For most of the last century, the Disney ‘toon heroine was as white as, well… Snow White, the studio’s first feature-film superstar, who marked her debut in 1937’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”
It would take some 60 years for the Disney artists to begin painting their leading ladies with all the colors of the wind, including the American Indian Pocahontas (1995), the Chinese Mulan (1998) and the Hawaiian Lilo (2002).
Only now, with “The Princess and the Frog,” have Disney animators put a black female front and center. Ironically, the inspiration for the new film came from two Caucasian men: current Pixar-Disney chief John Lasseter and the late Walt Disney himself.
“The story really came from an initial idea of doing an American fairy tale, which hadn’t been done at Disney,” said “Princess” co-director Ron Clements. “And setting it in New Orleans, which is John Lasseter’s favorite city in the world. It was Walt Disney’s favorite city in the world … Out of that, it seemed natural that the heroine would be African-American.”
Discussion of the character’s race had some of the film’s principals bristling. “We walk around being black every day, and nobody talks about it,” noted Anika Noni Rose, who supplies the voice of lead Princess Tiana. “So, I suggest you follow your instinct and let it be nothing to be talked about.”
Yet the “Dreamgirls” actress continued to talk: “The big deal is that it will quietly affirm to young brown-skinned children that they are special in this world,” Rose said. “And I think that it is a bigger deal to those of us who grew up without it and are now adults and have been waiting for it. It’s exciting to us, because we know how important it is to our children to have, to be image affirmed.”
Production was started on “Princess” in March 2006, long before the election of a new American president. “We tried to arrange that,” joked co-director John Musker. “We voted for Obama,” Musker continued. “That was about as much influence as we had on things.”
But the coincidence isn’t lost on some members of the “Princess” cast. “It is historical in the sense now that there is ‘Obama’ and ‘Tiana,'” said veteran character actress Jenifer Lewis, widely known as “the black mother of Hollywood.” ”It is a new day,” she continued. “There is hope. There is change. That is what this movie is going to bring.”
Perhaps, but the directors remind us that making history was never their point.
“It is a universal story,” Musker said. “It is a story of trying to follow your dreams and overcoming obstacles. And I don’t think that necessarily knows a certain color.”
Walt Disney’s “The Princess and the Frog” is now playing in Los Angeles and New York and opens nationwide on Dec. 11.
Martin Scorsese On “The Saints,” Faith In Filmmaking and His Next Movie
When Martin Scorsese was a child growing up in New York's Little Italy, he would gaze up at the figures he saw around St. Patrick's Old Cathedral. "Who are these people? What is a saint?" Scorsese recalls. "The minute I walk out the door of the cathedral and I don't see any saints. I saw people trying to behave well within a world that was very primal and oppressed by organized crime. As a child, you wonder about the saints: Are they human?" For decades, Scorsese has pondered a project dedicated to the saints. Now, he's finally realized it in "Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints," an eight-part docudrama series debuting Sunday on Fox Nation, the streaming service from Fox News Media. The one-hour episodes, written by Kent Jones and directed by Elizabeth Chomko, each chronicle a saint: Joan of Arc, Francis of Assisi, John the Baptist, Thomas Becket, Mary Magdalene, Moses the Black, Sebastian and Maximillian Kolbe. Joan of Arc kicks off the series on Sunday, with three weekly installments to follow; the last four will stream closer to Easter next year. In naturalistic reenactments followed by brief Scorsese-led discussions with experts, "The Saints" emphasizes that, yes, the saints were very human. They were flawed, imperfect people, which, to Scorsese, only heightens their great sacrifices and gestures of compassion. The Polish priest Kolbe, for example, helped spread antisemitism before, during WWII, sheltering Jews and, ultimately, volunteering to die in the place of a man who had been condemned at Auschwitz. Scorsese, who turns 82 on Sunday, recently met for an interview not long after returning from a trip to his grandfather's hometown in Sicily. He was made an honorary citizen and the experience was still lingering in his mind. Remarks have... Read More