Frog Princess haters: get a life!

Posted by Dominic von Riedemann May 12, 2007

Looking at the controversy brewing over Disney's animated movie The Princess and the Frog (formerly The Frog Princess), it's obvious that some people have far too much time on their hands.

In case you don't know what I'm talking about, here's a quick recap: Disney's John Lasseter announced the Mouse House's return to cel animation with this movie (currently in pre-production), set in 1920's New Orleans, and featuring the first African-American Disney Princess. From the title, observers quickly deduced that this could be a recreation of the Russian fairy tale, in which a prince accidentally chooses an enchanted frog as his bride.

Given that Disney seems to have finally rediscovered its artistic soul, this should have been a slam-dunk of epic proportions. But nay-sayers quickly leaped out of the woodwork, heaping vitriol on this movie before it even hit production, or before there was even a script.

Designer Shirley Bruno told A-List, "I was shocked to see how carelessly you guys treated Disney's animation film in the making. What the hell! Disney's first Black fairytale and the lead is a Black chambermaid who runs way with a White prince?! There's a villainous Voodoo priest!"

But wait, there was more. Others complained the lead character's name Maddy sounded like a slave's name, or was too close to "Mammy." Others professed to be shocked that the lead character started working as a chambermaid (a job apparently equal to slavery) who ends up in the arms of a handsome white prince, or that the villain was a smooth Voodoo priest called Dr. Duvalier (nice riff on the former Haitian dictator). People even went nuts over the film's title, thinking French people might get insulted.

In a blogospheric tantrum worthy of Courtney Love, BET's Jennifer Daniels sneered the flick was "too-little-too-late" and denounced "a movie like The Frog Princess, with its touching tale of a po' Black chile (sic) being rescued from the Big Black Voodoo Daddy by a great White hope in the pre-Civil Rights Movement South not only offensive and ignorant of history, but highly insensitive as well."

I'm not going to get into her diss of Randy Newman as "the whitest White man to ever rest his head in the Big Easy." Sure, I'd love to see The Meters, the Nevilles or even Quincy Jones in on that score, but I have a suspicion that even Steve Cropper or Dr. John would've been too white for Ms. Daniels.

It's a tasty irony that, in Daniel's haste to be offensive, she managed to be pretty "ignorant of history" herself. Plantation owners in the pre-Civil Rights South? Yep, there were plenty of them around. Poor black children working as chambermaids for imperious whites? Yeah, there were a lot of those as well. Voodoo (or Vodoun) priests who were, well, less than upstanding citizens? Oh yeah. Vodoun, or Obeah or whatever you want to call it, ain't all sweetness and light, people.

Disney's PR department reacted like a whipped dog, saying that everything we knew about the movie was wrong, Maddy was now Tiana and The Frog Princess' new title was The Princess and the Frog. As for the rest of it, the PR department said, "all other characters and aspects of the story will be treated with the greatest respect and sensitivity."

It's not surprising that Disney was feeling a little defensive, especially if they're thinking about reissuing Song of the South on DVD. That 1946 movie has quite the baggage: generations of black people think it's a work of genius, while just as many hope it never sees the light of day. The fact that The Princess and the Frog could be construed as a future Song of the South, before a script is even approved, must be giving the film's writers and producers cat fits.

Animation vet Floyd Norman's reaction was priceless (and yes, before any of you start foaming at the mouth, Norman is black): "Ah, life was so much simpler when we worked on The Jungle Book with Walt. By the way, did you know that Bageerah was a member of the Black Panther Party?"

Disney has a point: don't start judging this flick before a script shows up. In the right light, anything can be construed as offensive to somebody, whether it's Cinderella as offensive to step-parents, Teletubbies insulting Jerry Falwell's delicate sensibilities or Snow White and the Seven Dwarves mocking the vertically-challenged. For Ms. Daniels to claim that The Princess and the Frog will lead to little black girls preferring to play with white dolls when the movie hasn't even reached theatres is beyond ludicrous. And as for "too-little-too-late," I'll respond with "better late than never."

In closing, I quote race-car driver Jacques Villeneuve' statement when Québec's language police objected to Newtown, the name of his Montréal sports bar: "Get a life!"