DVDizzy Forum

Anika Noni Rose talks about The Princess and the Frog and the importance of representation in the media.

When she was the daydreaming, frog-kissing age, though, Rose fell under the Disney spell. “I was a Disney kid,” she told us, “My first Disney film was Fantasia, which I thought was phenomenal. I just loved that world. The world of voices, and pretend.”

It was also a world limited to peach-skinned Prince Charmings and fair-complexioned princesses. “I remember talking to my mother and seeing Snow White and wondering if there’d ever be Chocolate Brown or something like that. But my parents were very good at making sure I had dolls that looked like me, and books with brown children in them, and birthday cards with brown children on them. They were very aware. When you discount a child from fantasy, it’s a very strong statement. You think, Wow, somebody made an entire movie with elves, and trees that talk, and things that fly, and there was no room for me.”

Rose paused to show me a video the costume designer Ann Roth sent of her granddaughter’s birthday party—tiny girls all dressed in princess gowns were dancing around a room. “They don’t look like Tiana! They’re not thinking about the social message in that. That’s the amazing thing about The Princess and the Frog, because it will change what the future of visual imagination looks like.”

Source: http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/ ... literature

Addendum, but I always thought it unfortunate that Tiana was the only princess of color in the new millennium (Kida isn't counted), then we got FOUR Princesses of European descent (Rapunzel, Merida, Anna and Elsa) back to back.

And maybe we're getting another from Giants, but who knows at this point?

Warm Regards wrote:Addendum, but I always thought it unfortunate that Tiana was the only princess of color in the new millennium (Kida isn't counted), then we got FOUR Princesses of European descent (Rapunzel, Merida, Anna and Elsa) back to back.

She is also, so far, the last to be married into royalty, rather than being royal from the get-go.

“I was a Disney kid,” she [Anika Noni Rose] told us, “My first Disney film was Fantasia, which I thought was phenomenal. I just loved that world. The world of voices, and pretend.”

It was also a world limited to peach-skinned Prince Charmings and fair-complexioned princesses. “I remember talking to my mother and seeing Snow White and wondering if there’d ever be Chocolate Brown or something like that. But my parents were very good at making sure I had dolls that looked like me, and books with brown children in them, and birthday cards with brown children on them. They were very aware. When you discount a child from fantasy, it’s a very strong statement. You think "Wow, somebody made an entire movie with elves, and trees that talk, and things that fly, and there was no room for me.”

You guys, I'm glad Sunflower was edited out of Fantasia. My heart aches imagining Anika as a little girl seeing Sunflower shining the other centaurettes' hoofs and decorating their hair and no one helps her with her own hair or anything and Sunflower's face design is goofy instead of pretty.

I thought that Sunflower was pretty and that she was the actually only sensible and level-headed one there, the other fawns were lazy, narcissistic cows with no brains on their shoulders.


Then again I'm just a dumb white girl so I most likely don't understand. But Sunflower was the only fawn that I liked, the rest I wanted to shoot.

Unshaved Mouse recently posted his Princess and the Frog review.

I find his stance on Tiana very interesting yet agreeable.

Unshaved Mouse wrote:And, in my opinion at least, they succeeded. There is nothing problematic about the character of Tiana. She is as positive and progressive a depiction of an African American woman as you could hope to find. On a possibly not unrelated note, she is also really, really, really, really, really boring.
...
Now I’ve already mentioned that I don’t find Tiana to be a particularly interesting character. Lottie though? I could write a frickin’ dissertation on Lottie. Lottie is basically Disney creating an avatar of all the little girls who have been raised on their movies since the thirties, looking at her and saying “Oh Jesus Christ what have we done?”

He also feels the main conflict suffered by having Tiana never converse with the Shadow Man till the very end (similar to how Pocahontas never met Ratcliffe).

Unshaved Mouse wrote:The central conflict is the heart of the story. And Tiana exists almost entirely outside the central conflict. She’s essentially an onlooker in her own story. The conflict is between Naveen and Facilier. You could conceivably have a movie just about those two. What is the relationship between Tiana and Facilier? What’s the personal stake? As the old lady once said, where’s the beef?
...
Facilier corners Tiana, and when she threatens to destroy the talisman he turns her back into a human and sucks her into a dream world where she sees the restaurant she’s always wanted.

This could be an awesome scene, it really could. Facilier goes all Gospel of Matthew and offers Tiana everything she ever wanted if she’ll just surrender the talisman. But the problem is…this is literally the first time these two characters have met. There is no relationship between them. There are no real personal stakes. If, I dunno, it turned out that Facilier was responsible for Tiana’s father’s death, or that he once cut her in line at the post office or…something. Something so that these two characters are not in two completely different stories and just happen to bump into each other.

Okay, anyone who thinks Tiana uninteresting, I found something on tumblr.

http://disneyprincessdefender.tumblr.co ... 8711/tiana

Of course Tiana is boring compared to characters like Charlotte and Naveen; that's kind of the point. I think people just want hyperactive, outgoing characters all the time, and Tiana is not that and there's nothing wrong with it.

I agree the story would be better if Facilier and Tiana had a stronger connection, but they are the antithesis of one another which is why that would be hard to achieve. Tiana would never go to him for anything. Perhaps they could've had her flashback to a scene about him when Naveen tells her he was cursed by the Shadow Man--maybe he approached her or her father offering them everything and she/her father turned him down, or maybe a family friend was screwed over by him, or something. That way, the final confrontation would be echoing the first temptation, and it would show her moral fortitude yadda yadda or something. I think having him been the cause of Tiana's father's death would be overdramatic.

DisneyJedi wrote:Okay, anyone who thinks Tiana uninteresting, I found something on tumblr.

http://disneyprincessdefender.tumblr.co ... 8711/tiana

Thank you for the reading, it was legitimately very interesting.

I don't personally find Tiana boring. On the contrary, she's a great feminist figure for little girls. Plus her flaws are more noteworthy than in Belle or Pocahontas, which I welcome because a strong female is not equal to a flawless one.

I just don't really relate much to Tiana outside her passionate and ambitious dreaming. The hard working, go getter gal is like the opposite of who I am.

But then again, I don't relate much to, say, Rapunzel or Anna or even Elsa. They seem way too affirmative in their choices, and more peppy than I can ever be.

If anything, I always pictured myself akin to Jane from Tarzan. I sometimes surround myself with unfortunate people, I love animals, I like to draw, and I am attracted to attractive men.

(I'm INFP, and now I am very curious to see what Disney girls are closest to my personality...)

I guess there's no one character that's just like you, since I feel I'm more an amalgamation of several, but I'm probably the most like Tiana of the female protagonists. I have a reserved, occasionally abrasive personality like her; I don't work as hard, but I do believe in doing your best at whatever you're doing and earning what you have; I can be cynical and a touch towards judgmental at times, even if underneath I still believe in hopes and dreams; my humor is more dry or sarcastic, self-deprecating and sometimes mean-spirited. I think the next closest to my personality would be Megara from Hercules, although of course I have touches of Ariel, Pocahontas, and Cinderella.

Also, something I forgot to add in my other post: besides Tiana never seeking out Facilier, he would have no reason to seek out her and her father, since they have nothing to offer him. Perhaps they could've just had him speak to her at the diner about how "similar" they are, just so the final scene emphasizes the fact that they have a crucial difference. They're both poor and desperate, but Facilier would rather take revenge on the rich, white man (Charlotte's father), while Tiana just wants to earn what she has and has no use for revenge or resentment (partially, I think, because she grows up with Charlotte, who, for all her invisible white privilege, is ultimately a good person; with what we're given, we assume Facilier has never even met Charlotte's father).

I still love how they focus on the color green in this movie, from Naveen's problem being described by Facilier as, "It's the green you need," Facilier's green magic, Tiana turning into a frog like Naveen when she kisses him as an easy fix for the money she needs, the beautiful and soothing greens of the swamp, and then later the green dress she wears. Of course, the color relates to envy and greed, Facilier's qualities, but also otherworldliness and healing (and the ending does heal Tiana's wounds surrounding her father).

^ If I'm not mistaken, green is also a very prominent Mardi Gras color, alongside purple and yellow

And the three main human characters do indeed reflect on that color palette. Tiana is humble and "rooted" in reality, like the grass on earth or the leaves of trees. Like a tree, she is also very rigid; little can persuade her to stop ambition, she only wants to nourish that seed of her dream. Naveen is a burst of energy like the sun or perhaps more appropriately a night lantern (as he loves to party). But come along a dark cloud or a pair of sticky fingers and his energy gets compromised. Dr. Facilier is the mysterious purple; not as immediately alarming as pure grey or black, but just as dangerous. Purple is also a color associated with royalty, and its interesting to note how Facilier acquires Lawrence to do evil tasks.

Ugh, I love deep contextual analyzing~

The cast and crew recently reunited at the El Capitan for a screening of the movie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qJ4bDv-wwk

Now, who voted for Louis over Ray and Naveen?

I re-watched this movie a few weeks ago and you can tell how much they drew on Ursula for Mama Odie, with a more positive bent. “Yeah, they all knew what they wanted. What they wanted me to do.” Reminds me of Ursula’s “They come flocking to my cauldron, crying, ‘Spells! Ursula, please!’ And I help them? (indignantly)” Her snake wrapped around her arms and the body-shaking. I do wish they’d worked on the character’s dialogue a little more though. She was probably my only disappointment with TP&TF; there are a lot of little tweaks I think they could've done here and there to make the movie better. I remember reading how she and Facilier were supposed to duel at some point in earlier ideas for the movie. I would’ve liked to have seen her be more proactive and involved in the story. Too bad we don’t have a deleted scene or storyboard of that at least. That I know of—I haven’t looked at the bonus features in a long time.

I think Mama Odie's design is scary. Her face looks so skeletal.

Disney's Divinity wrote:Reminds me of Ursula’s “They come flocking to my cauldron, crying, ‘Spells! Ursula, please!’ And I help them? (indignantly)” Her snake wrapped around her arms and the body-shaking.

I never took it to be her doing it indignantly. It's possible, and interesting. But I think it's just her continuing the "evil Ursula actually helps people?" thing. Like, "And me, someone who people think is evil, actually helps them?"

I happened to be Googling and just came upon this image:



My question to anyone out there who might know--is this an official image via Disney? I know there was a day-version of it that was the cover for the artbook, but I hadn't seen this night version before and was wondering if maybe it was something created by an artist out in the universe or was offically connected to Disney?

It's an official Disney image. Disney made two variants, a day-time and a night-time one. It was even on the cover of the D23 magazine. You can find a larger version of the picture, here.

Thank you, Sotiris! It's such a gorgeous picture.

Anika Noni Rose explains the importance of Disney Princess Tiana and her song 'Almost There'
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/he ... story.html

Sotiris wrote:Anika Noni Rose explains the importance of Disney Princess Tiana and her song 'Almost There'
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/he ... story.html

I went to that panel boy did I gain newfound respect for her! It's a shame the article cut off the rest of what she said, which was something along the lines of children don't see differences, but that they see through eyes of love and it is adults who destroy that. She received thunderous applause for that comment and lots of folks were wiping tears from their eyes.

I wish I had recorded it as she said it much more eloquently than I have recapped. However this was one of those panels where you had to seal your phone in a plastic bag.

Not that I didn't respect her before, but she blew me away with her commentary.

She also treated us to "Down in New Orleans (Reprise)" acapella. Wow!