It Only Took Disney 86 Years to Have a Black Princess… Let's Hope The Next One Doesn't Spend The Majority of Her Movie As a Frog

Response to NYT Article: Her Prince Has Come. Her Critics, Too.

In 2009, The Princess and The Frog was released. The movie’s star, Tiana, officially became Disney’s first black princess. While this movie was certainly a major step forward for the franchise, it also presented several problematic portrayals of race. Even worse, the first black princess did not actually spend the majority of the movie as a black princess; in fact, Tiana was only in human form for about twenty-five minutes of the nearly eighty-minute-long movie. For the rest of the movie, she was a frog, which, quite frankly, takes a lot away from the empowering image and story that the film was supposed to provide.

Another central problem with this film was the portrayal of race relations. The Princess and the Frog takes place during the 1920s in New Orleans, Louisiana. Jim Crow Segregation still had firm hold in America during this time period, particularly in the South. As one Louisiana Digital Encyclopedia notes, “Even in New Orleans, tolerant (if not friendly) interactions between whites and African Americans all but disappeared” due to increasingly prevalent segregation laws. Anyone with a basic knowledge of American history knows that it was not until several decades after the setting of this movie that the Civil Rights Movement took hold, (hypothetically) outlawing segregation, (ideally) banning restrictive voting laws, and overall awakening the racial conscious of the nation (at least that was the hope…). It is 2018 and we still have a loooong way to go in terms of race relations; the idea that there were relationships like Tiana and Charlotte’s a hundred years ago in the Deep South is just not probable. This misrepresentation does an incredible disservice to an audience learning about the world around them. Rather than acknowledging the white supremacy that existed at the time, the creators of this movie presented Charlotte and Big Daddy, the two main white characters in the film, as generous and friendly, even if they certainly came across as privileged and oblivious to the struggles of others. In a way, the movie purified the minds of its white characters, rather than acknowledging the racial prejudices that existed and the incredible extra barriers that those prejudices created.

As I began to watch clips of this movie again to prepare to write this post, my mind immediately went to the “ToysRn’tUs” episode of Black-ish, where Rainbow complained about how the black dolls were only a freed slave and a civil rights advocate. Because of this same problem, some could also argue that the fact that the first black princess’s story was situated in the South during the 1920s was problematic. Throughout the entertainment industry, there is this trend to only market African American figures and characters as they relate to, most frequently, slavery or civil rights struggles; unfortunately, the context of Tiana’s storyline seems to fall in line with this trend.  

The presence of Tiana and her movie amongst other Disney princesses is absolutely revolutionary, and that certainly should not be overlooked. However, it is still important to critically analyze the messages each film and figure portrays. This movie had a valiant goal and, by many accounts, a valiant effort. However, I do hope that the next black princess is not only more visible, but more historically accurate. Or, it does not have to be a historical story at all!