on the idea of women that the story portrays, as being beautiful, graceful and polite but who cannot be strong independent characters themselves (although Cinderella does exhibit independence based on her skills and determination), and who must be rescued by an outside force, usually a man (e.g. the Prince)." Given the parallel existence of the Peter Pan syndrome, one wonders how much Disney's sugary example has messed up millions of boys and girls for life.

5) In contrast to the Disneyfied Cinderella, Tiana makes it very clear that she's willing to work hard to obtain the restaurant she wants in 1920's era New Orleans. So she waitresses and saves her tips in cans until she can raise the down payment on a beat-up old building. She's so intent on getting as she says "what you want through hard work," Prince Naveen (Bruno Campos) chides her for being a "stick in the mud" when they are both frogs. He says "You do not know how to have fun," but she proves him wrong when she helps defeat some frog-hunting rednecks. I imagine Disney animators included the 3 Stooges-esque rednecks to counterbalance any charges of stereotyping attached to the snaggle-toothed Cajun firefly named Ray (Jim Cummings) who says things like "follow the bouncing butt" before breaking into song.

6) Given Disney's tendency to lazily plagiarize from or allude to its earlier movies, what is the major influence of The Princess and the Frog? I think The Jungle Book. Once the storyline shifts to the Bayou, Louis the lovable jazz horn gator (Michael-Leon Wooley) reminded me of Baloo the Bear crossed with Louis Armstrong. The animators acknowledge the debt to The Jungle Book when Mama Odie shows up sporting Kaa, the snake as her helpmate.

7) I am a huge fan of New Orleans, and The Princess and the Frog revels in the city's rich cultural traditions. I liked all of the references to beignets, Mardi Gras royalty, gumbo (although Tiana repeatedly only needs to add two squirts of Tabasco to save any problematic gumbo in the film), Sidney Bechet, voodoo, the city's celebrated graveyards, and zydeco music.

8) Does The Princess and the Frog help the Disney corporation make amends for its abysmal history? Not entirely, but I found it entertaining to see them try. As long as they profit on the "spectacle of innocence," it's gratifying to see some signs of conscience, signs of guilt. Tiana's knowing, slightly ironic stance in the film calls attention to the underlying hypocrisies of Disney's usual song and dance.