Princess/Frog 411
Posted by: Rich Watson on November 25, 2009 at 4:37 pm
“…Hard work is a recurrent theme in ‘Princess,’ which the directors John Musker and Ron Clements, who wrote the script with Rob Edwards, further underscore when the adult Tiana (Anika Noni Rose) swans into the Jazz Age. Though the theme certainly serves the story — like her father, Tiana yearns to open a restaurant — it also displaces race, which the film, given the commercial stakes, cannot engage… Hard work, though, also makes the adult Tiana something of a drudge and a bore…
“…Tiana, in a sparkling fairy tale moment, kisses a frog and becomes one herself, a transformation that carries her on an extended journey through the bayou and, yes, into her own heart… Big girls and little know what happens next, but, my, the movie takes an awfully long time getting there. That finale, like the story itself, represents progress of a kind, I suppose, even if this princess spends an uncommonly long time splashing around as a frog.” – Manohla Dargis, New York Times
“…it’s the socio-cultural suggestions of this storytelling choice that’s ultimately most troublesome. A voodoo priest in touch with the dark side through demonic ooga-booga masks and blood rituals, Dr. Facilier (a smoothly villainous Keith David), a.k.a. the Shadow Man, certainly flirts with ugly clichés, especially in light of the discrepancy between his clearly African-American facial characteristics and the Caucasian-ish nose, forehead, and cheekbones of honorable Prince Naveen. Such a black-is-malevolent implication might be more forgivable had Princess and the Frog countered it with a portrait of Tiana that, per usual Disney formula, equated her beauty with inherent goodness. By relegating her to amphibian status for the vast majority of the proceedings, however, the film proffers a message that’s at best mixed and at worst noxious, feigning a celebration of African-American life via raucous Southern jazz and down-home aphorisms while in reality serving up semi-subtle signals about the incompatibility of African-Americanism and heroism, kindness, and righteousness.” – Nick Schager, Slate
“…while little kids laugh at the froggy humor (summed up in the excellent, repeated punchline ”that’s not slime you are secreting — it’s mucus!”), the firefly antics, and the cute sight of a fat alligator wailing on his trumpet like Louis Armstrong, adult viewers are rewarded with something more moving — a Proustian remembrance of the durable power of Disney at its old-school best. The filmmakers trust in story over special effects, and character over celebrity voices (there are almost none here, save for a brief cameo by queen-of-all-she-surveys Oprah Winfrey as Tiana’s saintly mother, Eudora). They steep the movie in colloquial American culture. They offer a sophisticated musical experience (ragtime, zydeco, gospel, Tin Pan Alley) accessible even to the youngest ears. And in doing so, the creative team behind The Princess and the Frog upholds the great tradition of classic Disney animation.” – Lisa Schwartzbaum, Entertainment Weekly
