The Princess And The Frog Film Analysis

When we typically think of racial tropes in popular culture, we often don’t look towards animated G-rated movies. The film The Princess and the Frog released by Walt Disney Animated Classics in 2009 created by John Musker, Ron Clements and Rob Edwards is a perfect contemporary example of a film that shows images of pre-constructed racial tropes. Though Disney has produced multiple films based on past fairy tales, The Princess and the Frog was the first animated Disney princess film that featured an African American woman in a leading role. Often times regarded as a turning point in Disney’s movie production career, the film’s representation of African Americans proves to be regressive of racist politics surrounding the 21st century. The design

The challenge of animated films is the lack of visual reference that the production team has to work from. As a result, often times, animated films are heavily criticized for their representations of minority cultures. The character Louis, an alligator that plays trumpet, shares similar characteristics with the Coon caricature that emerged during slavery in the 1830’s. A contemporary article written by Justin Drier, explores the coon image in current actors and comedians Chris Tucker and Chris Rock. Driver describes the caricature, as “His grin was always very wide, his teeth very white, his eyes very widened, his feet very large, his walk very slow, his dialect very broken”(29). These same design characteristics are shown in the animal representation of Louis. The choice of an alligator image to represent Louis with a wide

The cartoon that we see on the screen as Ray, is much different that that of past images. Ray visible looks old, is slow moving, and more importantly is visible missing teeth. A key visual indicator that Uncle Tom is known for is not only visually there but addressed through narration. On their journey to visit Mama Oldie, Ray gets in a scuffle and says “I done chip my favorite tooth” (52:45). Not only is the visual reference of Uncle Tom also embodied by Ray the firefly, the narration and dialect that Ray uses is that similar to the reconstructed trope. Jennifer Bloomquist (2015) highlights the importance of language explaining “Black language use in the early history of the entertainment industry, particularly at the heavy-handed distortion of exaggeration of African American English, the ignorant dialogue written for Black roles, and the types of topics scripted for Black Characters…The linguistic construction of ethnicity too shaped by the racist ideology of the time to afford these roles much dignity in the white Imagination.” In spite of his mishap, the character of Ray doesn’t seem let the instance affect his eager to serve the prince and Tiana in their quest to visit mama oldie. His dedication towards the prince and Tiana is similar of that of Uncle Tom. The universal role African Americans have of serving the dominant