The Princess and the Frog (2009)
By: Ron Clements, John Musker (directors, writers)
Starring: Anika Noni Rose, Bruno Campos, Keith David, Michael-Leon Wooley, Jennifer Cody, Jim Cummings, Peter Bartlett, Jenifer Lewis, Oprah Winfrey, Terrence Howard, John Goodman
A fairy tale set in Jazz Age-era New Orleans and centered on a young girl named Tiana and her fateful kiss with a frog prince who desperately wants to be human again.
I have a confession to make: I would much rather rave about a movie than rant. There are several reasons for this, not the least of which is that I’m of the opinion that while having a certain inherent value as cautionary tales, bad movies are, like bad literature (I’m looking at you, Stephenie Meyer and Dan Brown) not worth my time. You would think that embarking on my 365 day movie viewing opus would make me more inured to shoddy filmmaking (You can’t expect every movie, everyday to be good), but I’m finding the the exact opposite to be true: I resent when I’ve slotted aside a segment of my day for movie watching and end up filling it with crap. I could have been much more happily employed watching something I genuinely enjoy, even if it’s for the twentieth time, and I would much rather ramble on about said thing I enjoy, but that would negate the exercise. Maybe next year I’ll ramble on about films I love, but this year, it’s about the ones I’ve never seen before.
I’ve been putting off penning this review for The Princess and the Frog since about 10 AM this morning (It is now after 6 PM) because this movie is crap. Worse still, it’s not the easily-dismissible crap like I Can Do Bad All By Myself; this is a Disney feature, which makes it covert crap that you have to explain lest people become dazzled by built-in nostalgia and shunt their discomfort aside in favor of thinking you a big, Disney-hating meanie.
I am, in fact, about as far from a Disney-hating meanie as it’s possible to get, for the record. As the first traditionally-animated Disney film since 2004, I had very high hopes for The Princess and the Frog. Well, at least I did initially. I’ve been wary of this thing since the first full-length trailer was released to a flurry of internet speculation about what looked to be possibly dubious racial and cultural representation. I really, really wish all the talk had been wrong, but as we’ve already established, this movie is crap.
Let’s forget for the moment that the first black Disney princess spends 90% of the movie not black at all but rather a frog, thereby negating most of the character’s ethnic identity. Let’s just put that aside, because we’re here to talk about the strength of the film, and that’s a sociological debate that’s going to depend on personal perspective. Let’s talk instead about the universe this heroine resides in, and all the ways that it is seriously fucked up.
New Orleans is my favorite place on the planet, so I have absolutely no complaints about that particular choice of locale, nor the physical representation thereof. One of the good things about the film is its lush attention to detail in physically representing both the region and time period. What I have to wonder, though, is at what point the folks at Disney sat down and decided that because the story is set in the Jazz Age, segregation should be very blatantly included and yet never addressed in the moral themework of the plot. The rich white people live in giant houses in the Garden District, and the poor black people live in rundown tract housing, but boy howdy, everybody sure is happy. Seriously, what the hell is this and when did I start watching Song of the South?
Here’s the thing: you can’t go halvsies on ethical realism. If you want to make a movie that addresses the shitty social standards of the Twenties, then do that. If you want to make a silly fairy tale about a girl who kisses a frog, do that. But don’t simultaneously imply and then gloss over the shitty stuff. This is, at its heart, a film for children, and what it is doing is fostering a sense of moral apathy: I am the rich white girl in the big house, and what those black people do over there really isn’t my business, just so long as they show up on time to take in my party dress and make my beignets. Because they’re all happy, right?
It’s vile. Flat out vile. OPRAH, WHY ARE YOU IN THIS CLUSTERFUCK?
But oh, that’s only PART of why The Princess and the Frog is crap! Beyond all of the above, there is the fact that the heroine is built up throughout the film as an independent, self-motivated young woman working toward her dreams. This is fantastic, it really is. Except for how at the end, she is both willing to give up her lifelong aspiration to be with a dude she’s known a DAY, and apparently unable to achieve said aspiration without the help of said dude (And also having her pal the alligator threaten her realtors with violence).
What the everloving FUCK, Disney? Did they give you guys a lobotomy to remove everything you learned when you made Mulan?
Oh, but I’m not done! The icing on the cake is the depiction of Cajuns (Both animal and human) as backwards, cousin-fucking rednecks missing half their teeth (But unfortunately not missing their nasty yellow toenails), with “weird” accents (Actual quote). I’m sure actual Cajuns appreciate that you went back to 1964 for your political correctness, Disney. Oh, wait, they’re one of those regional ethnic groups, so they don’t actually COUNT!
In short: fuck you, Disney. You presumably set out to make a movie that would include people of color and empowered women and you made as big a mess of it as possible without setting out to that end. If this is what happens when you stop using digital, stick with Pixar.
HAHAHA, YES. THIS EXACTLY.
with “weird” accents
“Cajun Dialect for Actors” cassette tape, Anita, “Cajun Dialect for Actors”.
I do not understand how this movie is getting rated so highly. Well, aside from my standing belief that 95% of the population is idiots.
Wow. I completely and totally disagree. I thought this movie was fantastic and was the perfect film to pave the way for Disney to get back into 2D animation. I’m trying to figure out how to best phrase WHY I disagree with pretty much all that you’ve said here, but for now, here were my initial thoughts on the film:
http://popculturereference.net/2009/12/12/recapturing-the-magic-disneys-the-princess-and-the-frog
I honestly think that everyone’s trying to overthink this movie. It’s Disney, for god sakes. The Princess and the Frog is no different from the movies they’ve made in the past when it comes to racial sensitivity and stereotyping, and no one hated their films back then for it. I don’t get why there’s so much rage over it now.
The Princess and the Frog is no different from the movies they’ve made in the past when it comes to racial sensitivity and stereotyping, and no one hated their films back then for it.
You don’t think that we as a culture, and Disney by extension, should be evolving beyond that? What I’m taking from this comment is that Disney might as well have continued on making movies with all white people, because that worked for them at the time. I think it’s about being aware as a culture and trying to grow beyond the stereotyping and misogyny, and as I inferred in my second paragraph, I patently do not believe “it’s Disney” is ever an excuse for perpetrating ignorance. It’s one thing to look at older films and accept them as a product of their time, but there’s no excuse for it in modern filmmaking, not in this sort of context.
People can enjoy and be happy about this movie, but it doesn’t excuse the issues therein any more than the fact that everyone in the movie is happy about their situation excuses the racial attitudes of the time/ excuses that situation.
The movie can be, perhaps, a great example or 2D animation, or offer fun new characters, or a fun retelling of an old fairy tale, and people can like it: this doesn’t change the fact that the racial component of the film, which was SUCH A BIG DEAL, was handled poorly. Disney does not get to set out to correct its dearth of black characters, black stories, FAIL TO DO IT RESPECTFULLY, and get a free pass for it because, oh, look, they tried, and it’s Disney, so who cares?
We have to overthink it. We grew up on Disney, children continue to grow up on Disney, and it shapes their values and their idea of the world, which means it has a responsibility to present a morally and ethically sound story/message to viewers. And if it doesn’t, parents and/or people with children in their lives need to question that message so they can talk to said children about it.
I just don’t get how people are making this movie out to be so DIFFERENT from what Disney’s done in the past. Sebastian in “The Little Mermaid” wa a horrible stereotype and people loved him. Lumiere in “Beauty and the Beast” was a French stereotype and there was no uproar. I think people are perpetuating a ridiculous double standard as far as this movie is concerned. So when I say “back then”, I’m not talking about the Heckle and Jeckle era cartoons, I’m talking about what people are referring to as the “Disney Renaissance.”
Well, I can’t speak for the reaction back then because I was just a kid, and it isn’t as if I knew any better at the time. But it probably does bear pointing out that those movies are twenty years old, too. I also think that there’s a difference between a flamboyant French character amidst a whole cast of diverse French characters, and showing every example of a type of ethnicity as being a certain, stereotyped way.
Sebastian I loved at the time, but he does make me cringe now in the same way Jar Jar Binks does.
On a total tangent -
I gotta admit – I loved and still love Sebastien. As my sister says, he’s one of the few non-stereotyped representation of a West Indian (specifically Trinidadian, even!) character in TV/movie media. That is, he is not a)an expert in voodoo; b)depicted as primitive savagery; c)smoking ganga/lazy/ rastafarian. The crab is a neurotic royal classic music composer who sing calypso on his off-time. I mean. Good for him for becoming a working professional and still retaining his culture (OMG I AM TALKING ABOUT A CARTOON, I KNOW, I KNOW. BUT STILL).
Sometimes I feel like in terms of racial stereotyping, Disney (re)started out pretty well with Little Mermaid, and then it just slowly and steadily went downhill. :/
Sebastian’s one of those characters that, as a white adult, I watch and kind of go “yeeeesh, am I allowed to like this guy?” But you make a really good point about the distinction between a stereotypical voice type attached to a positive character vs. a narrow collection of inherently demeaning characters. Sebastian was very successful and talented; the Cajuns depicted in PatF are very much shown as backwards, swamp-living simpletons.
I feel much better about Sebastian now, so I am taking this as a big win for me. XD
Reg and I saw the trailer for this when we went to see Precious. (I wish I was kidding. Tailoring trailers by race was more than a bit odd…there was also a Tyler Perry trailer.) Apparently our shared first impressions, e.g. dear god, are they ALLOWED to do that?, are a plausible reaction to the rest of the film.
Of course, Disney films were already ruined for me in school, anyway. Thanks Dr. Rozario, I didn’t need to realise that Belle and the Beast demonstrate an abusive relationship down to the letter. Cannot unsee.
I haven’t seen this movie, so I can’t voice my own opinions. I’m glad you shared this with us and thus confirmed some of what I had suspected about the movie. Also, can you explain to me briefly, was she really royalty? (That was also something that annoyed me.)
Ahhh, Disney and racism. I know I’m a complete cynic, but it’s 2010 (2009 when it came out). I can’t be congratulatory that Disney gave us our first black heroine now. I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong. I grew up in a bubble. My views on race relations are a little skewed because of it.
But while I’m complaining, let’s not forget the line “where they cut off your ear if they don’t like your face” in the opening line from Aladdin. It’s in the soundtrack, but not the video. They changed it because I guess they thought they crossed a line. Or enough people complained.
Tiana isn’t a princess until the very end, because she marries the prince and only then does she break the spell, blah blah. They get married as frogs. The IMDb synopsis called her a princess, but that was inaccurate, so I edited it before pasting it in here.
I remember that line from Aladdin! I had the soundtrack as a teenager as well as the video, and I had completely forgotten the difference, but you’re totally right. Ugh, Disney.