A few things that I learned and
noticed while watching the Princess and the
Frog:
- I think it is interesting how
this is one of the first Disney princess movies where 1) the prince and princess
do not experience love at first sight, and 2) they actually spend time together
and get to know each other in the movie. Most princess movies happen where
after some incident, the prince and princess lock eyes and they immediately fall
in love, but then something happens and they are separated and the rest of the
movie is spent fighting villains to save the girl and bring them back together.
Examples of this are Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Aladdin, Snow White, and in a way, The Little Mermaid, because she is mute and cannot completely communicate
to Eric and they are separated numerous times by Ursula or Triton. I think that
the concept of love at first sight in Disney movies creates an unrealistic
expectation for girls to expect men to be these strapping heroes that sweep girls
off their feet from the beginning, when in reality that is almost always not the
case. Now don’t get me wrong, there are some men who believe they can accomplish
this feat, but majority are not able to and pale in comparison to the high
standards set by animated men. Thankfully, there other Disney princess movies
which don’t initially involve love at first sight, like Mulan, but there needs to be more, in my opinion, movies where the
prince and princess form a relationship throughout the film and NOT initially starting
off with love at first sight. Films like Princess
and the Frog, Beauty and the Beast, and
Tangled all start off with either the
characters hating each other or being scared of one another. Ironically, at the
beginning of the Princess and the Frog,
Naveen and Tiana almost hated each other because of polar opposite they were.
He is an adventurous, narcissistic, and lazy prince who doesn’t have to work
for anything, whereas Tiana is a beautiful, hard-working, single minded
waitress who has to work for everything.
- In many of Disney’s movies, I
have noticed that they like to portray and design certain types of people in the
same light. For instance, many of the kings in Disney movies are short, pudgy,
have facial hair of some sort, and all desire grandchildren. For instance, the
King in Cinderella, King Hubert in Sleeping Beauty, Maurice in Beauty and the Beast, and the Sultan in Aladdin. These points, however, don’t all
apply for each Disney king, for instance King Triton is very muscular, but it
is certainly a trend that many viewers have noticed. In Princess and the Frog, this trend is almost completely true for Charlotte
LeBouff’s father, Eli ‘Big Daddy’ Labouff, for he is a pudgier man with facial
hair and a desire for his daughter to marry. Disney also applies this similar
design technique to Queens and mothers in their movies. After watching Princess and the Frog, I noticed the
trend of their mothers having short, gray, pinned up hair, with some shade of red
lipstick, and always wearing some type of jewelry. Prince Naveen’s mother is almost
identical to Tiana’s mom besides the slightly darker hair and complexion. This is also true for other princess movies
like Cinderella, where Lady Tremaine also has grey, pinned-up hair, red lipstick,
and is wearing lots of jewelry.
- Overall, after watching Princess and the Frog for the most likely sixth time, I can say that
I still very much enjoy it. I love the music (shout out to Mama Odie), the personalities of the characters
(especially Gloria the Basset Hound, Ray the firefly, and Louis the gator), and the emphasis they put in the value of
hard-work, family, and friendship. I also love how they finally made a black
princess! It’s so important for younger girls to have someone to look up to, and
to finally have a non-white princess is wonderful (even though they should’ve made
one years ago, and of other princesses of different ethnicities). I am not
super fond of the fact that they made it appear, through Tiana, that women
should enjoy working and cooking while the men sit around (Naveen) and have
everything handed to them. Yes, it is based in New Orleans, and hot spot for
food, but why did they still feel inclined to choose cooking as her passion?
But, you can only ask for so much when making a movie.
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