Disney unveils first Black Princess

[TeviH]

http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/Movies/03/15/disney.newprincess.ap/index.html

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AP) -- The Walt Disney Co. has started production on an animated musical fairy tale called "The Frog Princess," which will be set in New Orleans and feature the Walt Disney Studio's first black princess.

The company unveiled the plans at its annual shareholders' meeting in New Orleans...

[Zensho!]

Hmmmm. Interesting. Not sure what to feel about it. Indifferent? Wonder why this should be such a big deal? Hail Disney for it's progressive move and diligence to improve race relations?

Or finally arrive to the conclusion that it's probably nothing more than a new marketing strategy.

[AnimWatch]

You know, it shouldn't be an issue by now. The fact should have passed without notice.

But I can see why people are making such a big deal of it. Disney has been really slow to put black characters in their animated films. I can't think of a single black lead character. When black actors have appeared in the films, they've been cast as supporting characters, and most of the time, non-human in stories that also featured humans (Sebastian the crab from Little Mermad, Mushu the dragon in Mulan). The exception would be Ving Rhames character in Atlantis, but it was still a supporting role.

Even The Rescuers Down Under, where you have an aboriginal boy as the main character, he's a little blonde-headed white boy who could just as easily have stepped out of the American suburbs. From what I hear, designers pitched a black native aborigine character at one point, but the studio was afraid that the character wouldn't have as much appeal as the little blonde boy, so... poof!

So. I applaud Disney. Better late than never.

[TeviH]

Well, historically, Walt was known to be kind of racist. But then, I think most of America was way back then.

I also thought it should be no big deal, but maybe for Disney it is... I also think it odd that Pixar doesn't have many black characters, either, except for supporting roles, when at all.

Black characters:
Toy Story: none
Bugs Life: none
Toy Story 2: none
Monsters Inc.: none
Finding Nemo: none
The Incredibles: 1. Frozone (Sam Jackson)
Cars: none

8 movies and only one black character (and he's only the token side-kick)? I don't think you have to add in different races/religions just to be pc, but with all those characters and movies, you would think they purposely didn't...

:confused: