Disney Continues Trend of Scary Movies with Princess and the Frog

OK, maybe Disney movies are only scary to me. Sunday night KC dragged me to see Up, the new Disney Pixar movie about the curmudgeon (but with a heart of gold) who escapes with his house powered by balloons (don’t ask, check out the trailer at the link) to find the paradise that he and his late wife dreamed about but never were able to find. I realize it doesn’t sound scary but if you’re totally freaked by heights, as I am, and most of the movie consists of people almost falling off this flying house and getting smushed below - well, you get the picture. And, since KC will read this and, no doubt, correct me on facts, I will add that I chose to see Up over Star Trek, the Younger Set (or whatever it’s called), so I have only myself to blame. Plus, as she has pointed out ad infinitum, Disney’s not going to smush the characters on the ground because they don’t want all the little kids to go home crying. Possibly.

Anyway, the newest big, bad, scary epic to eventually emerge from Disney features a real, live, black princess. Scary? About time, most of us would say. But some people are up in arms. The movie is based off the Frog Prince story in which the princess kisses the frog, he becomes a prince, and they live happily ever after.

In the Disney version the kiss misses the boat and instead the princess . . . becomes a frog! Racist, no? Well, some people think so. Also that it’s set in New Orleans, there’s a cute, chubby crocodile as one of the characters, blah, blah, blah. Oh, and the prince is apparently not a black guy, he’s kind of multi-cultural, and oh, yeah, the princess isn’t black enough (when she’s not a frog - I believe they do figure out how to be peeps again). Look. Is this that scary?

It looks cute. It’s a Disney movie. I would see it just for Anika Noni Rose, who plays Tiana, the princess, and, among many other accomplishments, played the fabulous Mma Makutsi in HBO’s wonderful The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency (please, if there is a god, LET there be another season! Otherwise I will have to move to Botswana.) And I have a hard time thinking she would associate herself with a racist production. So jeebus, people, wait and see it and lighten up a little, already.

Posted by marindenver on 06/09/09 at 10:20 PM • Permalink

Categories: I Don't Know Much About Art, But I Know What I Like • Movies • Politics • Our Stupid Media •

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In addition to seconding the proposal that everyone get a damn life already, I also move that employees of the NYT should be kicked in the junk when they scurry around looking under rocks until they find someone who is suitably OUTRAGED!

Black Voices, a Web site on AOL dedicated to African-American culture

Ooo! A Web site on the world’s shittiest ISP. There must be a whole ... dozen members!

Crap Reporting at it’s finest. Or something.

Comment by Hunger Tallest Palin on 06/09/09 at 11:21 PM

It’s times like these that I am grateful for the PUMA movement, as I am confident they will deplore the woman-lynching racism of Disney snort chuckle frack frack I was sure I could get to the end of that sentence without laughing damn it. Can I go again?

Comment by Allan on 06/10/09 at 12:00 AM

This is the Times, which also featured this gem:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/08/us/08wichita.html

I mean, obviously the real story here is, “whatever will the poor anti-choice protesters do NOW?”

I don’t necessarily believe that’s the intent, but given that the doctor’s family, friends, patients, and colleagues are still grieving, giving any time to the dilemmas faced by the shitbirds who screamed for his death daily for years on end is pretty appalling.

Comment by Oblomova on 06/10/09 at 12:03 AM

Also, to actually be on topic: Marin, I had the pleasure of seeing Anika Noni Rose onstage several times when I was a theater critic in the Bay Area and she was a recent graduate of the American Conservatory Theater’s MFA program. I too think she is smart and principled enough not to participate in something that would be offensive to her heritage.

Comment by Oblomova on 06/10/09 at 12:10 AM

The right shrieks. That’s what they do. We need to drop the idea that they argue in good faith, ever. They are constantly waiting for the next dog whistle, the next sign for them all to move in lockstep.

This is why they are so powerful in government regardless of their actual numbers.

Comment by t4toby on 06/10/09 at 12:28 AM

Did the NYTimes always suck donkey dick and I was just oblivious to its suckitude; or has it taken a severe turn toward donkey-dick gobbling in the past few years?

Every time I click through to an article, there’s a 50-50 chance I will be dashing off a letter to the writer and his/her editor pointing out how precisely their product sucks donkey dick today.

Oh, and fuck Ross Douchehat. At least Bill Kristol provided comic relief. Neck-beard just lies there flopping about, glassy eyes bulging with a silent plea for someone, anyone, to toss him back into the Atlantic ocean.

Comment by Allan on 06/10/09 at 12:41 AM

The right shrieks. That’s what they do.

Yeah, but we’re talking about a different no-life-having outrage junkies. I like this part:

“Disney should be ashamed,” William Blackburn, a former columnist at The Charlotte Observer, told London’s Daily Telegraph. “This princess story is set in New Orleans, the setting of one of the most devastating tragedies to beset a black community.”

So the problem with the oft-referenced “memory hole” is that it’s underutilized, is what you’re saying.

Comment by gil mann on 06/10/09 at 09:05 AM

Barnyard interspecies sexual fetishism has been a staple of Disney Films since dancing cows first flaunted their bulging, nipple-studded udders.

That the “princess” turns into a frog is a fairly ham-handed editorial slam at the failure of welfare policies and affirmative action. That’s very Disney.

The rest of it sounds like some sort of hideous Brundlefly fusion of Song of the South and Beauty and the Beast.

“I’ll wait for the “Tijuana bible” version, thanks.

PS: The “raucous backdrop of voodoo and jazz” was probably, you know, just asking for grief.

Comment by StrangeAppar8us on 06/10/09 at 09:20 AM

I haven’t seen it and probably won’t, but I’ll hazard a guess that you can’t just have a princess kiss a frog, get a prince and live happily ever after anymore. Disney princesses are a gold mine these days, but we expect our princesses to be proactive. They’ve got to do something, not just be pretty and virtuous and marry royalty. And a NOLA backdrop sounds like an opportunity for a great soundtrack.

God, I sound like I’m defending Disney. I don’t actually give a shit about Disney, but I do think it’s best if princesses have their own adventures rather than wait (sometimes literally in a state of suspended animation) around for Prince Charming.

Comment by zenyenta on 06/10/09 at 11:19 AM

So I’m the only one who thinks flying houses are terrifying?

Comment by marindenver on 06/10/09 at 12:42 PM

Mar, for some of us it’s flying houses, for others it’s landing houses. That’s why I never wear striped socks.

Interesting phobia for a flight attendant. Did you just not look out the window during takeoffs and landings?

Comment by Mrs. Polly on 06/10/09 at 01:33 PM

Interesting phobia for a flight attendant.

Former flight attendant is the important point. And at least in the plane the door is closed and people aren’t dangling from the wings. I literally had my eyes sqeezed shut through most of the movie.