I like Disney movies very much. They can be screamingly
funny at their best, and pathetically sentimental at the same time; and who can
resist that combination? Love and kindness always win out over greed and hatred
(just like in real life). But (unlike real life) there’s always a shadow:
death, separation, sadness.
The Disney studio went through a long lull in the 1970s and
1980s, with only a few movies: “The Great Mouse Detective,”
“The Rescuers.”
Then, suddenly, in the 1990s, they blazed to life again with movies like “Beauty and the
Beast” and “The
Lion King” and “Aladdin.”
Then another lull, but of a different kind. Disney was
producing a lot of movies again, but they weren’t quite as good: “Pocahontas,” “Mulan,” “Hercules,” “Atlantis: The Lost Empire,”
“The Emperor’s New
Groove.” (I’m not saying these movies are bad; all these have redeeming
qualities. “Mulan” is beautifully animated and uniquely sensitive, and
“Hercules” (which I saw again recently) is very funny and has some good music,
and “Emperor’s New Groove” has the voices of David Spade and John Goodman and
Eartha Kitt and Patrick Warburton, all apparently having an excellent time. But
they’re flawed too: “Mulan” gets pretty dark – it’s about war, after all – and
“Hercules” and “Emperor’s New Groove” both have endings that go seven
directions at once. I don’t even like to think about “Pocahontas,” which has
some pretty animation, but a garbled plot and not much entertainment value.)
It was for this reason that I put off seeing “The Princess and the Frog.”
Disney had done a Native American princess, and an Asian princess, and even a
Middle Eastern princess. (I use the word “princess” instead of “heroine,”
because we’re talking about Disney. You
understand.) Now – ta-daa! – they created an African-American princess. I
didn’t want to see the movie. It was bound to be pious as hell, and cutesy.
Oprah herself was voicing the heroine’s mother! For some, that was a seal of
approval; for me, that meant that the Disney studio (with its history of racism –
go watch “Dumbo” again if you haven’t forgotten) was finally making amends
for its past.
And amends might be good for the soul, but they aren’t
necessarily fun to watch.
Well, friends, I was wrong. “Princess and the Frog” is a jolly
good time. The heroine this time round, Tiana (voiced by Anika Noni Rose),
is a hard-working Jazz Age New Orleans waitress who just wants to open a
restaurant. The prince, Naveen (voiced by Bruno Campos), is
a good-looking royal wastrel who’s in New Orleans looking for a good time (in
the short term) and a rich wife (in the long term). The villain turns Naveen
into a frog. Naveen mistakes Tiana for a princess, and gets her to kiss him (it
doesn’t take him long to talk her into it!), and she turns into a frog.
Hijinks ensue.
As always with Disney, there’s lots of crossover. We’ve been
in the swamps before: go watch “The Rescuers” if you don’t remember. Also, we
spend a lot of time looking up at the evening star in this movie – one
character even sings a song to it! – and that should make any faithful
Disneycrat think of Jiminy
Cricket.
The songs are pretty good, especially one called “Dig a
Little Deeper” (with a chorus line of pink spoonbills!):
There’s also a nicely creepy comeuppance song for the
villain (voiced by Keith
David) at the end:
Flaws? Yes, a few. They lay on the N’Awlins charm pretty
thick, as well as the bayou slapstick. Also, New Orleans in the 1920s appears
to be amazingly free from racism and segregation.
But we’re talking about a fantasy here, and – as fantasies
go – this is a lovely one.
Not all Disney princesses are the same. Some are frail and
need constant help, like Snow White. Some are very tough, like Mulan. Tiana is
tough: she wants to fulfill her father’s dream, and she wants to make her
mother happy. She’s willing to put her own happiness aside to make those things
happen.
She’s a good person.
And Naveen – a shallow good-for-nothing – turns out to be
romantic, and kind, and selfless.
After seeing “The Princess and the Frog,” I felt triumphant.
And that’s the way you should feel after watching a good
Disney movie.
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