Disney's Representation In The Princess And The Frog

The Princess and the Frog is a classical fairytale of a prince who is turned into a frog by an evil witch and must find a good princess to break the spell. The film has captured the attention of many people since it stars Disney’s first African American Princess. The story takes place in New Orleans during the late 1800s with young Tiana and her friend Charlotte la Bouff dreaming of fairly tale endings. The film has some questionable representations of race, gender and class that feminist and scholars are dissecting. Both Lester and Turner examine Disney’s representation of racial characters and the construction of a dominate narrative in this film. Representation matters, especially in movies that construct an imaginary world for the young

children watching them. These representations have the power to shape the way people see themselves and equally as important how we see other people. The authors primarily focus on Disney’s representation of Tiana as an African American woman and the racial implications of Prince Naveen. While I agree with both authors I also found Charlotte’s character and the friendship between her and Tiana too be somewhat troubling.
Tiana and Charlotte are vastly different, their friendship is only existent because of the skilled service work Tiana’s mother provides for the la Bouff family. Not only do the girls have diametrically opposed dreams and personalities but their friendship is also highly improbable because of the time in which the tale is set. Lester points out that during the 1920s in New Orleans the realities of Jim Crow would’ve certainly had social disapproval or scrutiny over the friendship between a poor black girl and a rich white girl (302). In some cases, their relationship illustrates a failure of sisterhood across race in which one woman, in this case Charlotte, will always be a joke. Charlotte plays the cliché princess swathed in pink and obsessed with finding a prince, oblivious to the fact that she’s about to marry a fraud. Her character is dumbed down to an extreme, past the point of satire. It’s as if the writers felt the only way to lift Tiana up as the more authentic Princess was to make her white counterpart a complete joke. Instead of critiquing the film for an absent princess narrative, I think feminists and scholars should examine why this binary exists in the realm of intersectionality.
The dynamic of their friendship is undermined by race and class narratives where we see Charlotte achieving her dream of becoming a princess while Tiana is transformed into a slimy frog.

At the costume ball Charlotte is dolled up in full make up with a dress nearly identical to the one worn initially by Cinderella, while Tiana is in a maid’s uniform serving pastries. This scene exemplified Tiana’s disposition, suggesting that even in her wildest dreams she will never fit in as a princess. However, their friendship does have positive elements that we don’t often see between an upper-class white lady and a working class black lady. For example, when Tiana is down and out covered in food after being put in her place by a couple of opportunistic realtors Charlotte comes to her rescue. Also, when Tiana realizes she has feelings for Charlottes’ soon to be husband, Prince Naveen, she tries to ignore them out of loyalty to Charlotte. Even after Prince Naveen tells Charlotte the truth, that he’s in love with Tiana, Charlotte decides to help them be together because she cares about Tiana. These instances, despite the obvious class and race issues, send a positive message to girls to look out for one another and have each other’s

backs.
The ethnicity of Prince Naveen is perhaps the most criticized element of the film. As Lester explains he’s clearly not black nor is he white, “but some sort of mysterious combination of both…” (300). Disney missed a really great opportunity to showcase a healthy black couple, which would’ve been on point with the times considering we finally had our first African American President and first lady. Some of the implications with Disney’s choice to make Naveen racially ambiguous is that it upholds white-male authority, reinforcing the long-held belief that a hero must be a white man (300). Another issue, mentioned earlier, is the era in which Disney selected would’ve “certainly interrupted…the seemingly smooth flow of this very public interracial pairing” between Tiana and Naveen (300) and, had it come to pass Charlotte’s desire to marry the Prince would have been impossible in the Jim Crow era.
Disney’s blatant disregard of history and revision of the Jazz age negatively impacts how the audience perceives history and the present.

The message at the end of the film, that if one works hard enough and long enough dreams come true, simply isn’t true. Since Tiana is an African American woman living in the 1920s her obstacles for owning a restaurant would be more than poverty and opportunistic realtors. Turner discusses that the dominate message is one of colorblindness, although hard work is important it won’t stop legal discrimination, color or gender factors like Disney portrays. The theme of hard work “displaces race” and “re-affirms the dominant ideological tenets of hard work and capitalism… while at the same time further marginalizing race and its role in that ideology” (86). Ultimately colorblind racism tells us that Tiana doesn’t need affirmative action to make achieve her dream, just a good work ethic, a portrayal of blackness that appeals to everyone

(86).
Women have been fighting tooth and nail for equal rights, while victories have been won the journey to equality is a long one that is still being traveled. The Princess and the Frog is a step in the right direction, despite the problematic race, gender and class themes, it aims to disrupt gender roles. I truly enjoyed this film for the entertainment and new characters it had. Considering this is Disney’s first movie staring a black princess it’s bound to have some mistakes. One of the things the movie gets right is that women can be stronger than men, your gender or sex doesn’t make you automatically weaker or more dependent. Disney’s movies are infamously known for having the damsel in destress, but finally they have given the audience a strong independent woman that follows her dreams and has more purpose than finding a prince to marry. Although Disney doesn’t include the segregation of the South in detail it does provide the audience with a positive representation of black families and black women. The movie also shows relationships between races and classes that are mostly positive and stable, which is something we struggle with today. There is certainly room for improvement and hopefully by Disney’s next black princess these critical issues will be resolved.