The Princess and the Frog

I grew up on Disney and Barbie. In fact I had Disney princesses that had been made into Barbie dolls. So naturally I was uber excited for the release of the newest Disney princess, Tiana. In preparation for the movie, my friends and I visited the Lakeview Mall's Disney Store. As expected there was a huge display just for Tiana. My friends and I were enraptured! Walking around, looking at all the Tiana dolls, one particular doll caught my eye. This Tiana doll was pretty in all the right ways, except for one. This Tiana doll had lumpy, nappy, cotton-y hair. This irritated me, especially since the adjacent Snow White doll had nice, soft, velour hair. To me it was particularly distressing that Disney chose to make dolls with nappy hair. I was miffed because I don't have hair like that and I didn't think it was a fair representation. I then put back both dolls and left.

On the opening night of the movie, my friends and I were ready to see it. The movie was ok, (ok for a group of 19 year olds, magical for a child) I especially loved Prince Naveen, Mama Odie and Doctor Facilier. Doctor Facilier was a con artist, who used voodoo as his way to trick his patrons. Conversely, Mama Odie was a voodoo priestess, and was the "fairy godmother" of the film. I liked that the movie used the two interpretations of voodoo which is often controversial and viewed negatively. Aside from the ugly doll that Disney made, I was pleased that they finally chose to show a black princess AND in New Orleans.