Review of The Princess and the Frog
March 11th 2010 03:30
The Princess and the Frog is Disney's first attempt at giving us (us being "movie buffs") an African-American princess. As far as Disney movies go, this movie is tops! The fact that Disney has decided to have an African-American princess was ingenious to begin with (maybe to coincide with the first African-American president, eh?) and the storytelling was great as well as the music, singing, and characters, but let's dissect some elements and expose what is hidden underneath them. The movie opens with a young Tiana and her best friend (who happens to be a rich Caucasian, little girl) playing together. They read the story of the frog becoming human again from a kiss. Tiana's friend dreams of becoming a princess (as if she didn't have enough money already!) and would kiss a frog in a heartbeat and "poor" little Tiana, who thinks kissing a frog is disgusting, only dreams about opening a restaurant with her daddy. That's it!? A lousy restaurant? Well, I guess that would be a lot for the "era" that the movie was set in, I guess I will allow that. Fast forward in time and the two best friends are at least 18 years of age. Tiana works in a restaurant as a waitress (and her father has been killed, another no-no in my book i.e. a father-less home), penny-pinching every last wage for her "dream" which is burning even more to honor her father and her best friend is still rich and still wants to marry a prince. The best friend's father is having a party at his house, where a handsome, young prince (Prince Naveen, who by the way is very ethnically vague meaning he could marry a Caucasian girl or African-American girl..how convenient!) is coming to stay at their grand mansion and in honor of this party. She must have Tiana make her famous baked goods for this party to impress the prince. Why couldn't she have just invited her to the party as her friend ONLY? Anyway, at the party Tiana runs into a talking frog who is actually prince Naveen. He was turned into a frog because of the shady deal his personal assistant made with the local witch doctor. Well, Naveen and Tiana decide that kissing him is the only way to change him back..not only is she disgusted by kissing him, it backfires and now SHE is a frog. The rest of the movie is set with the two of them searching for a way to reverse the spell. Along the way they meet a series of funny and interesting characters. As I stated early on, the movie is great especially as a first attempt of "ethnicity" and is entertaining ( I almost cried during one moving scene) but fails miserably by relying heavily on stereotypes and limited thinking. Thankfully, my two daughters are young (5 and 3) enough to just enjoy the movie!
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