After 75 years, A Black Princess Comes To Disney!!!

After 75 years, Disney is finally releasing a movie with a Black Princess!!! After seven decades of animations including everything but an African-American lead I, for one, am very excited about this. The story is a classic one, The Princess and the Frog. The story is set in New Orleans and stars Anika Noni Rose (of Dreamgirls fame) as the voice of Princess Tiana. (Interestingly enough, the name of the princess was originally Maddy but was changed to Tiana — not too many sistas named Maddy!!) The storyline should be quite familiar to most women as many of us have kissed quite a few toads in search of our prince. Personally, the closest I’ve been to a prince in shining armor is an ex-boyfriend behind shining the bars of his jail cell (that’s another story!). Anyhoo, the very fact that princes in shining armor have gone missing is one of the many issues creating a storm of controversy surrounding the film which is set to be released December 2009.

Some argue that Disney is not really making inroads by casting a black princess because the storyline involves voodoo and, as such, necessitates an African-American in the role. This argument also begs the question will the voodoo storyline have negative, stereotypical connotations? Why not a story that just happens to have a person of color (albeit animated) in the lead sans the stereotypical plot? Others argue why release a story promulgating the inane, unrealistic pursuit of a prince who comes along and saves the woman from a life of being (dare I say it) – alone and without a man! They argue that young girls do not need to be served up any more stories of fantasy men saving the day and living “happily ever after”. Another controversy surrounds the fact that after waiting 70+ years for this history-making moment, the black princess, in a twist of the original storyline, is actually turned into a frog herself after kissing the prince (on second thought this sounds more realistic than I thought!!). Let me repeat that, the BLACK princess is actually a GREEN frog for most of the movie.
Here’s my opinion, despite being a green frog most of the movie, voodoo stereotypes, a frog perping as a prince who we know won’t save anybody’s day, its still a good thing to have an African-American princess (for one thing we now have a new acronym – an AAP as opposed to a JAP!). I remember growing up watching blond Cinderella and always wondering where is corn-rowed Shaniqua? Young black girls should not be denied a fairy tale depicting someone who looks like them. Young people of all races (especially young black girls) can benefit from seeing that a beautiful, young princess can indeed be black. They will learn that beauty embodies all races, creeds and colors. And, my answer to the prince who doesn’t really save the day argument – can we let kids be kids?? Isn’t being a kid about fantasizing? If a young girl fantasizes about her prince saving the day its ok. Let’s not rob our XBox focused, Playstation fixated children the simple childhood right to fantasize! Afterall, the movie is a fairy tale and I don’t know any fairy tales based on reality!!!