Sunday, May 31, 2009

Is Disney really being stereoypical?

By: Marissa Rankins

I'm not exactly sure that this is totally world news, but it is a very good topic and kind of pretains to me so I felt like I should wirte on it.

It's finally happened: Disney's first black princess. You would think that the community would be happy over this news, especially since Disney has gone so far as to promote other countries through their princesses before hitting one of the United States biggest cultural influences. They have and Arabian Jasmine, a Chinese Mulan, and even and Indian Pocahontas who even though she is technically from the United States Indians are one of the biggest minorities. There weren't any controversies when these princesses came to the screen, but now all of a sudden its an issue when a black princess takes the stage. I give Disney major props for doing this, regardless if it seems like they should of done it a little sooner. The controversies, though, are coming from the movie itself. The movie is set in 1920's New Orleans and the Tiana, the main character, is actually a waitress. The movie is full of New Orleans themes and jazz music. Another controversy is that the prince in the movie isn't even black, he's Brazilian. Seriously, people need to stop reading so much into a children's movie and jsut be happy that there is a movie out there now that has a black princess and is from Disney. The next step Disney should take is a Mexican princess. They might as well keep the issue going since they have started it. How are other races going to see this movie, though? Are they even going to care? Especially since Disney has pretty much covered every other race. I don't know wheter to be happy about this change or skeptical. Obviously if it took Disney this long to finally create a black princess then they probably don't really care about the issue that much either.

1 comment:

Sarah Richardson said...

The problem is not that Disney took so long. It's that Disney is notorious for putting subliminal context in their "children's movies" These movies are anything but politically correct. To say that Disney is overlooking race when they created this movie would be a completely uninformed statement oblivious to the state of the world we live in. I think what they are doing is deliberate. Although I praise them for finally opening the door, we must be careful in accepting it not to overlook its implications in the lives of our children.