Disney's Frog Princess Lays an Egg

For the most part I'm the first one to push back against "political correctness." I think ideas need to be expressed honestly and then we all know what we're dealing with.

But when it comes to children, I am all for books, toys, TV shows and movies projecting the best in human nature. Kids will have to deal with the crappy stuff, like diminished expectations because of their skin color, soon enough.

With that in mind, Disney seems to have been a little tone deaf in its inaugural effort to feature a black princess. According to reports Maddy, some say it sounds too much like Mammy, originally the Frog Princess, was slated to have been a maid to a young white insufferable debutante in the 1920's.

What the hell??? What kind of role model is that for girls? For little black girls?!?! ...

Although I support and honor the long legacy of hard work of domestic workers, I hardly believe such difficult physical labor is the stuff that contemporary dreams are made of. Don't even come at me with Cinderella. That fairy tale was spun decades ago; this is a new day.

But now the film studio finds itself fending off a chorus of accusations of racial stereotyping in its forthcoming big-budget cartoon, The Princess and The Frog: An American Fairy Tale, which marks a return to hand-drawn animation.

A musical set in 1920s New Orleans, the film was supposed to feature Maddy, a black chambermaid working for a spoilt, white Southern debutante. Maddy was to be helped by a voodoo priestess fairy godmother to win the heart of a white prince, after he rescued her from the clutches of a voodoo magician.

Disney's original storyboard is believed to have been torn up after criticism that the lead character was a clichéd subservient role with echoes of slavery, and whose name sounded too much like "Mammy" – a unwelcome reminder of America's Deep South before the civil rights movement swept away segregation. Disney's 'subservient' black princess animates film critics, Arifa Akbar

Disney has gone back to the drawing board and the initial information sounds promising. The princess' new name is Tiana, no voodoo is involved in her triumphs. I'll wait and see.

Our Lens Sept. 1

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