Member Since: August 7, 2012
Answers: 1038
Last Update: August 2, 2021
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Is it because of racism? The Princess and the Frog is a European story with an African-American girl only made a princess through marriage. I don't see how that is empowering to girls. Surely a movie based on a real West African princess tale would have been more empowering to both the African diaspora and Africans in Africa. There have been real African princesses before. Why did Disney take the cheap route, by just throwing an African-American girl into a European story? I find that to be embarrassing.
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Most of the widely known fables and 'fairy tales' are of European origin. There's a long history of the arts, high and low, using them. And by now, a studio like Disney also has a long history of using them, more or sometimes less directly. Making movies costs money, and younger audiences likely to be rather conservative in outlook. Happy when the movie follows a narrative they are probably familiar with already. If the whole premise of the story contains unfamiliar motifs a child will quickly lose interest. Possibly children who live in Africa would be more familiar with local/national fables. But the target-market (who are going to buy all the associated merchandising etc) is not there. A substituted African-American character is probably as far as they are going to go. These ables always contain a strong moral or ethical message too and one does not have to try too hard to find it. In fact the whole 'plot' of them is weaved around this message. And really, the message transcends any national or racial differences. So I would say it is a matter of taking these movies for what they are, rather than trying to project any further significance onto either the stories or media adaptations. Reality, and adult values don't really come into it. Any adult evaluation of such tales would be that all the characters are at best charicatures, have no dimension and are not at all convincing. And the plot is simply ludicrous. Requiring the complete suspension of reality to the point of believing in magic, witches, spells and enchantments etc etc.... But they're not actually for adults are they? I would suggest that a child (who they ARE intended for) could be delighted by the adventures of Elsa and Anna in Frozen regardless of their own ethnicity. Would they wonder why the two characters are not African, or Asian, or whatever unless prompted to do so by an adult? If they amuse the kids, why complicate things by imposing adult values on them?
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Rating: 2
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You're missing my point. Saying American kids can only relate to European stories is false when Mulan is a Chinese folk tale, Aladdin is a Middle Eastern folk tale, and The Lion King was based on a Mali folk tale. Disney can Disneyfy any story. Even many European stories have been Disneyfied. Just because any kid can relate to the Scandinavian Frozen or French Beauty and the Beast doesn't mean that there isn't more value to a true African princess folk tale than a European folk tale with an inserted African-American.
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