So I'm a day late.... oh well.
Synopsis: The Princess and the Frog is set in New Orleans, Louisiana. It's about a girl name Tiana who dreams about giving life to one of her daddy's dreams. Her daddy wanted to open a restaurant. But he never could afford to do so. So when Tiana gets old enough, she saves and saves and saves until she can afford to make the down payment on an old broken down building. Till somebody outbids her. She suddenly finds herself unable to buy the building that her daddy had always dreamed of having and worse, someone else is going to by it. So... she wishes on a star while she's at a costume part. And a frog appears. Who happens to be a prince who was turned into frog by the "Shadow Man" (a voodoo practitioner). Anyway, the prince (Prince Naveen) thinks that Tiana is a princess because she's wearing a fancy dress and tiara to the costume party. So he convinces Tiana that by kissing him, he'll turn into a human and he'll be able to by her restaurant for her. So she does... and because she's not really a princess... she turns into a frog as well. And so the two frogs set off to figure out how to become human again. ("Only Human Again" from Beauty and the Beast anyone?)
Overall Quality: The Princess and the Frog is very well made. The music fits very well (though Disney needs to realize that jazz music was not born in New Orleans... it was born in New York) and the animation is gorgeous. There is enough comic relief to keep it from getting too princessey. (A must nowadays) However, I really question the wisdom of attempting to incorporate extremely sensitive political statements in a princess movie... Now don't get me wrong here - We needed an African American Disney Princess. We did. And I think Tiana is brilliant. She's not the first American princess (Pocahontas takes that title), but she embodies American idealism beautifully. It just... was dangerous ground for Disney to tromp on. (Possibly the reason why The Princess and the Frog never really went anywhere...)
Acting: Well of course, it's all voice acting... But everything was fantastic. Prince Naveen's (Bruno Campos') accent is super fun. All of the main characters did their own singing I think (which is always nice).
Content Advisory:
So... When I first saw this movie, I was watching it with a couple little children.. and was thus pretty put off by the amount of voodoo and darkish magic going around. It's not like Disney movies haven't been dark before but... I don't know... it just bothered me sitting next to a little kid and watching that. As for my re-watch of it yesterday, I enjoyed it thoroughly. I still think you should be aware of the voodoo and magic, but as an older person, I'm not really bothered by Disney's goofy "voodoo" that turns people into frogs.
The Rant Bit:
I'm not African American, so I don't have much say in the matter, but I do wonder how an African American person would feel about being represented in this way. Especially since Disney is clearly trying to incorporate all the races into the Disney princess realm. They are clearly going out of their way to make an African American Princess. Which is brilliant. And frankly, I like this movie a whole bunch. But I can't help but wonder how an African American person would feel about having their princess come from New Orleans where voodoo and dark magic seems to be incorporated into the community pretty strongly. I mean... it almost feels ghettoish... (Also, I'm not sure how I feel about how the white people were portrayed in this movie. I'm not over exaggerating when I say they were all fat and whiney. Of course, it's not like I'm going to be offended by it, I'm just saying...) I like to assume that non of this matters because it's just a silly kids movie, but unfortunately, Disney kinda asked for it the way they made this movie... (I can see why it didn't do very well box office and critics wise) Did Disney step on toes? I don't know. Probably.
Political pieces aside (I really don't want to get into all of that because... we'll be here all day), I really like this movie. I'd say it makes it into my top couple of Disney movies (never surpassing Pocahontas of course...). I'm very glad to have watched it again. I love the music. The music was awesome. The animation was gorgeous and the characters were fun.
~ Aloisa Quintal
"I fully intend to be rich again! Once I marry Miss Charlotte La Bouff - if she will have me!"
"You're a prince?"
"Obviously."
"She'll have you."
Sounds like an interesting movie. I definitely think (and this is just me musing on the general idea, since I've never seen the movie) that they had to be walking on eggshells a little bit, just because it was not only the first African American princess, but it was set up from the start to be a "political" movie in a way. It's definitely interesting, and definitely something you want done really well but would be really hard to be done really well.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I agree wholeheartedly. It's difficult to make something like that "good enough"... I guess there just was no winning that situation.
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