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Dayo, I, too, am eager to see Disney's awesome-to-be-beheld marketing forces plaster Tiana's face on lunchboxes and bathing suits. I remember how important the Polynesian Barbie was to me, and I'm thrilled to have cheesy fantasy avatars available to little girls of all colors. But I've never really understood this line of argument:
the Mickey Mousers have cycled through the Middle Eastern, Chinese, Native American, and Hawaiian princesses, not to mention six kinds of white—why not black? Compounding the frustration is the distinct lack of “live action” roles for black actors and actresses, which makes any perception of Hollywood bias smart a bit more.
I understand that Disney probably has more to redress vis-à-vis the African-American community, and obviously roles are limited for performers of color. But Middle Eastern, Chinese, and Native American actors get even less screen time than black actors. (Does the Hawaiian Lilo count as a princess?) I'll admit it right here: I cried when I saw Mulan. In fact, I still cry whenever I see it. I don't think this is or should be a racial pissing contest, but those intervening films are important, too.
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Nina, I think you’re right on about the silliness of hating the light-skinned Prince Naveen character in Disney’s forthcoming Princess and the Frog movie. He’s clearly black—and for a film set in New Orleans, his creolized look is pretty accurate.
But the increased sensitivities are totally understandable—it’s taken how long exactly for the Disney marketers to come up with a black princess? I wrote on this movie as a leap forward for beauty politics back in December 2007; the Mickey Mousers have cycled through the Middle Eastern, Chinese, Native American, and Hawaiian princesses, not to mention six kinds of white—why not black? Compounding the frustration is the distinct lack of “live action” roles for black actors and actresses, which makes any perception of Hollywood bias smart a bit more.
I’ll keep my powder dry because I plan to write a longer piece on the topic soon, but I think this debate is most productive when seen as an issue of branding: Now that Princess Tiana will join Jasmine, Belle, and Ariel on lunchboxes, stickers, and sleeping bags—and will, presumably, have her own doll—shouldn’t we be cheering the crossover potential of this flick? Much like the kerfuffle surrounding stuffed likenesses of Malia and Sasha Obama, I think it’s never bad, and in fact, deliciously ironic, that little white girls might soon be toting black dolls around town.
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Disney's newest animated film won't be released for another nine months, but The Princess and the Frog—Disney's first to feature an African-American princess—is already being scrutinized. First it got knocked because the heroine was a black chambermaid working for a rich white woman, then because one of the animal sidekicks was a toothless, seemingly redneck Cajun firefly. Plus there were plenty of people who were peeved that it took Disney so long to feature an African-American princess in the first place. (Dodai at Jezebel has been tracking the fracas; scroll down to see more links.)
Now, according to the U.K.'s Daily Mail, bloggers are up in arms because Princess Tiana— reimagined as a young woman living in Jazz Age New Orleans—falls in love with a guy who isn't black. Prince Naveen (an Indian name, I'll note) is heir to the throne of "Maldonia," and is voiced by a Brazilian actor. I'm not quite sure he's white, let alone "the whitest frat boy dickhead you can find," as one commenter put it, but he's definitely much lighter-skinned than Tiana. I think he looks sort of Mediterranean, myself.
I'm not surprised that people are pre-emptively monitoring this film's sensitivity levels, but I honestly can't tell if this tweaks my sensors. On one hand, it sucks that little African-American boys won't get to see a black prince, and I don't like the equation of lighter skin with desirability, either. But on the other hand, I'm all for seeing more mixed-race couples in the popular media—how annoying is it that, in most movies and TV shows, minorities are always getting paired with partners of the same race? I've been watching old episodes of Firefly lately, and the Gina Torres/Alan Tudyk pairing still seems really fresh to me. I'm going to try to reserve judgment till I actually see the film, but what do you ladies think?