Originally Posted By Liberty Belle >>And I'm very happy that black little girls will now have a princess that will allow them to relate more closely to Disney.<< I agree, my little second cousin is a redhead so we always try to buy her Ariel toys. My Italian second cousin usually gets Jasmine because of her darker hair and features. Kids love having a role model who looks a little like them. >>And how often do we see either of them in Disney's ubiquitious "Princess" marketing?<< Mulan wasn't a princess, though, so that would more easily be compared with, say, Alice not being on the Princess merchandise. (However I'd love to see more Pocahontas merchandise, she's my favourite!)
Originally Posted By sapphireprima Witches as a black american I don't think an African Story is not going to fill the spot of Black princess. There's a difference between African and Black.
Originally Posted By Witches of Morva ORDDU: Then I suppose there's also a difference between being European and White. Yet so many white people find it easy to identify with European Fairytales. And since American Blacks have their heritage rooted in Africa, it would seem to follow that American Blacks would appreciate African folklore. For that matter, any one of us should be able to appreciate African folklore along with European, Asian or any other country's folklore.
Originally Posted By sapphireprima So your saying I should be able to relate to any African story because I'm black? As every White american should be able to relate any European story?
Originally Posted By DAR Short version-Who really cares. Long version-Now I don't mean who really cares if there's going to be a Black Princess in a Disney film. It isn't going to matter if the story is not up to par. And, excluding Pixar, the last time I checked DFA has only been giving us singles and doubles and not home runs. That is my biggest concern, not that the studio is trying to pc.
Originally Posted By Inspector 57 <<So your saying I should be able to relate to any African story because I'm black?>> I don't think The Witches would make assumptions about you as an individual, even if they knew your race. They're just not that way. But let's be honest. People are generally interested in their heritage. Most "black americans" would be interested a story that might be relevant to their own personal histories. <<Witches as a black american I don't think an African Story is not going to fill the spot of Black princess. There's a difference between African and Black.>> Yes, that's obvious. "African" means "from Africa." "Black" means "from Africa." Oops. No, we get it. There's "African." And then there's "AfricanWherever-ican." And you've made it clear that if one is not from The Continent, one might have zero interest in learning about that culture.
Originally Posted By FoxHound Sambo?! Yikes, Disney wouldn't touch that with a ten foot pole. There's too much baggage with that story---I remember my Grama reading an old illustrated Sambo storybook to us as kids and the depictions were not flattering at all. I'm very excited about "The Frog Princess" but I don't like the title. It sounds too similar to "The Swan Princess" and that film did not do well. I look forward to the Mardi Gras and Bayou scenes----this film has a great deal of potential.
Originally Posted By bobbelee9 Years ago, wasn't there a restaurant called Sambo? Got into all kinds of trouble because of the name. I have a stuffed toy Tiger they sold or gave away. They had to change their name.
Originally Posted By gurgitoy2 "Witches as a black american I don't think an African Story is not going to fill the spot of Black princess. There's a difference between African and Black." I was going to post something saying the same thing. Not all Black stories should be African. To me, it's nice to see the New Orleans setting of Frog Princess. It makes me very excited to see the film.
Originally Posted By gurgitoy2 The thing is, that although Africa might be the center, it's not the sole link anymore. I have lots of Caribbean friends who, although they can trace heritage back to Africa, do not have any fondness for the country. They have a distinct Caribbean culture and style. Heck, I have European roots, but I have no specific allegiance to Europe. I'm American, so my culture reflects that. I just think that by making all "Black" movies set in Africa is not accurate. Just as not all "White" stories should be European. There are plenty of locations to base films in, regardless of the ethnicity of the lead characters.
Originally Posted By trekkeruss IMO, as long as the movie is good, I won't care if they took liberties with the original Frog Princess story. So what if the princess is Black and the setting is New Orleans, instead of Russian and wherever it's origin is supposed to be? Just how many people know or care about the original fairy tale? This will just be a variation; it won't corrupt the original, which anyone could still enjoy if they so chose.
Originally Posted By Witches of Morva ORDDU: That's exactly our point, though, trekkeruss, duckling. By putting forth such a totally distorted version, it's highly likely that the original version of the tale will be eclipsed and forgotten. As guardians of Fairytales, we're particularly sensitive to the Disney company's latest trend to totally throw away the original story, while stealing its title for some totally different story. ORWEN: I think that's really what would help us to swallow this Frog Princess movie a lot easier--if it had an original title so as not to mislead the public. ORDDU: But riding on the coat tails of someone else's title--as they did with Chicken Little--that's where we have a problem. ORWEN: A BIG problem. Because we'd LIKE for people to know about the original FROG PRINCESS fairytale, too! ORDDU: By the way, Inspector57, duckling; you explained our position in regard to another topic quite well. Of course we don't expect all Black Americans to be interested in African folklore--any more than we would expect all Whites to be interested in European folklore. It's just that it often seems that most White people ARE interested in European folklore. ORWEN: And a lot of our Black friends tend to be interested in African folklore and that's what inspired us to wonder why Disney hasn't looked into making any animated films about African tales that I'm sure a lot of us would be interested in seeing.
Originally Posted By veu In Italy, we are very happy for the first Disney animated black Princess! It's a wonderful idea!!! I love it too much! In Italy, we don't love the plot of Disney's "Rapunzel" about the frustrated witch who transformed a modern-day girl and pizza-boy into Rapunzel and her gallant Prince... no! This plot is really horrible! In Italy I open a poll about the storyline of Rapunzel and I watched that no one love this plot... in Italy we love classical fairy tale, classical Disney fairy tale, but we don't love this absurd plot... all italian people hate this storyline! We were very happy when we read that Glen Keane changed the plot of this movie and we read that Rapunzel will be a Classical traditional Disney movie... all Italian people hope the plot about modern day teens will be scrapped and the totally traditional, classical version of Disney's "Rapunzel" will be true and not only a rumor! Do you know more about this?
Originally Posted By Hans Reinhardt "Years ago, wasn't there a restaurant called Sambo? Got into all kinds of trouble because of the name. I have a stuffed toy Tiger they sold or gave away. They had to change their name." No, there's still one in Santa Barbara. In a very prominent location too, right across the street from the beach.
Originally Posted By Hans Reinhardt "By putting forth such a totally distorted version, it's highly likely that the original version of the tale will be eclipsed and forgotten. As guardians of Fairytales, we're particularly sensitive to the Disney company's latest trend to totally throw away the original story, while stealing its title for some totally different story." You ladies are confusing me. On the one hand you want to protect and preserve the origninal stories, yet, on the other hand, you have no problem with the way that Walt Disney drastically and distorted them.
Originally Posted By bobbelee9 #35 Hans, is it Sambo as in Little Black Sambo/Tiger? I live in New England, and the one here pretty much got run out of town, even after changing their name.
