Sotiris wrote:
Tiana looked nothing like herself and had her features altered due to the overall redesign of the pincesses. It wasn't just her and it wasn't racially motivated. When we complained that the princesses looked unrecognizable we were scoffed at and dismissed. I'm glad Anika has indirectly admitted that the "princess team" at WDAS utterly failed in capturing the original look of the princesses.
Tiana looked nothing like herself, but frankly that applies to all the other 2D princesses as well. I'm glad Anika Noni Rose was able to campaign to get the character to resemble her more, but I wish something similar could be done for the rest of the princesses. And I disagree that race wasn't a factor here, because the complaint was that Tiana had been whitewashed. Not just skin tone wise, but as Anika said, her features had been changed completely. In Anika's post, she talks about how Mark Henn asked her if there was anything she wanted to have incorporated into Tiana's design, and Anika made suggestions about giving Tiana a rounder nose and fuller lips. She said that she wanted Tiana to more accurately reflect brown faces around the world and now the CGI design for Tiana will do that as well.
Anika said she noticed how off her character looked way back in the summer but only felt spoke up about it after there was internet buzz about Tiana being whitewashed, which makes me wonder how many of the other voice actresses feel similarly that their characters haven't been done justice but simply haven't said anything yet.