America's Oppressed Minorities...as Disney Princesses?

On the surface, the movies Pocahontas , filmed in 1995, and The Princess and the Frog , filmed in 2009 don't have much in common--they are set in very different eras, in different parts of the American continent. I find the two movies so compelling as a pair, however, because they are portrayals of America's most oppressed minorities as Disney-fied princesses. While neither Pocahontas or Tiana are Disney's first minority characters, adding them into the princess franchise is very problematic because the racial tensions that subjugated these groups are still fresh in the minds of the American public.

Before I discuss the implications of portraying the Disney Princesses, I have to show this awesome clip from my favorite TV show "30 Rock". Last week's episode showed one of the show's main characters, Tracy, lamenting about the return of "old school racism". Enjoy...



Disney's decision to use the story of historical figure Pocahontas was an odd one. This is a turn from Disney's typical usage of public domain folklore or classic tales, as Pocahontas was at one point a living, breathing woman. Tackling the complications of having a native woman as a character would've been a challenging hurdle all its own, but adding historical fact is another beast. To touch on just a few inaccuracies, the real Pocahontas married an Englishmen named John Rolfe, not John Smith, and she did leave her home with him to London (oddly a more Disney-like ending than the ending of the film), where she died of illness very shortly after. In my opinion, Pocahontas reinforces many of the stereotypes modern Americans hold about native peoples. First, as a historical film set even before the US was colonized, Pocahontas furthers the commonly held misconception that native peoples are a past civilization, which they clearly are not. This isn't entirely Disney's fault, the story is a historical one, but the issue remains. The rest of the stereotypes brought forth by this film are simplistic--war paint, feathers, buckskin garb (that still somehow manages to be sexy), being one with nature, etc. Clearly, this is a Disney-fication of the Pocahontas legend, but it's odd that there are so many discrepancies as far as the plot or some of the larger or more visible elements, however many historians have complimented the accuracy of the colonists' weaponry and their ship. Is this euro-centrism at it's finest, or simply coincidence? While I don't believe that the creators had racist aims in mind, it certainly would be easier to recreate and simplify what being and Englishman means (to an American audience) than to simply what it means to be native.



Critics raise similar debate with the character Tiana of Disney's latest princess film, The Princess and the Frog. Tiana is a young woman who lives in New Orleans and works around the clock to achieve her dream of owning a fine dining restaurant. While Tiana is not a member of a distinct "tribe" per say, she is a young black woman living in the deep south in the 1920's. This should provide some limitations on what her character "could" and "could not" do, but of course it does not. The rampant racism of this time period is completely ignored by the creators of this film, there are a couple of quick remarks that seem a slight to Tiana's quest for business ownership, but they could just as easily have been because she was poor, uneducated, or a woman. I understand that Disney chose twenties-era New Orleans to showcase jazz and twenties excess, but one would think that with the first Princess film in over a decade, and the first to portray a black princess at that, they would've been more careful. While Pocahontas' story could not have worked outside of the early 1600's time period in which it's set, Tiana's could have. New Orleans is still a city bustling with a distinct culture of jazz music and bayou eccentricity, could telling Tiana's story in the present day (or maybe, pre-Katrina) have kept Disney from even having to discuss the implications of twenties racism? Or, conversely, would telling her story in a modern time period have been more explosive, since many feel that racism is still present in modern day New Orleans?

Aside from the historical issues which limit The Princess and the Frog, there is the widely criticized issue of Tiana's status as a green frog (and not a young black woman) for the majority of the film. Many famous movie critics have questioned this choice, and it does seem odd. In none of the other films is a princess transformed into anything other than a human woman, so why Tiana? It doesn't even go with the namesake fairy tale the film is based on! Maybe in the coming years, animators or creators will leak some of the production details of decision like this. In the meantime, one can only speculate and trust that if Oprah signed on to do this film, it couldn't be too bad :)

As far as Pocahontas and Tiana's portrayal as women, race aside, I feel that their stories are liberating. Pocahontas stays behind and lets John Smith go back to London to recover from his gunshot wound because "my people need me". Tiana's prince, the race-neutral Prince Naveen, falls in love with her and becomes a performer in the band at her restaurant, so in a way, her employee. I find that liberating--the breadwinning woman! It's so common, especially with the waning economy, for families to have a female breadwinner, it's refreshing that Disney's newest princess is in this role.

So what will become of the Disney Princess franchise? The company has said it will return to the hand drawn 2D animation of the other princess films for subsequent movies, but maybe that is best left in the "Disney Renaissance". Whatever comes of the future of the princesses, I'm certain to show these films to my children someday as a valuable part of my childhood.

Arabian Nights

Aladdin , Disney's thirty-first full length animated film, is important for a number of reasons. Most noticeably, Jasmine is the studio's first "brown" princess. The film is set in the fictional, presumably Middle Eastern country of Agrabah, and Jasmine is the daughter of the sultan. The second first for this movie is the presence of "crossover" humor. While some argue that The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast had crossover appeal for both adults and children, I think Aladdin has a different, more current sort of entertainment value. I was surprised on re-watching this movie how many parallels there were between Robin Williams genie character and recent hit animated films, like Shrek. Throughout the film, Williams' Genie morphs into Ed Sullivan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Groucho Marx, and many many other notable people of popular culture. Some of the references were even too old for me to catch onto. This quick humor is unoffensive to children who may understand it, but funny to adults who catch on.
Robin Williams presence in this film is an interesting note even beyond his comedic contribution. Prior to production of Aladdin, Williams had struggled with a drug addiction and was released from rehab. He was reportedly coaxed into doing the project after animators set some of his stand up routine to animation of the Genie character. Further, doing the movie was a positive PR move for Williams, allowing him to play a happy-go-lucky character and easing him back into the public eye. There were also stories about William's contract with the studio, evidently he only accepted a basic wage for doing the film in return for the boost to his reputation and a few other small concessions by Disney (not mentioning his name any more than other characters, not letting his character dominate promotional posters, etc)
Aladdin was viewed by some in the Middle Eastern community as a racist film. Groups such as the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee cited the film for controversial lyrics, such as a lyric from the opening number describing the Middle Eastern setting as a land where "they cut off your ear if they don't like your face". This lyric was dubbed over for the video release of the film. I have to roll my eyes at this group's feeling slighted by this tiny line in a song. There seems to be many more problematic issues at play here than five seconds in the first song. First of all, as far as I can tell from researching the cast on IMDB and other film websites, all of the actors involved were white, and none of the characters assume any sort of Middle Eastern accent. I personally am not offended by this, I see Disney's portrayal of Agrabah similarly to the studio's portrayal of other foreign locations, more of a stage on which to set a very American storyline than anything else (like the portrayal of France in Beauty and the Beast, whatever Germanic country Snow White is set in, etc). After all, the struggling-to-find-herself princess storyline doesn't really work in a country like America where there are no monarchs, so Disney has to use other countries for this type of work (with the notable exception of Pocahontas, my next entry). That being said, if this Arab-American diversity group feels that the songs of Aladdin are misrepresenting their culture, wouldn't they be offended by the absence of Middle Eastern talent in the film's cast? Another issue which would be interesting to see from this groups perspective is the few times the name of "Allah", the Islamic god, is mentioned. I don't know nearly enough about the Islamic faith to comment on what a Muslim person would've thought of that reference, but it seems a bit forced and unnecessary to the film.
The central love story to this movie is also a bit innovative for the Disney Princess films. Jasmine is the first of the princess characters to not leave her lifestyle for her man by the end of the film. Every other previous princess somehow alters her life for the man she meets in the film, leaving behind her family and home. In Aladdin, Jasmine begins her life in the palace, tries to blend in in the kingdom in disguise as a peasant woman, but in the end finds that she can experience liberation while still assuming her role as the next queen of Agrabah. Aladdin comes to her, in other words. This is pretty a pretty fresh notion for Disney films, however, Aladdin is much different in his "leaving home" than the princesses of prior films. For one thing, he has no home except for an abandoned building, and no family except for his monkey sidekick. Whereas Ariel, for example, is seen leaving her whole world behind to live as Eric's human wife, Aladdin simply gets to "marry up" and ascend from street peasant to the next Sultan of Agrabah.
The end of this movie, though less dramatic than watching Ariel leave her ocean home or Belle bring the Beast back to life, is nonetheless happy. Aladdin frees Genie from his bottle, and while he and Jasmine are pictured riding off into the night sky on the magic carpet, they do not wed in the film (that is saved for one of the awful straight-to-video sequels). The moral of the movie is to be your true self, a common Disney theme but a refreshing break from the eighties-esque glorification of greed this story could've portrayed.