I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Disney has a new animated cartoon coming out in theaters on December 11. It’s called The Princess and the Frog, and I am super-excited about it, as is anyone who has been baptized in the cult of Disney since their early years. Evidence? See here. And here. And here. And here.
The stills that I oggled look gorgeous:
And the trailer looks exciting:
Do you notice something? The main characters are black! Could it be that Disney’s reversing years of racism (although, maybe not racism? Although, to be honest, I’m a little tired of hearing that Disney is racist because the people that complain about this have never seen any Soviet classics that had me thinking that black people were really all Russians in blackface) and becoming once again the quality animation studio that it was before it started making emo-induced environmental walking garbage dumpsters?
No, it’s because the Obamas are in the White House. And black people are Very Cool again. Economics dictates markets in everything, and it just so happens that now, it’s an ok time to be black because marketers are ready to exploit the hell out of you!
Example One: Beanie Baby dalls called, mysteriously, Sasha and Malia.
Example Two: The resurgence of blacks as models.
And…an Obama effect on black test takers?
I’m wondering what caused the Princess and the Frog to be made. Granted, its production was started in 2006, a lot of time before the rise of Obama. And Disney has featured other non-white minorities before. But I can’t help thinking that Disney is also riding somehow on the presidential wave. Or maybe I’m just being cynical and need to return to my childhood roots.
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
DID YOU JUST DIS WALLE?? O. M. F. G. O NO YOU DINT.
I liked Wall-E. But since when did we start getting all preachy about environmentalism? I felt like I was in the NPR studio getting talked to by Michelle Norris or Robert Seigel.
Or maybe Disney realized there was an entire race full of little girls who didn’t have a princess they could relate to or pay lots of money to look like at home or when they visited the parks (i.e. I went to Downtown Disney on Halloween and saw a number of little black girls dressed up like Princess Tiana, and looking downright ecstatic about it- and they should be)! I think it’s great, but I also think it’s a huge ploy for Disney to reach out to yet another group of kids and take more money from their parents for all the merch. I think there’s validity to both theories, and absolutely agree with yours. PS Your blog rocks
Shayna, thanks for stopping by and reading!
Of course I agree with you-it could be a two-sided kind of situation. Especially since they’re already pushing the merchandise so hard-before the movie even came out.
What, doesn’t everybody have Sasha and Malia dolls from their childhood?
No, but I do have one of these: http://www.regretsy.com/2009/11/10/dolly-dearest/ I think i’ll just answer all your comments with regretsy posts from now on
That’s a good idea! I dare you to go on doing it…
Sasha and Malia dolls…really? Someone should have thought of this before! Why didn’t we have an Amy (Carter) doll? Or Barbara and Jenna (Bush) dolls? Or a Chelsea doll? Yuk! Double YUK (one for Malia and one for Sasha)
I would have liked to see a beautiful black Disney princess before now, but before now Black was not cool, like you said! This is America and exploiting a hip concept of the day is alright in the name of capitalism and free markets and I love it. Thank G-d for America!
I think the brunt of the article is not that we have Sasha and Malia dolls that are officially sanctioned by the White House or what have you but that the Beanie Baby people denied that the dolls were made to look like or named after Sasha and Malia.
I agree with you, just the same the timing of it is interesting…
I’m pretty sure that the prince character is not suppose to be considered straight-up African-American. IMDB places his as a prince of a fictional Mediterranean country. And, of course, he’s voiced by a Brazilian actor.
I do wonder what goes on in the board rooms at Disney in order for these decisions to be made. I mean, obviously the princess is going to be black, since, as Shayna points out, the Disney Princess commercialization extravaganza is missing a black princess. But the decision to cast the prince as not black, but not white is pretty intriguing. I’d love to know what sort of market research or arguments swayed the animators down that path.
Thanks for pointing out that the prince isn’t black but of ambiguous origins, which I didn’t realize at first. Which is probably also a point they hope to make in the movie. Like you, I would love to get inside the heads of some execs.
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