Why do people hate Princess and the Frog so much?

[Disney Duster]

But the story isn't The Frog Prince. It's about a girl who becomes a frog and her journey to break the spell on her and get her restaurant. So I don't agree with "The Frog Prince" as the right title because it's not that fairy tale. It's a twist on it.

This film indeed was made to bring about the first black Disney princess, but they needed to, so I see why this film was kind of lame because it wasn't about making a film it was about making a statement.

To me the best line in the film is "I was beginning to think wishing on stars was just for babies and crazy people", though also mostly because of the delivery and animation.

Disney definitely gave Tiana a more serious personality to seem like a better, smarter, more elegant, sophisticated and, well, serious heroine than one you could say more negative things about. Compare her to Charlotte. And to me it backfired. Tiana is boring and I like Charlotte more!

[Mooky]

The title itself is a misnomer that doesn't even make sense within the context of the film -- Tiana's not a princess until the end. The film should have been called either The Frog Prince (meta reference should have been cut, and the film could have been Naveen's story as much as Tiana's, but I guess they didn't want to make their first black heroine a deuteragonist*) or Tiana and the Frog Prince and that would have made a huge difference.

I always believed they should have kept "The Frog Prince" as the title. It doesn't matter that the protagonist is Tiana instead of Naveen because in the Grimm fairy tale the lead was the princess and not the frog prince. So, they wouldn't need to change the lead to keep the original title.

Yes, exactly. Also, Disney isn't a stranger to putting a spin on their fairytale adaptations, so there was no reason why they couldn't have done the same with The Frog Prince and have the princess character turn into a frog as well. Securing the rights to E.D. Baker's The Frog Princess would have them covered in case of a lawsuit.

The fact that she has superpowers does! If she didn't she wouldn't be as nearly as popular.

Elsa is something else I think. Most people like her for her relatability in terms of her anxiety rather than due to being serious. There's also the thing of the dress, the magical hair and powers, the song...Really easy marketable stuff that I think captures the kids' more than her quiet nature.

True, I forgot about that, the song, the powers and the dress definitely play a huge part in her being popular.

Ah gosh Mooky I forgot that line, "I'm sweating like a sinner in church !!' One of my absolute favourites in a Disney, one which I have been known to use in real life !

Same

[Disney's Divinity]

I don't think it's a bad thing at all that Tiana is a down-to-earth character. Not every character should be the same and it's good for children to have a variety of personalities as much as diversity in every other form. I'm glad to have her stand apart from the nonstop line of awkward, peppy girl characters that followed her (Rapunzel, Anna, Judy Hopps). And I don't think it's unusual for the main character to be shown up by other characters in their own film--Genie outshines Aladdin, for example, and many villains are the standouts from their films.

The movie was never going to be called The Frog Prince because the source wasn't "The Frog Prince" but The Frog Princess.

[JeanGreyForever]

But the story isn't The Frog Prince. It's about a girl who becomes a frog and her journey to break the spell on her and get her restaurant. So I don't agree with "The Frog Prince" as the right title because it's not that fairy tale. It's a twist on it.

Disney definitely gave Tiana a more serious personality to seem like a better, smarter, more elegant, sophisticated and, well, serious heroine than one you could say more negative things about. Compare her to Charlotte. And to me it backfired. Tiana is boring and I like Charlotte more!

But the same can be argued about so many other Disney titles. Sleeping Beauty may center around Aurora but the Three Good Fairies are really the protagonists. Peter Pan is really more Wendy's story which is why earlier versions of the story were actually titled Peter and Wendy or Peter Pan and Wendy. Beauty and the Beast was considered to be the Beast's story by Howard Ashman, but most people consider it to be Belle's story. Even Coco is named after a character who we barely see in the film but everything sort of revolves around her. The same applies to the Frog Prince. The story might be Tiana's, but everything centers around Naveen. Tiana just gets caught up in his struggle.

Yeah, I think that a lot of people ended up preferring Charlotte over Tiana which had some unfortunate implications. Most Disney fans would be able to relate to Charlotte more than Tiana though.

[Disney Duster]

Disney has never put a spin on a Disney fairy tale until The Princess and the Frog. It's not like in The Little Mermaid there was a twist that Eric had to get transformed into a merman for 2/3 of the film.

You can have serious and down-to-earth characters, but don't make them boring!

I feel like if you're going to call it The Frog Prince, make it that story, not set it in 1920's New Orleans and have a twist and spend most of the film in a swamp.

Yeah, I relate more to Charlotte's dream and love of magic, lol.

[Mooky]

Technically, The Little Mermaid did have a twist -- the tone and the ending were completely different than the fairytale's. Same with Hercules (tone) and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (ending). Any adaptation where you can say "Hey, that's not have it happened in the source material" can be considered to have a twist, or as poetic licence. Aladdin was originally set in China and had two genies -- the setting was changed, not unlike moving The Frog Prince from a medieval Germany to a 1920s USA. Oliver & Company's twist is that it's Oliver Twist ( ) with cats and dogs. True, PatF's changes may be more severe and affect the plot more than others but they still lead to the same outcome as The Frog Prince: a happy ending for the main characters. And it wasn't the first time Disney played around with the source material, so I still stand by what I said before: that PatF can be considered an adaptation of The Frog Prince and should have kept that title. The original fairytale is pretty short anyway, so any change made can also be seen as plot development/expansion.

(I also read the summary for The Frog Princess on Wikipedia, and despite what PatF's credits say, the only thing the actual film has in common with the novel is the fact that the princess turns into a frog and a swamp setting.)

[JeanGreyForever]

Hunchback I wouldn't say had a twist ending because Victor Hugo himself changed the ending of the original to allow Esmeralda to live when he adapted the story into an operetta. Not to mention that Disney's Hunchback had a lot in common with prior film adaptations which also tended to use happy endings.

Aladdin might have been set in China, but the China was a fictionalized Arabian Nights version of China which was China in name only. The characters used Arabic/Persian names, terminology, customs, etc. Hence, why the ruler of "China" in the story is a Sultan and not an Emperor or even a Khan. Ironically the opposite occurs with Turandot which is an old Persian fairy tale. The famous opera changes the setting to China, and now everyone associates it with China.

I do consider TPATF to be a twist on a classic fairy tale, and the first one of its type that Disney did. The remaining fairy tale films, while have differences from their source material, are close enough in resemblance that I wouldn't call them "twists." However, I still believe the film should have been called The Frog Prince, since it takes more from that than the novel, "The Frog Princess." The only thing it really took from that book was the actual twist.

[Disney Duster]

Yeah, I agree. The term "twist" doesn't mean "changed tone or ending" to me. And notice Oliver Twist was changed to Oliver and Company. And changing a once upon a time far away land to another once upon a time far away land is not the same as setting it in closer to modern times America.

[Disney Duster]

Elsa is something else I think. Most people like her for her relatability in terms of her anxiety rather than due to being serious. There's also the thing of the dress, the magical hair and powers, the song...Really easy marketable stuff that I think captures the kids' more than her quiet nature.

Wait...magical hair?

[thedisneyspirit]

Her hair is white. It doesn't have powers like say, Rapunzel's, but it's still an attractive feature. In fantasy stories white hair is considered exotic and other-worldly, and takes easier the attention from viewers. Characters like X-Men's Storm or Daenerys Targaryen are popular in part to their designs as well as their stories.

[DisneyBluLife]

Yeah, I agree. The term "twist" doesn't mean "changed tone or ending" to me. And notice Oliver Twist was changed to Oliver and Company. And changing a once upon a time far away land to another once upon a time far away land is not the same as setting it in closer to modern times America.

I agree, The Princess and the frog, Oliver and company and Treasure Planet all have different locations far from the source material.

[JeanGreyForever]

I agree, The Princess and the frog, Oliver and company and Treasure Planet all have different locations far from the source material.

Same. If we had gotten Kingdom of the Sun instead of The Emperor's New Groove, I'd add that as well.

[DisneyJedi]

I seriously find it tough to believe people hate the movie. How the hell could anyone hate it?

[D82]

The title itself is a misnomer that doesn't even make sense within the context of the film -- Tiana's not a princess until the end. The film should have been called either The Frog Prince (meta reference should have been cut, and the film could have been Naveen's story as much as Tiana's, but I guess they didn't want to make their first black heroine a deuteragonist*) or Tiana and the Frog Prince and that would have made a huge difference. In fact, I think that or a similiar title was used in the Spanish-speaking countries.

Yes, in Spain it was called Tiana y el Sapo, which means Tiana and the Toad. I know, why toad instead of frog? That's also something curious about the Spanish title. I don't know if you knew it, but unlike in English, in Spanish words have gender. Most of the words ending in -a are feminine, while words ending in -o are usually masculine. Frog in Spanish is "rana" and, even though there are male and female frogs, it sounds feminine here. That's why they changed it to "sapo" (toad) which sounds masculine. In South America I think the film is titled La Princesa y el Sapo (The Princess and the Toad).

I like the title you proposed, Tiana and the Frog Prince, I think that would have been better than the one we got.

[Disney Duster]

Elsa's hair is very light blonde. But yes, that attracts little girls as well.

[JeanGreyForever]

Tiana and the Frog Prince reminds me of how Frozen was originally titled Anna and the Snow Queen. I think that's the title it has in Japan.

[Mooky]

Yes, in Spain it was called Tiana y el Sapo, which means Tiana and the Toad. I know, why toad instead of frog? That's also something curious about the Spanish title. I don't know if you knew it, but unlike in English, in Spanish words have gender. Most of the words ending in -a are feminine, while words ending in -o are usually masculine. Frog in Spanish is "rana" and, even though there are male and female frogs, it sounds feminine here. That's why they changed it to "sapo" (toad) which sounds masculine. In South America I think the film is titled La Princesa y el Sapo (The Princess and the Toad).

I like the title you proposed, Tiana and the Frog Prince, I think that would have been better than the one we got.

I'm somewhat familiar with Spanish language (thank you Latin American telenovelas, Pedro Almodóvar and Un paso adelante!), but I thought most if not all of the nouns had gender variants (ex. niño/niña, director/directora), like we have here in the Balkans. It's interesting to hear that's not the case with "sapo" -- you learn something new every day! We use "žaba" for the general name of the species and for female frogs, and "žabac" for male frogs, so the title here was Princeza i žabac.

[D82]

I'm somewhat familiar with Spanish language (thank you Latin American telenovelas, Pedro Almodóvar and Un paso adelante!), but I thought most if not all of the nouns had gender variants (ex. niño/niña, director/directora), like we have here in the Balkans.

Yes, you're right. Sorry, I didn't explain it well. You're not Spanish and know it better than me. Most of the nouns of things that have both genders have gender variants, but there are some exceptions (like "rana" and "sapo") that only have one gender and therefore are preceded by an article of that gender. Other examples are "el gorila" (the gorilla), "la araña" (the spider), "el águila" (the eagle), "la persona" (the person), "el bebé" (the baby), "la víctima" (the victim), "el personaje" (the character), etc. If you want to refer to the other gender, you have to say, for instance: "la rana macho" (the male frog) or "el sapo hembra" (the female toad).

Because of that, many people here mistakenly think that "sapos" are the male ones and "ranas" the females of the same species. The same happens with "el ratón" (the rat) and "la rata" (the mouse). Some think that the former is the male and the latter the female. That's why here Mickey Mouse is called "el ratón Mickey" even though he's a mouse. I think they shouldn't have perpetuated that common mistake with this film in Spain. The problem was that if they had kept the original title, the article preceding frog would've been female and people would've immediately thought of a female frog: La princesa y la rana. That could've been solved if they had titled the film: Tiana y el príncipe rana (Tiana and the Frog Prince).

[Mooky]

Oh, wow, thanks for the detailed explanation! I truly love learning about languages and their intricacies, and linguistics is something i'm passionate about but never pursued career-wise. So having these examples here really helps with expanding knowledge about the matter

[D82]

^No problem. I find that interesting too. Even though I’m not very good at writing, Spanish language was my favorite subject at school. And now I really enjoy learning English. However, strangely enough, I didn’t like English at school and wasn't too good at it. Though, actually, that’s in part due to the way it was taught in Spain back then. Now classes are more varied, but then it was just grammar, grammar and grammar.