There are good and bad things about this movie. On the one hand, Disney has finally made a movie with a black princess after at least seven white princesses (since 2009, there have been four more white princesses). On the other hand, there are quite a few stereotypes about black people in the film that Disney are perpetuating.
First, Tiana (the princess) and her family are poor, and she is forced to work very hard at a restaurant to make her way. Her mother works for her best friend's mother, whose family, incidentally, is white, and quite wealthy. While the film is here sending a great message of the importance of work ethic, it is also perpetuating the idea that black people are in lower socio-economic conditions than white people. In reality, a lot of black people are in lower socio-economic positions (due to institutional racism that keeps people of colour down in the U.S., and lots of other places); but there are obviously rich black people too. So it's interesting that Disney chose to put the African-American princess in a situation of little wealth, and the white best friend in a lot of wealth. (In research for this, I learned - at least in statistics from a few years ago - that in the top 1% of wealthy people in America, only 1.4% of that amount are African-American. 1.6% is 'other', and 0.9% is Latino - I just found that interesting, like what).
Secondly, and the problem that the media has predominantly focused on, is that Disney kept their first black princess a frog for most of the picture. And, let's think about this for a second; their first black princess movie, and it's about frogs. Obviously The Frog Prince is a classic Grimm tale and yeah it's cool that Disney did it, but couldn't they have done a story with an African-American princess that wasn't opposite an amphibian? Did Sleeping Beauty have to be white? (Well, she did because Sleeping Beauty was first made in 1959 and as we know there were still MAJOR race issues that America was yet to overcome - some of which clearly still exist) I don't know, I'm digressing - and it's not a huge issue, and I only just considered it so I'm rambling - but just a small point about Disney's casting of their black princess. Anyway, it does seem a little problematic that Tiana is a frog for a lot of the movie, instead of a princess the entire time like all of the others (although, I have to say that Sleeping Beauty was asleep for most of her movie so she wasn't doing too great either - but at least still a 'Beauty').
Another problem that the media has looked at is the fact that Tiana's prince was white. Why isn't he black? Can black men not be princes, they ask? To be honest, I think it's really great for young children to see interracial couples, particularly in such influential films like the Disney princess stories. I think that this is very important; we should not be teaching our kids that only white people can be with white people, black princesses with black princes. At the same time, for representation purposes, it would be great to see a prince portrayed as a black man!
However, along with all of these potentially problematic aspects of The Princess and the Frog, there is at least one great one: finally, young African-American girls can see a princess that looks like them, and no longer do they have to dress up as the white princesses (if they don't want to - obviously, a little girl should be Belle or Mulan or Cinderella if she wants to). When I was younger, the Disney princesses were the most beautiful characters on my television screen. Particularly Belle, because she had brown hair and brown eyes like. Young girls principally like to aspire to be the princess they look like the most; for African-American girls, they didn't really have this option. Now they do. Oprah Winfrey's baby doll experiment showed African-American little girls indicating that the white doll was prettier than the black doll, because that is how they were conditioned due to the distinct lack of diverse dolls. Hopefully Tiana means that more and more children's movies and toys will be more racially and culturally diverse and young girls can see that with darker skin, they are just as beautiful as the light-skinned girls and princesses.
I think you have made some really interesting points for discussion throughout your post. I think it is highly problematic that Disney has lacked such diversity up until 2009. I agree with your comments about this concerning issue resonating with young girls. This is the obvious demographic of Disney films and this does raise important issues regarding the cultures and diverse representations. While it is great that Tiana is the first Disney princess of colour, do you think that there will ever be a point in future then minority representation across films will be equal to that of the white majority? Something to consider could be that perhaps Tiana's prince is white because of the deeply rooted white saviour trope that is extremely common across mainstream film?
ReplyDeleteI was really shocked when i did a deeper research of Disney princess history, and found out there is only one black princess who is not born princess and works as a labour ever after she being one, Tiana. Her experience reflects American black girls social status and their living qualities in a way. We indeed want more black princess in the future, and call for the white girls' role be more diversed not only as fairytale like as they are always to be. Isn't that interesting?
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