The Princess and the Frog

[meganbmoore]

Ok, O Mighty F-List Who Knows All, the following is what I know about this upcoming Disney movie:

1.  It's an adaptation of The Frog Prince.
2.  It's Disney doing 2D animation
3.  It has a black heroine
4.  It's set in New Orleans, presumably at some point in the past.

Anyway, apparently there is some sort of huge controversy over it?  Can anyone fill me in?

Also, does anyone know when it's coming out?

Comments

[shewhohashope.livejournal.com]

About her being a servant...do you know when it's set? (I suspect I'm just automatically assuming it's not set in the present.) Because, while I hate to say it, there has to be some balance between what's politically correct, and the setting.

But the creators also get to choose when and where it's set. They could have set this in 12th century Nigeria, or Haiti in the 1990's or had an all-black cast if they chose, but they made a conscious decision to make her a servant in 1920/30's New Orleans. That's sketchy in and of itself. Not to mention that there were free, middle class black people in North America for hundreds of years, and in Europe for thousands. This isn't one heroine among a million others, this is the first and the only time Disney has ever done this - it's a pretty big deal.

I think you can have something about a black servant girl in, say, the 1930s, and still be respectful.

Possible, but not likely. It's like starting out with a handicap.

(Also, Nala is a lion. She doesn't count as a heroine of colour)

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

What I meant with Nala is that I don't think anyone could ever "read" her as white (though there are people baffled as to why we can't see some cast members as white, so I could be wrong about that) but I think it ended up coming out very badly. I may also have a stronger tendency to read a lot of talking animal characters as some variety person representative than most people have.