I don’t think the book was nearly as stereotypical. Plus the book wasn’t really told from the POV of a child–it seems like it’s told from the POV of an omniscient, fairly mature third person with a pretty good sense of humor.
Finally even if it is from a child’s perspective doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Children get a lot from adults. It’s not like kids grow up in a vacuum assuming that all NAs act like that without adults already giving them those images.
I thought frogs were French?
(Ahah, that’s why it’s set in the French Quarter!)
How did it stand up? I remember seeing it as a young child in the 80s and enjoying it, but I’m sure I would have missed anything racist at the time.
Exactly. In fact, to call Tiger Lily et al “Native Americans” is grossly inaccurate. They were native to Never Never Land—not America. Like pirates and fairies, those “Red Indians” were part of the Edwardian child’s imagination, and to complain that they were stereotypes is to miss the point.
But that Edwardian child got that imagination from somewhere. He didn’t just come up with it. And let’s face it, said Edwardian child was probably being fed with a heavy diet of “Aren’t non-Brits awfully savage and uncouth?”
Song of the South was still shown in US theaters as recently as 1982. It’s not racially insensitive – it just presents a wayyyy unrealistically rosy picture of race relations in the South.
If you want to see something that really hasn’t aged well, look at the excised scenes from the “Pastoral” portion of Fantasia
A Newsweek essay on the film’s interracial romance: 'The Princess and the Frog': Disney's Mixed Race Royalty
This is the studio that gave us Cool Running, which explained that Black people are funny in the snow. This could not be worse.
Black leaders? Uh oh, I hope nobody consulted Al Sharpton.
It also gave us The Incredibles, which explained that Black people kick ass in the snow when voiced by Samuel L. Jackson. Isn’t it possible they’ll get it right this time?
I checked out the comments. Several balked at the Randy Newman score; one suggested Quincy Jones as a better choice.
Wikipedia’ing revealed that Quincy Jones was born in Chicago & raised in Washington State. His amazingly versatile career includes discovering Leslie Gore; he wrote “It’s My Party.” But he has no NOLA links…
Randy Newman lived there very early in his life & visited throughout his childhood. He wrote Louisiana 1927 & has raised money for the city, post-Katrina. Given his long history of writing movie scores, I’m not worried.
I don’t go out for many movies, but this might be worth a trip. It will be interesting to read comments from people who have actually seen the film.
Quincy Jones may not have lived in Louisiana but maybe the commenter just meant that he was a better composer/producer than Randy Newman? I know whose music I’d rather listen to.
… I like Cool Runnings. It’s an incredibly stupid, stereotyped, predictable movie about Jamaican Bobsledders! How can you not love that?!
I saw the film, and didn’t think there was any trouble, beyond the stereotyping that is inevitable. There is always some kind stereotyping in movies because it serves quickly define a character in terms everyone understands. To get an idea, read the (4 last I checked) negative reviews at Rotten Tomatoes. They all disliked the film on the basis of race, rather than on its own merits, and seemed to have gone into the experience expecting to have a problem with it. One of the comments to those reviews remarked that some people can find racism in a glass of water. It isn’t a 100% authentic representation of Southern black culture, but what animated film is an authentic representation of anything?
Several reviews scoffed that Disney proudly proclaims their first African American princess, and then avoids the issue by making her a frog most of the time, somehow negating her race. However a central message of the film is that surface isn’t what matters, it is who you are, whether black or white, rich or poor, frog or human.
The main objections seems to be that Tiana isn’t black enough, but then maybe the real problem is she isn’t frog enough. I’ve never seen a frog as light green and she is far prettier than your average amphibian.
Take that all with a grain of salt. I can’t have a truly informed opinion about this because I am white, and in denial of the inherent racism that lurks deep within every white American’s soul.
Just a teensy bit of googling will find the loads of articles about the name change. The princess was originally to be named Maddy, before they changed it to Tiana (I think the Prince had a name change too). You can find lots of articles for and against each name, which I found hilarious.
And that’s really the issue with Peter Pan’s Indians. 1940s portrayals of a Edwardian child’s imagination of “Red Injuns” is not in line with late 20th century/early 21st century cultural sensitivity awareness.
Which really means people oughta lighten up.
We lament the loss of anything that reminds us of the past
yet
can’t possibly stand when it REALLY DOES represent the past.
Heck, but a Surgeon General warning on it I hope we look back at the whole Political Correctness era as overbearingly unnecessary.
Wasn’t that at least somewhat based on a true story? Or am I just hallucinating that whole Winter Olympics with the Jamaican Bobsled Team?
As an aside, I was recently reminded of E.T. Seaton’s Two Little Savages (a book I loved as a kid) which is a thinly veiled autobiographical account of an Edwardian schoolkid growing up with the usual childhood interest in Indians as an exotic other, and taking that interest … quite far.
[Seaton became founder of the “league of woodcraft indians”, which strongly influenced the Boy Scouts - though the latter, under the leadership of Baden-Powell, purged the “Indian” out of the organization]
Anyway, Seaton’s a fascinating character - a pivotal figure in the development of a concept of animal rights, intererested in early Feminism, in the rights of native north americans, a famous artist and naturalist, and of course an excellent writer - though his account of himself is often as much myth as reality, according to his biographer.
Of how many others can it be said that they caused a sensation among the artistic set in Paris (Seaton was arrested for suspicion of murder when setting up props for his masterpiece for the Academy, a picture involving wolves gnawing on a human corpse - the picture was rejected as “grotesque”) and, a few years later, was chased out of Texas for suspicion of cattle-stealing?
Anyway end of digression … 