The Princess and the Frog is the newest Disney movie and the first handdrawn movie they did in a long time. It was directed by Ron Clements and John Musker.

Plot:
Tiana dreams of owning her own restaurant, but unfortunately she lacks the funds for it. When her best friend invites the visiting Prince Naveen to a costume ball where Tiana does the catering, she seems to come one step closer to this dream. But then she meets Prince Naveen, who has been turned into a frog by an evil voodoo wizard. When she kisses him, instead of turning him back, she becomes a frog instead. Together, they have to figure out how to defeat the wizard and become human again.

The Princess and the Frog is sweet, but it’s pretty much standard fare. I mean, apart from the fact that Tiana is black and has an agenda. From a feminist perspective, I appreciate that. But in a year of strong animated features , it stands out as average.

I went to see this film with my mom and my little nephew, who is three years old. He got a little scared sometimes, especially in the end, when the evil shadow guys (the henchmen of the evil voodoo wizard) turn up repeatedly. He had to hide underneath my mom’s jacket during those moments but otherwise he was fine and I think he had fun. (Also, he got a little action figure of the evil guy, which he beat up afterwards. With a gorilla action figure. Repeatedly. I think that helped.)

A note on the voodoo: I’ve read so much about Tiana being the first black Disney princess (even if she isn’t actually a princess, at least in the beginning) but I didn’t hear anything about the voodoo. Why? I mean, voodoo must be among the most misrepresented things ever and they keep on dragging it up. It seems you can’t do anything that plays in the US South and even marginally involves black people without having voodoo there as well.

Now my question: is that only lazy storytelling therefore resorting to stereotypes or is it embracing the “black culture” or is it just plain racist?

I don’t know. Putting it out there and if you want to discuss it, feel free to do so in the comment section.

Back to the movie. The feminist message (woman knows what she wants and fights for getting it) was unfortunately cheapened by the ending. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that it’s unfeminist for her to end up with a guy. But Prince Naveen? He’s an idiot. He lies to Tiana repeatedly, he’s only in it for his own gain (in the beginning), he only thinks about his own pleasure. Yeah, in the end he has a change of heart, but still…

Anyway, I don’t really know what to say about this film. It’s nice and sweet and it looks really good. But it failed to really engage me and in the end it seemed inconsequential and forgetable.