As I may have mentioned before, Disney’s last dip into the exotic pool had me less than satisfied. Not only did Disney not give Tiana enough face time as a black woman, but I found the constant berating comments in respect to her career ambitions insulting. Apparently Tiana was dreaming about the wrong thing, instead of dreaming about prince charming coming to rescue her she was dreaming about self-sufficiency making her my favourite Disney Princess up until she decided to sacrifice it all for the spoilt, ungrateful Prince Naveen, who we are led to believe changes his ways through the love of a good woman. Considering that the last four Disney Princesses have all been the most rebellious, refusing to conform fully to dominant feminine expectations I suppose The Princess and the Frog was the nail in the coffin to burying the rebellion against feminine ideals. Each princess has been saved in her return to dominant ideals of femininity and falling in love. Now that Disney has acknowledged racial difference in the last four films it can, like the rest of the United States, make a fallacious appeal to colourblindness.At this point in Disney Princess film history Disney has managed to create nine princess stories, five of which have been white princess and the remaining four lumped together as racial other. The next Disney Princess film will be Rapunzel, set to be released nearing the end of this year bringing the grand total to six white princesses and four others. Capping off at ten Princesses, will Disney stop with this one? Has Disney finished its foray into the exotic racial other, only to return to the Grimm’s Brothers tale of a damsel in distress with long blonde hair that is stuck in a tower waiting for her prince? For the last almost twenty years Disney has on some level embraced the racial other. In doing so, they have played into many stereotypes and trivialized these cultures, but has that era ended for the Princess franchise?
(image courtesy of staronahill on deviantart.com)
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