Grade:A

What’s It About?
A young woman in 1920s New Orleans gets turned into a frog when she kisses a “frog prince”, and has to find a way to turn back human in time to save her dream restaurant.

What’s It’s Bechdel Test Score?
100%! Tiana actually has a goal besides falling in love and talks to her mom about it.

What about Minorities?
A+! There are probably criticisms to be made about the portrayal of Cajun culture, the portrayal of Voodoo, and the lack of context about black poverty in Louisiana at the time/now, but I know precisely nothing about Cajun culture or Voodoo. And on the last point, I don’t think anybody expects Disney movies to be a history lesson. Shrug.

Where do I start with The Princess and the Frog? For a number of reasons, this movie had a lot to live up to. Disney’s return to 2D animation, and the first Princess movie in about ten years. Then, of course, was the fact that this would be Disney’s first black Princess, and no matter what, this would make it pretty historically significant and a symbol of something.

For such an ambitious movie, there were a lot of ways it would go horribly wrong. But I was incredibly impressed by it – it really exceeded any expectations I had.

Tiana, as a character, is probably the most realistic and well-rounded Disney Princess. Belle is smart, and motivated by love for her father as well, but she doesn’t have any plans besides “wanting more”. Jasmine is pretty cool, but her whole goal is to not get married.

Tiana is much more of a real human being. She has a concrete goal, something that she wants her life to be about – sure, it’s inspired by her father, but it’s still her own dream, and falling in love isn’t, at first, part of that dream. In fact, falling in love is one of the many things that gets in the way. As far as Disney Princesses go, she is the most like a real woman.

I love her struggle, the choice she has to make between love and her dream and the understanding that if you work hard enough and have a partner that supports her, you can, actually have it all. There’s no reason two people who love each other can’t support one another’s dream, and I’m really happy to see having both love and a life goal shown as an option.

And Prince Naveen! Swoon! With the exception of Aladdin, I don’t think I can remember a Disney prince that actually had any personality. Like, what did Ariel see in Prince Eric exactly? He was nice to his dog I guess.

But Naveen! He’s charming, and flawed, and through he’s loath to admit it, he wants to improve himself. I adored him. Of course they fall in love way too fast, but this movie is short, and it’s still way faster than Ariel fell in love with Eric. I was rooting for them as a couple so hard, and they are just so damn adorable together.

The best friend sidekick Charlotte! She totally charmed me. I absolutely love how a) there is a strong female friendship across class and race that is not broken up over a man b) they are both interested in the same man but there is never any jealously or bad feelings about it. I also love how a character can be somewhat spoiled and stupid but still totally loveable and good. Just because she’s rich and had everything given to her doesn’t mean she’s a bad person – her heart is completely in the right place, and it is gigantic.

The animal sidekicks are hit and miss. Ray the firefly is CUTE and AWESOME but can be a little bit much. Louis the gator is totally forgettable. I’m not quite sure why he was there, except to illustrate a theme of being yourself, if that was a theme? He wants to be human but learns that being a gator has its benefits too. I don’t know, that wasn’t very strong.

I bring up this possible theme of being true to yourself (even though the verbalized theme was more like “you need to work hard to make your dreams come true, but you should be open to fun and love as well”), because of the issue of Tiana spending most of the movie as a frog. It was a little bit of a slap in the face that the first black Disney Princess was not actually black for a great deal of the movie. She spends twice as much time as a frog than as a Princess.

But, narratively, it works – characters need to be taken out their world in order to discover their true selves, and in this case, the entire journey for both Tiana and Naveen was to find a way to become their true selves. The people they were meant to grow up to be – and in Tiana’s case she had to learn to be vulnerable and a little selfish, and Naveen had to learn to take responsibility and be a little selfless.

There are possibly better ways to tell that story than actually turning them into frogs, but taken on its own, the froggy part of the movie was still an enjoyable romp.

Before the movie came out, that was my main problem with it – that they chose The Frog Prince as the inspiration for the story. It’s still my main problem with the movie. First of all, that fairy tale has a pretty horrible moral, depending on which version you read. I remember having a version where the little girl never wanted to kiss the frog, and then never wanted to marry the prince, but had to as a punishment for her selfishness (in that, all she cared about was her golden ball). It was pretty horrific.

And then, why take a European story for the first black Princess? Are there not a plethora of African, or Caribbean, or African-American stories to tell? If you’re using Louisiana Voodoo as part of the plot, are there not other very rich stories in that culture you could tell? I don’t know, but apparently neither does Disney.

I also didn’t care for the design of Tiana when she was a frog. Naveen as a frog still had a lot of character in his face, while Tiana as a frog felt kind of… unfinished for me? There was a lot of character in her eyes and mouth (which are the most expressive parts of course), but it felt like she didn’t have any face to really convey her. If that makes sense. Tiana as a person was so pretty, in fact the design on all the human characters was so fun, that I felt a little cheated that we mostly got Tiana in frog form.

I’m of a mixed opinion about the music. In that, I didn’t really care for it either – but then, I hate Randy Newman. What an odd choice. I’m sure there would be at least one Louisiana jazz icon that would’ve loved to have taken part in this movie. Randy Newman is so bland!

Having said that, I’ve heard people complain that the songs didn’t advance the plot or reveal character and were just filler, but I definitely disagree with that. The songs were completely full of character, Mama Odie’s Gospel song was a defining character and plot moment for Tiana and Naveen, and Tiana’s “I want” song is the most solid “I want” song I can remember from a Princess. What did Belle want? “So much more than this provincial life.” What the hell does that mean? Ariel wanted “to be part of your world” defining herself by someone else.

Tiana wanted something concrete, something she actually had a plan to work towards. This is pretty ground breaking, you guys, it’s hard enough to find a female character like that anywhere, let alone kids’ films. Honestly, I suspect the people I’ve heard this complaint from just don’t like female characters that have goals besides men. Whenever a woman character actually wants something, people start saying she’s bitchy or unsympathetic. It is mind-breaking.

Anyways, I loved this movie. Go see it, it’s cute as hell and you’ll enjoy it.