a black disney princess

ITS ABOUT DAMN TIME

i recently went to go see the movie "up" with my little sister. who knew that id soon be watching a preview that would almost have me in frikken tears.

the movie is called "the princess and the frog" the princess' name, i believe [98% sure], is tiana. i was so happy to see this!! you dont know how many times growing up Ive seen all my friends got to dress up and be disney princesses, but who the hell was i ever going to be?? the closest black disney character ive ever related with [mostly not by choice b/c she was pretty much the only one] was esmeralda from the hintchback of notre dame [look her up]. she's cool, but unless you care about her you dont particularly know who she is... ANYWHO!

GO SEE THIS! its little things like this that make me feel a little bit better about our world...

the storyline is great if youve never heard of the princess and the frog. and the main character seems legit. they didnt make her "ghetto" or white-ified or anything...i dont know maybe its just me... but if you understand where im coming from please support this film! i dont even know when it comes out but im so excited!
first a black president and now a black disney princess. finally...finally.

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Permalink Reply by Darkness Unlimited* on October 7, 2009 at 9:46pm

Well it's Disney, so i can tell you it SUCKS. Everything Disney has ever done sucks. Plus, Walt Disney was a notorious anti-semite. Folks please, don't allow yourselves to be sucker`d by an "appeasing" Black-face Disney character. Yall are smarter than this! What kind ov GROWN folks watch any Disney shit, anyways?

fyi, Obama isn't Black, he's bi-racial.

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Permalink Reply by Madamoiselle De Sade on October 7, 2009 at 9:56pm

just Jeff said:

I'm sure a lot of white folks would not be too happy over the interracial love or whatever.
Also, it's a sad day in Black America if we're looking to Disney to help our self esteem.

Fuck white people. :p

The black people are the ones who got it nix'ed since we're the ones Disney is trying to not step on toes with. And tons of black people find the idea of a black girl choosing a white prince morally objectionable while getting with a white woman for a black man is still acceptable because it shows "status" and it's VERY common. Black women dating outside our race is VERY rare.

If the genders had been reversed you can bet the black focus group or whatever would not have had a problem with the interracial thing. White people may have but fuck them, they probably would have been told to fuck off.

Also, I don't buy into that whole "terrible message to send to black girls" stuff because like I said terrible messages are being sent to black boys every day and they aren't on that shit but they maddog the hell out of things when the genders are reversed.

I'm upset that this clearly black moaning over something not worth moaning over is what has potentially ruined a new moment for young black girls- in my day we all either chose Pocahontas or Jasmine for our "black" princess. Little girls are programmed on Disney and dolls, that's REALITY and we should totally have had this not ruined by people who find interracial love to be wrong.

AND

"Also, it's a sad day in Black America if we're looking to Disney to help our self esteem"

This is exactly WHY I have such a huge problem with that happened. Why is what's in a cartoon such a bad message?
It's the message the family send to the little girls that really count, not the cartoon so the whole thing is mute and pointless and should not have happened. Which is why I say we are our own worst enemy.

What a truly misguided decision.

Darkness Unlimited* said:

Well it's Disney, so i can tell you it SUCKS. Everything Disney has ever done sucks. Plus, Walt Disney was a notorious anti-semite. Folks please, don't allow yourselves to be sucker`d by an "appeasing" Black-face Disney character. Yall are smarter than this! What kind ov GROWN folks watch any Disney shit, anyways? fyi, Obama isn't Black, he's bi-racial.

Everyone's being generally negative Damos, so you can't say anyone is buying into anything. There's some really random and blind negativity at anything Disney going around.

And lots of grown people watch older Disney movies for the same reason a lot of grown people watch Charlie Chaplin shorts- the magic of art. Don't be so blind/narrow minded.

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Permalink Reply by Darkness Unlimited* on October 8, 2009 at 1:22pm

"Everyone's being generally negative Damos, so you can't say anyone is buying into anything. There's some really random and blind negativity at anything Disney going around."
Well i didn't read every single comment. But this thread's author was clearly blushing over this new Black-face, appeasing Disney character. My comments were moreorless a *warning to all ov you not to be fooled by something so nakedly condescending.

"And lots of grown people watch older Disney movies for the same reason a lot of grown people watch Charlie Chaplin shorts- the magic of art. Don't be so blind/narrow minded."
Well i was largely refering to cartoons, since that's what Disney has always specialized in. But as i've said before, ANY & ALL things Disney SUCKS! And think ov all the out-rageously racist cartoons Disney use to do - is THAT what you mean by "the magic ov art"?

And how many folks, grown or other-wise, you know who still watch Charlie Chaplin? Sooo old.

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Permalink Reply by Ghettopunkrocker on October 8, 2009 at 11:02pm

As a cartoonist, I have to say. I don't see the big deal. I saw the trailer and really it kind of reminds me of The Little Mermaid turned into cajun catfish. After looking more into it, I noticed it was same writers. The drawings look like regular Disney fair. I guess I would be more interested if this was directed by Ralph Bakshi, though. I guess the only interesting thing about Disney is the innuendos and dirty drawings that the animators like to sneak into the film.

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Permalink Reply by Ghettopunkrocker on October 8, 2009 at 11:03pm

Touche.

just Jeff said:

I'm sure a lot of white folks would not be too happy over the interracial love or whatever.

Also, it's a sad day in Black America if we're looking to Disney to help our self esteem.

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Permalink Reply by Darkness Unlimited* on October 9, 2009 at 10:41pm

"I saw the trailer and really it kind of reminds me of The Little Mermaid turned into cajun catfish."Riiiiight. B/c as we all know, regarding seafood Black people = cajun catfish. Whites never eat catfish. How racist!

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Permalink Reply by Ghettopunkrocker on October 9, 2009 at 11:42pm

Who said anything white people not eating cat fish?

Darkness Unlimited* said:

"I saw the trailer and really it kind of reminds me of The Little Mermaid turned into cajun catfish."Riiiiight. B/c as we all know, regarding seafood Black people = cajun catfish. Whites never eat catfish. How racist!

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Permalink Reply by Darkness Unlimited* on October 9, 2009 at 11:51pm

Ghettopunkrocker said:

Who said anything white people not eating cat fish?

Darkness Unlimited* said:
"I saw the trailer and really it kind of reminds me of The Little Mermaid turned into cajun catfish."Riiiiight. B/c as we all know, regarding seafood Black people = cajun catfish. Whites never eat catfish. How racist!

No, it was what you were implying.

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Permalink Reply by PurpleZoe on October 15, 2009 at 9:31pm

lol '@ did the hunchback even get some?'

It would be peace to see a Disney film featuring a black romance. You rarely see non-misogynistic black romances with happy endings nowadays (thanks mainstream media for the negative imagery... Thank God for indie media), but the reality is the current mainstream isn't set up to celebrate anything too-black, and black romance tends to fall in that category for some folks.

If I recall correctly, the 'What about our daughters blog' ranted about the first trailer. She felt she saw alot of racist symbolism there. Should show up if you Google it. It's Disney though. We'll see if this has layers of subtle racism, like alot of mainstream media, or if it's done with respect.

LesYpersound said:

MissE said:
Three points
I think the prince's name is Naveen and he's of Middle Eastern or Indian descent (I don't think it's been official announced what race he is), why does it matter what race he is and does it matter if she's a frog for most of the film? LesYpersound said:
the prince is white or really really light-skinned and straight-haired and she turns into a frog for probably most of the film.

cinematically, black people don't get together--esp if the powers that be don't want the movie to be deemed "for blacks only". because who the heck wants to see two black people get together in a Disney romance? :roll:
and it doesn't matter that she turns into a frog.

given the influence of Disney and the heavy handed metaphors it tends to rest upon having the first black princess end up with a non-black prince (i would've been satisfied w/ the guy being a really really lightskinned creole!) says a lot. the only other inter-"racial" princess and prince is what? Little Mermaid? and the mermaid is a redheaded white mermaid. lol. Ah... maybe the Gypsy and the Hunchback? did the Hunchback even get some?

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Permalink Reply by The L. is good for you on October 18, 2009 at 8:03pm

Black and White are not nationalities. They're the only two race-descriptors used as a color, everyone else is referred to as Asian-American, Latin, etc... Think about it. Black is a political construct. It applies to anyone with Black blood. Obama is black. He may not be fully African, but he is Black, just like anyone who isn't Anglo-Saxon, if you're going to accurately assign the Black and White label you've got to know what it's actually defining.
Technically Sicilian Italians aren't even White by Anglo-Saxon standards if you really want to go there, they have Moorish blood (Moors were Black-skinned seafarers who civilized Spain). If you're not going by formal standards you can add most Black Americans to the multi-racial header, as by your standards most Black folks nowadays couldn't be called Black (this includes some of our siblings in the Motherland who have Arab blood, and Euro blood, etc) The majority have white blood somewhere in the line.

Labels make for good separatism don't they? They certainly serve the intended Imperialist goal.

Darkness Unlimited* said:

Well it's Disney, so i can tell you it SUCKS. Everything Disney has ever done sucks. Plus, Walt Disney was a notorious anti-semite. Folks please, don't allow yourselves to be sucker`d by an "appeasing" Black-face Disney character. Yall are smarter than this! What kind ov GROWN folks watch any Disney shit, anyways?

fyi, Obama isn't Black, he's bi-racial.

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Permalink Reply by The L. is good for you on October 18, 2009 at 8:25pm

@Mlle d. Sade

I disagree that Black women dating outside of race is rare. I see it all the time. I know quite a few chics who've dated white men and birthed African & Euro babies without their families blinking. It's not uncommon by any stretch, at least not on the East Coast.
The first interracial relationships were with Black women and White men in this country, because Black men were killed even looking at a White women. That's a fact. There was no such thing as a mixed-black child with a white mother way back when. Not only the man but the daughter would have been severely punished by the father of the white woman.
Black men only avoided death dating white women moving towards the 70's...

You totally read into my comment about the first version of this movie.
My comment focused on the message of a black girl being 'saved' from being a white women's servant girl, by a white prince. See the distinction?
I'll elaborate, because I prefer discussions where my statements aren't warped.
You totally ignored the 'servant girl' position, and lunged at the interracial message, as if it was soley what my comment was about.
It wasn't. If you're going to approach me in the future at least approach me about what I actually say, or I'll probably ignore your future statements, because taking things out of context in a discussion group isn't necessary when you can have an actual convo of what's actually being said. If you can't handle a rational convo without being 'pissed off' as you put it, why have one?

A young black girl doesn't need to develop the idea that she can be saved from poverty by a great white prince. It's a bad message in a country that's far from post-racial. The movie has since been re-written, and now the main character is no longer a servant girl named Maddy, serving a spoiled white debutante as it was originally written.

I bolded to help make the distinction clear. I did not say a movie with a black and white woman dating is a bad message for black girls. I commented on the social message that escaping poverty through interracial dating is a bad message. There's a vast difference that I shouldn't even have to make clear here. You jumped the gun.

If you don't get how images and entertainment shape minds, there's no point in breaking it down further.
I'll gladly agree to disagree rather than have my words minced and taken into warped context by someone who seems to be interested soley in creating tension.

Your reactions are obviously about far more than what's being said in this group, as you seem to comment only on the threads where you can argue the stance of white women dating white men being rare, and deserving its time to shine. If you're responding to someone who is flat-out saying it's wrong to interracially date, than you're opposing argument isn't out of context. When you jump onto someone else's comment just so you can again introduce your campaign, it's wrong and unfair to people who are making a finer point that you totally ignore, or don't get.

I sincerely don't appreciate it.

Mlle d. Sade said:

just Jeff said:
I'm sure a lot of white folks would not be too happy over the interracial love or whatever.
Also, it's a sad day in Black America if we're looking to Disney to help our self esteem.

Fuck white people. :p

The black people are the ones who got it nix'ed since we're the ones Disney is trying to not step on toes with. And tons of black people find the idea of a black girl choosing a white prince morally objectionable while getting with a white woman for a black man is still acceptable because it shows "status" and it's VERY common. Black women dating outside our race is VERY rare.

If the genders had been reversed you can bet the black focus group or whatever would not have had a problem with the interracial thing. White people may have but fuck them, they probably would have been told to fuck off.

Also, I don't buy into that whole "terrible message to send to black girls" stuff because like I said terrible messages are being sent to black boys every day and they aren't on that shit but they maddog the hell out of things when the genders are reversed.

I'm upset that this clearly black moaning over something not worth moaning over is what has potentially ruined a new moment for young black girls- in my day we all either chose Pocahontas or Jasmine for our "black" princess. Little girls are programmed on Disney and dolls, that's REALITY and we should totally have had this not ruined by people who find interracial love to be wrong.

AND

"Also, it's a sad day in Black America if we're looking to Disney to help our self esteem"

This is exactly WHY I have such a huge problem with that happened. Why is what's in a cartoon such a bad message?
It's the message the family send to the little girls that really count, not the cartoon so the whole thing is mute and pointless and should not have happened. Which is why I say we are our own worst enemy.

What a truly misguided decision.

Darkness Unlimited* said:
Well it's Disney, so i can tell you it SUCKS. Everything Disney has ever done sucks. Plus, Walt Disney was a notorious anti-semite. Folks please, don't allow yourselves to be sucker`d by an "appeasing" Black-face Disney character. Yall are smarter than this! What kind ov GROWN folks watch any Disney shit, anyways? fyi, Obama isn't Black, he's bi-racial.

Everyone's being generally negative Damos, so you can't say anyone is buying into anything. There's some really random and blind negativity at anything Disney going around.

And lots of grown people watch older Disney movies for the same reason a lot of grown people watch Charlie Chaplin shorts- the magic of art. Don't be so blind/narrow minded.

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Permalink Reply by Madamoiselle De Sade on October 18, 2009 at 9:40pm

"There was no such thing as a mixed-black child with a white mother way back when. "

Tell that to Angelina Weld-Grimke. Her family was multi-racial but her mother was a white woman from the Midwest. This was in the late 1800s. Some interracial couples DID survive. But even then, I believe it was FAR less likely for a white man to even begin to find a black woman attractive. As it is now. White beauty is the mainstream occupation and I think it's easier for a black man to find a white woman attractive than it is for a white man to be attracted to a black woman.

There was a study posted here a while back about how asian men and black women are the least likely to date outside of their race and it was about how their own races see them play a part in it (Asian men are seen as not masculine enough by society and consequentially asian women. Black women are not seen as feminine enough-stop me if you heard this one- by society and consequentially by black men).

It doesn't matter what YOU percieve the message to be. There's nothing wrong with a black girl having a white prince just as there's nothing wrong with a black man having a white princess. That is my point and that- not the historical servant girl stuff, shall they rewrite history to satisfy sensitive bones?- is what this is about.

What campaign, that's my opinion. It's far more acceptable, TODAY, for a black man to be with a white woman than it is for a black woman to "turn her back on black men" and that is what is fueling this game of hot foot. You can't please people, sometimes. They should never have even tried to make a black Disney princess because people will complain no matter what.

I think that this day and age (not the day and age when it was illegal) can handle a black girl being rescued by a white prince. Oh wait, that's giving people too much credit. Everyone will see it as a poor commentary on black men when there have been literally thousands of poor commentaries on black women done by black men in media and no one sad a damn thing.