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DISNEY'S 'FROG PRINCESS' STILL MAKING CHANGES: Studio's first African American lead animated character being tweaked.
*Disney has literally gone back to the drawing board to remove any aspect of its first African American princess movie that would be considered racist or riddled with black stereotypes.
When the studio first announced that its forthcoming movie "The Princess and the Frog: An American Fairy Tale" would have a black female lead named Maddy who works as a chambermaid, has a voodoo priestess fairy godmother and is pining for the heart of a white prince – critics immediately charged Disney with racial stereotyping.
The name Maddy was said to have sounded too much like "mammy," a stereotype of a black woman, depicted as rotund, homely, and matronly. Critics said Maddy was given a clichéd subservient role with echoes of slavery.
Bombarded by charges of racism, the film – set in 1920s New Orleans – scrapped its original storyboard, swapped the name Maddy for Tiana and changed its name to "The Frog Princess" (which some in France had interpreted as a slur).
In more recent changes, Tiana is now a 19-year-old princess who suddenly finds herself in a country that has never had a monarchy. Also, she's now slated to live "happily ever after" with a man said to be of Middle Eastern heritage and called Naveen. The race of the villain in the cartoon is reported to have also been revised.
Disney commented: "The story takes place in the charming elegance and grandeur of New Orleans' fabled French Quarter during the Jazz Age... Princess Tiana will be a heroine in the great tradition of Disney's rich animated fairy tale legacy, and all other characters and aspects of the story will be treated with the greatest respect and sensitivity."
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