Gabble Sisters: a walking tour through Disney
Join sisters Megan and Bronwen on their Disney adventure, as each episode they let Mickey's sorcerer's hat decide which Walt Disney Animation Studios film will be the next stop on their walking tour. Each time they'll be discussing the history, psychology and music of the film, as well as their experience watching it as women.
Gabble Sisters: a walking tour through Disney
The Princess and the Frog
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In this episode we discuss the 49th Disney animated feature: The Princess and the Frog.
Follow us @gabblesisters on Instagram.
Email us at gabblesisterspodcast@gmail.com.
Warning: in this episode we touch on topics including racism and slavery.
Bibliography:
- The Princess and the Frog (2009) and Disney+ extras
- Song of the South (1946)
- The Frog Prince - Brothers Grimm (translated by Wanda Gág, 1936)
- The Frog Princess - E. D. Baker (2002)
- Frozen (2013) and our Frozen episode
- "Perfectionism and the Big Five: Conscientiousness predicts longitudinal increases in self-oriented perfectionism" - Stoeber et al., Personality and Individual Differences (2009)
- "Dispositional mindfulness mediates the relationship between conscientiousness and mental health-related issues in adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic" - Liu et al., Personality and Individual Differences (2002)
- "Conscientiousness predicts greater recovery from negative emotion" - Javaras et al., Emotion (2012)
- "How Black people created every music genre in America" - Vince Dixon (2021)
- "The Princess and the Frog: A Feminist Fairytale" - Rose, Feministing (2010)
- "Controversy Over 'The Princess and the Frog'" - Bobbi Misick, Essence (2010)
- Black Men Can't Jump [In Hollywood] podcast (2016 episode)
- Demystifying Disney: A History of Disney Feature Animation - Chris Pallant (2013)
Intro
MeganI think these frogs would have been much better with clothes. I think there's something disturbing about the fact that they are naked.
SPEAKER_04I think I'm not really frogs.
SPEAKER_01I think that Naveen's like thunderfies as a frog. Having those in clothes would just freak me out more. At least I know what I'm looking at. I'm all out there on the table. I know what I'm facing.
MeganWelcome to Gamble Sisters. Join us on our walking tour of every Disney animated feature, taking in the history, psychology, and music of a randomly selected film each episode. Think Goose. Forward March. Hello Megan. Hello Bronwyn. How are you? I am still warm. Yeah. The never-ending UK heat wave. To steal a phrase from Lottie. I'm sweating like a sinner in church. Yes.
BronwenI was gonna say that, but that has been me.
MeganYes. I've been sinner in church. It's just why why won't it end? So how have you been, Bromwin?
BronwenYeah, hot, hot, busy. Summer's always really busy. I don't know if you have this, but like every weekend there's something. Oh, yeah. Which is nice. Yeah. But at the same time, it's like weddings, graduations, people, life events. I know, I know how dare they have life events. So yeah, busy, busy. Have you done anything particularly Disney related since our last recording?
MeganWell, so something the listeners do not know yet is that I am looking for work at the moment. That um my previous job quite sadly ended. Um, because I came to the end of a fixed term contract, and the next thing that was supposed to happen did not work out, sadly. So I am looking for work and I'm keeping an open mind. And that something I did do was look at whether Disney wanted any data scientists.
BronwenMy goodness. Yeah, that would be crazy.
MeganIt would be so good. But alas, at the moment, they don't want any remote data scientists. That's the specific thing I'm after.
BronwenWell, keep looking.
MeganI will keep looking.
BronwenThat would be immense. Yeah, that would be so amazing.
MeganSo I've signed up for job alerts with them.
BronwenBrilliant. Yeah. I love that. I love that for you.
MeganYeah. Um so that's my Disney update. Please employ me, Disney. Or if anyone else wants a data scientist, then like let me know. In your house. Or a podcaster.
BronwenOr a podcaster.
MeganIf you want to pay me to do this. Yeah. How about you, Broman? What Disney related thing have you done this book? I've been thinking, and actually not much. Actually. I mean planning for the cruise.
BronwenI was gonna say I think the thing that we're doing right now is planning for our cruise next month, our first ever cruise. We've never cruised. No, and yeah, we're excited for that. It's come round so quickly. Yeah, it's less than a month away. It's less than a month away, so that's very exciting. But more than that, no, I haven't had a very Disney month. I won't I won't lie to you. Alas. Alas.
Our relationship with the film
BronwenToday we're talking about The Princess on the Frog.
MeganYes. So, first of all, shall we talk about our history with the film, Ronwin? Yes. So this is another one where it came out when we were I was 15 when this film came out. But we didn't see it together. So I don't know when you first saw it. Okay. Do you remember when you first saw this film? I do.
BronwenI know the exact date. Amazing! I first saw this film on the 9th of November 2023. I know it because I have it logged on my letterboxed account. Because I only watched this for the first time as part of our big Disney rewatch. Yeah. Because this film came out in 2009, I was 15 and I was not in my Disney era. I was in my Disney is for kids. Like everyone goes through this and then they come back. It's okay. So yeah, I only I've only seen it as an adult, and I've only seen it as a part of like my Disney study, effectively. So yeah, I don't have a long history of this film at all. I've seen it twice. I do not know this film very well at all. What about you?
MeganSo I think I had seen it before our big Disney watch through, but I am really struggling to pin that down. I don't know when or where that would have been. I do remember it coming out when we were in secondary school, which is interesting because I don't remember other films around this time coming out, and unfortunately I remember this one for a bad reason. Oh. Because I remember the whole conversation around it, like at school or whatever, being, oh, why does Disney need to make a black princess? Oof. That's terrible, isn't it?
BronwenOof, yeah, yeah. I do worry that if The Princess and the Frog that story had been about a white princess, if I would have gone and watched it. Now I can't run the simulation. I don't know if there was unconscious bias playing into that. I just don't know. All I know is I didn't go out of my way to watch it.
MeganIt's possible I would point to the fact that Tangled came out the next year. And I don't know about you, but I didn't see Tangled until a lot later.
BronwenI just wasn't in my if I think about the other films that came out around this time, so I think it was like Bolt.
MeganYes, I'd never heard of Bolt before we did all big watch. Yeah, Bolt.
BronwenI knew it existed, I didn't go and see it. What was on the other side of Princess and the Frog?
MeganWell, Tangled and then Winnie the Pooh.
BronwenSo I didn't see any of those. No, no, the only the one that I saw most contemporaneously was Tangled, and even then it was like yeah, about three years after it came out, maybe two and a half. But yeah, I I can't, I just want to acknowledge that. Like it has sat with me uncomfortably. Like there was a bit of because I love the Disney Renaissance films. This was always kind of presented as a return to the Disney Renaissance, and I didn't go and watch it, and there's a part of me that has to ask myself the question, like, what was the reason for that? But that's really interesting. So back in 2009, like that was a conversation that teenagers were having.
MeganThis is what I remember, yeah. And there's I hadn't thought about that until I was thinking about my memories of this film, and it is kind of truly troubling, especially because we went to quite a big state school that was also quite mixed in terms of race. And there's for me to remember people having that conversation, like, oh, why have they made such a big thing of having a black princess? Yeah, that's that's terrible.
BronwenIt just goes to show because I I genuinely think if you were to talk to teenagers about this now, like in 2026, I think they'd get it. I think they'd understand why this was important.
MeganYeah. I was going to say as well about our history with the film that of course we've been to Disney World and we have very much enjoyed the ride. Yes. Tiana's Bioadventure. Well, possibly me more than Bromwyn.
BronwenYeah, I just don't like drops. Yeah, I love that Splash Mountain is now Tiana's Bioadventure. So good. Can I just say on the podcast, guys, if you're going on that ride, please stay in the log.
MeganDid you see it happened a second time?
BronwenWhat? Yes.
MeganAgain, this may be fake news, but I saw a news story saying that there was like a copycat thing where someone else got out of life. What part of that looked fun? Just stay in your log. Yeah, stay in your log. Stay in your log, as in life. Just stay in your log, stay in your log.
BronwenThat's so stupid. I am really pleased, obviously, that it replaced the Song of the South theme. Uh, for listeners who are not as big a dis nerds as us, Splash Mountain was originally sort of themed around a very old Disney film that came out in the 40s called Song of the South. That film is, I've seen it, I've watched it, it is yikes. It is horrendously racist. Not in a in terms of the language that it uses or anything like that, but it's it's set in the Reconstruction era, and it kind of presents all of the black people as just so happy because they're not slaves anymore and their lives are great, and obviously that is just not true. And they're yeah, I don't really want to go further into it just because it's horrible. It should be clear that the ride itself is not racist, the ride itself is based in like so one of the characters is a storyteller and he tells stories about Briar Briar Rabbit. Is that right? Briar Rabbit? Bra'er Rabbit, thank you. Brayer Rabbit and his friends, yeah. And so all my little critters. Yes, critters, yeah. And the ride is about those critters, it's not about like the real life world in which Song of the South is taking place. So the ride itself was not overtly kind of racist at all, but obviously it was based on a film and at a time that's yeah, not so yeah, it's really good that Tiana has her bio, she has a restaurant, and they're all having a great time, and like that's what she deserves. She deserves nothing less, does Tiana?
MeganIt's really cool. I thought I'd mention at this point. I I always like to bring along a prop. She does, she does like a prop. This time I have brought along I think I know what this is, my beautiful purse. We'll post a picture of this that I bought in Disney World that has got Tiana on it. Yes, it's beautiful, it's really gorgeous. It's I think it must be based on that bit when um she's singing almost there because she's I love that bit. It's very much the 1920s art deco style.
BronwenThat is my favourite bit of the film. Yeah. It's the art deco in almost there. That bit is so cool. I'm with you. Yeah. That's my favourite bit. The other thing I'll say, whilst we're on the subject of like the parks, is the steamboat in the film really reminded me of the steamboat in the Magic Kingdom and in Disneyland.
MeganRIP to the one in Disneyland.
BronwenI know it's yeah, I'm so sad that the Steamboat is going. To me, that is just quintessential Magic Kingdom. Yeah. And the fact that they're replacing it with what is going to be cars, I I can't. I can't. But yes, I love the Steamboat because it reminds me of the Magic Kingdom.
MeganWell, I will be talking about Steamboats later on. Oh, okay. Just alluding to them and also other things that reminded me of the Magic Kingdom.
BronwenIt feels like a very Magic Kingdom coded film, this film. Yes. Like just the time as well, and think about things like Main Street and all of that. It felt very contemporaneous with that, didn't it? So I mean, is it time to talk about the history of this film?
MeganYes, I was just going to say one uh just uh just a really interesting fact, I think, is that this is the fifth film we're discussing, and it's the third princess film.
BronwenWow. It's also it's also the third Musk and Clemens film we've had.
MeganOh wow, yeah.
BronwenGreat mass detective Hercules and now this.
MeganYeah. So
Synopsis
Meganbefore we get on to the history, we need your haiku. My haiku! I thought I might see a sudden panic wash over your face, like I have not written one.
SPEAKER_01I have written a haiku.
BronwenOf course she did. Half an hour ago. I wrote it. It's not very good because I just want to point something out. Tiana and restaurant are all three syllables.
SPEAKER_04Yes.
MeganSo it's quite hard. I mean, Lottie sometimes shortens her name to Tia. So that's too late now. Too late. Too late. She can't edit it on the cuff.
BronwenNo, I'm afraid not. I'm not that good a poet. Okay, here we go. So Tiana's working so hard, then she is a frog. She gets her food place.
MeganYes.
SPEAKER_01Not my best. It's not my best.
MeganI'm just I'm just pausing it at the moment. I mean, I actually think if that were the story and that were it, it would be better. Controversial statement.
BronwenOh, okay. That is quite controversial.
MeganThere are elements of this story I do not like, but we will come back to that.
BronwenOkay, we'll get into that.
MeganSo I like what you have.
BronwenDo you like how I made restaurant food place to get it down to two syllables? So it's not a cafe. I was like, it could be cafe, but it's not a cafe. No, it's a palace. Palace! I'm sorry guys, this was not my best. No, it was good, it was good. Thank you. Oh man.
History
BronwenOkay.
MeganOkay.
BronwenSo, Megan, tell us a bit about the history surrounding this film.
MeganSo, yeah, to give you just a little heads up about what I'm going to talk about, I thought we'd talk about the original Frog Prince fairy tale. So we've been here before, another fairy tale. And then we'll talk about the modern day novel that this film is based on and the modern day production of this film. And then I thought I'd just talk a little bit about 1910s and 1920s New Orleans. Yes, because New Orleans is so important to this film, it's kind of a character of itself. And there's a lot of very important context there, particularly when we're thinking about race. Yes. Yeah. So let's start with the fairy tale. So we are going back to the Brothers Grimm again. Oh, okay. We're back to Brothers Grimm. Like we were with Snow White. So The Frog Prince was written around 1812. Now, do you know or remember the story of The Frog Prince? So it's about Prince.
BronwenHe's turned into a frog. And then he needs to be kissed by a girl to go become a human again.
MeganYeah, I mean, that is that's the story that we're presented with at the beginning of this film, aren't we? When Tiana's mum is reading it from the book. Um, so that is a version of the story. I went back and looked at the brother's grim version and I recognised it. Again, I think our grandpa might have read it to us.
BronwenYou have so much better memory for that than me. I don't remember any of that.
MeganI'm older. So, okay, so I'll briefly tell you the brother's grim version of the story. So you've got this little princess who's sitting by a well and she's playing with her golden ball. Do you remember that? No. No, no. No, that was sort of the element that I remembered. Okay. One day she dropped it in the well. And uh, a frog comes up and offers to fetch it for her. If the princess will then take him as a play fellow and uh let him sit beside her at meals and share her bed. That's weird. Yeah. That's quite weird.
BronwenUh she agrees. Okay, I feel like there should have been an adult, a responsible adult help, you know, supporting this decision making, but okay, fine.
MeganSo the frog fetches her ball, gives it back to her, and then the princess skips away. She's not going to honour her promise. Uh so she goes back to the castle, and uh, the frog comes to the castle, and uh the uh princess's dad, the king, the frog explains the situation to him, and the king makes the princess keep her promise. So she very reluctantly obeys, and the frog shares her dinner, and then he sleeps at her feet. And then the next night he comes back, and the same thing happens, and then on the third night he comes back, shares her meal, and then he sleeps under her pillow, and the princess cries herself to sleep, and I thought you would relate to that if you had to sleep with a frog under your pillow. I feel like you would cry yourself to sleep. I would cry. Why wouldn't you squish it? It does seem a weird fact. Under her pillow, like not like on her pillow, under.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Okay, it's really creepy. Why does he want to sleep in a bed with a with a a child? Like it's weird.
MeganWell, we don't well, at this point you don't know how old frog five is. Okay. So the next morning he hops down and he turns into a young prince. He's also a child. Okay, so at least it's age appropriate. It's still weird, but and that he had been bewitched into a frog, and that now the spell has been broken. And then it ends with this thing, this sentence which I just thought was quite funny, that said, For years they were the best of friends and happiest of playmates, and it is not hard to guess, I'm sure, that when they were grown up, they were married and lived happily ever after. Obviously. Obviously, I'm sure you guessed that.
BronwenObviously. Very romantic. I I've I, for one, fall in love with every frog that then turns into a man.
unknownYeah.
BronwenI'm not there, wouldn't be there thinking I know what you look like as a frog.
MeganOh man. Other versions of the story, I think that's a sort of quite sanitized version of the original Brothers Grimm, because other versions, and like we talked about with Snow White, uh, the Brothers Grimm changed their versions of the story, and then people changed it in translation, etc. Um, another version of the story, which perhaps you would understand a bit more, has her throwing him against a wall. Yes, and then he turns back into a princess.
BronwenYes. I feel like we haven't actually introduced the audience to the idea that I really don't like frogs. This is gonna be important in this conversation. To be absolutely clear, actually, my in real life, I don't mind frogs. Like if we if you if I see one, not that you often see them out, or if you see them at the night at the zoo, like our local zoo has like a frog bit. Oh, I've little issues. Yeah, yeah. It's when they're animated, or like they're either animated or they're like a an illustrated version, particularly if they're wearing clothes. If and this goes for toads as well, frogs, toads that are animated, and particularly if they're wearing clothes, I I find them really creepy, really creepy. So if I'm imagining when you read like a fairy story or something like that, I imagine it sort of like in an illustrated world. So it's an illustrated frog, so yeah, I can relate to like flacking it against a wall.
SPEAKER_01I want to be very clear in case I wish no ill will on any frog that's currently out in the world, but in the internal illustrated world, I want them nowhere near me.
MeganBut yeah, just to finish off the thing about the fairy tale, like with Snow White, you'll notice there's no kiss in that original story. Oh, okay, yes. Um, but it wasn't Disney that introduced the kiss. That was introduced relatively early on in the tellings of this story. It was once it had been translated into English, there were versions that introduced the kiss. So, then we come on to the 2002 novel The Frog Princess, which is what this film is based on. Right, okay. So uh The Frog Princess is a children's book by E.D. Baker, who is an American author, and it was obviously popular enough because it has uh eight sequels stories.
BronwenNothing needs eight sequels. Wow, okay, fine.
MeganAnd there's uh so it's from the point of view of a princess who lives near a swamp. She comes across, I would say, he's a very annoying and talking frog, and he asks her for a kiss to turn him back into a prince after he's been cursed by a witch because he insulted her fashion sense. That's very 2002.
BronwenThat is very that's very 2002.
MeganHa ha ha, cheeky little prince frog. The princess agrees. So so far, so similar. But then she turns into a frog instead when she kisses him. So that's the element that it's got in common with the princess and the frog. And it turns out that she was turned into a frog because she was wearing a spell reversal bracelet. So she eventually then has to kiss him again with the bracelet on to turn them both back human again. Yeah. And again, there's this like romance element and blah blah. But yeah, the main point is that this story introduces that flip of the girl changing into a frog as well. And there's at least there is a logic behind that, because I have a question about the princess and the frog plot, which is why does Tiana turn into a frog?
BronwenI don't know, it doesn't explain that, does it?
MeganNo. I mean, we can probably just go mergic or something. Yeah, but it it doesn't address it, whereas at least this book has a logic to it. So that's the frog princess. So if we then come on to the making of this film, production began in 2006 and it was a bit of a surprise return to the animation, given that Disney had previously. Announced that 2004's Home on the Range, one of our favourite films of all time.
BronwenIt's not the worst Disney film.
MeganIt's down there, but it's not. Yeah. Well, they'd announced that that was going to be their last 2D animation. That was Michael Eisner's decision. Yeah.
BronwenObvious it was Michael Eisner.
MeganBut then everything was sort of everything got a little bit churned up when Disney acquired Pixar in 2006. And they brought in John Lassiter as chief creative officer of both Pixar and Disney. And he was instrumental in reversing that decision about no more 2D animation. And many animators were rehired, having previously been fired. An Ed Lassiter also brought back Ron Clements and John Musker, who we've talked about before with Basil the Great Master Detective, and he let them choose what animation style they wanted to make a film in. So they chose 2D, and they were most inspired by the style of Lady and the Tramp. Yes, I read so much. And you can see that actually. Yes.
BronwenJames walked in just as I was starting this, and he kind of made a point of saying he really liked the animation on like the light, like the electric light. And when I'd read, I very briefly read that yeah, they were inspired by Lady and the Tramp, and it made me think of that comment here. They put a lot of thought into like the exterior, because you get a lot of that in the Lady and the Tramp. Like they really set the scene. Very different kind of America, but both distinctly America. Yeah, absolutely.
MeganYeah. And apparently they're most inspired by Bambi for the bio scenes, which I can see less.
BronwenI can see that less. Because I was going to talk to you about the bio. I don't know if this is the right time, because obviously there's another film in the Disney canon that's sort of set in a similar environment. Oh. The Rescuers. Oh, sure, yeah, of course. Now, you and I, when we get to talking about the rescuers, we're gonna have not a disagreement because I know you don't hate the film, but like you don't. I love the rescuers. I love it. And one of the reasons you don't like it is because it looks, quote, grubby.
MeganIt does look grubby.
SPEAKER_04It's so grubby and so smoky and so I'm assuming that this bayou is less grubby to you.
MeganIt's less grubby, but I also don't like it.
SPEAKER_04Do you not? No.
MeganI love all of the city stuff. Yeah. And I think the colour palettes in particular are lovely and gorgeous animation. Then when we get to the bayou, I don't like the colour palette anymore. I think there's a swampy green, which I do not enjoy. It's a sort of ill green. And I don't want it. Okay. So that's how I feel about the bayou.
SPEAKER_01Megan's doesn't like bayoues, apparently.
MeganI'm really um very prejudiced against bayoues. Okay. Right, yes, where were we? Oh yeah, so this is a weird fact. Both Disney and Pixar, before Disney acquired Pixar, had been working on projects based around the Frog Prince story. Really? That's really odd, isn't it? That is odd. I can't see it in Pixar. Like, no disrespect to Pixar, but. I mean, Pixar had a particularly interesting idea for it. So it was Disney that was already working on the Frog Princess story, so this book by E.D. Baker. They'd acquired the rights to it in 2003. But Pixar were working on a Frog Prince story set in Gangster era Chicago. I can't see it. No, I guess you kind of see the connective tissue between that and the film that we get, I suppose. Because it's a similar era, but they've translated it to New Orleans instead of Chicago, but yeah. Okay. Curious. So that they'd both separately been having these ideas and they kind of got merged. So Muscle and Clements particularly wanted an American fairy tale because they felt that everything that had gone before from Disney w had a kind of European. Yeah, Germanic sort of. Yeah. So they wanted they wanted an American fairy tale. And they stated that they chose New Orleans for its magical qualities. And because it was John Lastor's favourite city. So they were sucking up to the boss.
BronwenOkay, yeah. And they got to I imagine they got to go on trips. I was about to New Orleans. Yes.
MeganWell they only they only went to Louisiana for ten days before production started. Which doesn't really seem that much, actually. No, it doesn't seem that much. No. So the project was originally announced as The Frog Princess. And early concepts drew criticism for various things. Yeah, I've looked at some of this, yeah. Including the name of the film. It was suggested that that might be a slur on French people. Yeah. And there's a lot of French history in New Orleans. We'll talk about it. Oh, I didn't know that. Okay. Yeah, so lots of um French-influenced culture. So I guess that's the leap that's being made there. That is particularly offensive to people from New Orleans, potentially. Uh but there were other things as well. So the name of the heroine was originally Maddy, which people pointed out was rather similar to Mammy. Yes. Which is a derogatory term for a black woman who works domestically in a white household, particularly as a nanny. Yeah. So they changed the name to Tiana.
BronwenI also read as well that they felt that the name Maddy, just a black woman at that time, just wouldn't be called Maddy.
MeganAh, okay.
BronwenSo those are there were two. I read those two. Yeah, oh that's interesting.
MeganYeah, okay. Tiana is not a name that I have come across anywhere else. No, actually. It's a lovely name. Yeah. Yeah. So I wonder where they drew that from. Didn't I? Yeah. And originally Tiana's occupation was as a chambermaid. Yes. I don't want to get into the complexities of this yet. Interesting decision because a chambermaid was potentially a more realistic depiction of the sort of role that she would have played.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
MeganBut not very aspirational for a modern day audience for her to be a chambermaid, so they changed her uh to be a waitress. After they'd had all of that, they brought in Oprah Winfrey as a consultant for the film, which led to her taking on the part of Tiana's mother. Now I didn't realise until I was doing the reading of this that it was Oprah.
SPEAKER_01I didn't know it was Oprah.
MeganShe's probably really obvious to some people, but and then it did okay at the box office, but not as well as they were hoping. And then I think part of that has been put down to the fact that Avatar came out the next week, which was like the biggest film ever.
BronwenLiterally, that was the biggest film that had ever come out at that point, wasn't it? And I think it's only been replaced by Avatar 2.
MeganYeah, yeah. I mean, yeah. But Disney also speculated that it was to do with the name, the Princess and the Frog, that people latched onto the princess part and thought, oh, this is just a film for little girls. Yeah. So some people have said, oh, this is why they changed the name of Rapunzel to be Tangled and the Snow Queen to be Frozen. These things that are slightly more abstract and not clearly calling to a particular demographic. Yes.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
MeganWhich is interesting in itself. Okay, so then finally, let's talk a little bit about 1910s and 1920s New Orleans. So I thought I'd give you a very potted history of New Orleans. Please. Short, but I think it's important context. So it was founded by the French in the early 18th century, and it became the capital of French Louisiana. Very shortly after that, enslaved Africans were brought to the city. Yeah. It ends up being ruled by Spain for about 40 years. So we've already got this big mix of French, Spanish, and African. And Spanish racial rules actually allowed for a recognised class of free people of colour. Right. Louisiana then was briefly returned to France at the turn of the 19th century before it was then sold to the United States. So it's got this very complicated multinational background. Yeah, exactly. So in the 19th century, these tensions were growing between the French, Spanish, and Creole residents and the incoming Americans. So in the early 19th century, it became one of the wealthiest and largest cities in the US. It was a major port that was shipping cotton, sugar, and other goods. And steamboats in particular accelerated trade along the Mississippi River. So steamboats are important. Slavery was very central, thousands of slaves were sold in New Orleans markets. And at the same time, there was a substantial free black and creole of colour community that was developing in New Orleans with its own institutions and property holding and cultural life. And then after the Civil War, emancipation briefly expanded black political participation, but by the turn of the 20th century, white rule had been restored, and as the government was starting to codify a racial hierarchy. So this is what gets us to the 1910s and 1920s. So the film takes place, the first bit of it is in 1912. We see that from a newspaper, and then when Tiana's an adult, it's 1926, which again we see on the front of a newspaper. And this was really not a good time to be a black person in New Orleans. So interesting decision from the outset. Just to outline that a little bit more. By 1900, New Orleans had shifted from this earlier, more fluid racial order with a significant free pre-ol of colour population to a much more rigid black and white binary that was enforced by Jim Crow laws. Louisiana had this constitution of 1898, which effectively disenfranchised most black voters through things like poll taxes and literacy tests. So even after you have the 19th Amendment in 1920, which allows women to vote, most black women in New Orleans still couldn't effectively vote. You've also got a lot of segregation going on, so streetcar segregation was introduced in 1902. You've also got school segregation and housing covenants, and as just all of these everyday customs of racial segregation, which were structuring public life. For black people, wages were low, the job security was minimal, and as domestic workers, so particularly black women, were especially vulnerable to exploitation and abuse, and that had little legal recourse. The point of setting all that up is that this is the historical context that we see in the film, and as we see some of that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
MeganI think they make some curious decisions about what they portray and what they don't portray. I think there's a pretty uncomfortable scene where Tiana and her mother are riding the streetcar, and as there was streetcar segregation, they wouldn't have been able to ride it with white people. And you see all these mansions going past, and then suddenly it changes to all of these shacks going past. Yes, yes. And it's kind of it's a very effective visual, but also really uncomfortable because it's pointing out that huge disparity in wealth. Yes. I want I want to talk later on about decisions they made in terms of presenting race, but just to point that out at this point. Another thing is that Charlotte and Naveen couldn't have married at this time because interracial marriages weren't legal. But something we do see in the film that was true is that there was a very strong black culture and identity. And I I think we do see some of that. And I mean, surely part of the reason for that strong culture and identity was part of their resistance to this oppression. So there were very strong churches and societies and businesses that anchored these black communities, and uh the unique musical culture, which I'm sure we'll talk about later on with the music in this film. So the the jazz, the brass bands, and the French Creole dance music, which was a precursor to Zydeco, all of that emerged from these black communities in New Orleans. So very, very strong distinctive identity. Yeah. So I just wanted to set up that sort of this very complicated and multicultural history we have in New Orleans, which is the background of this film, and I think they try and capture later on. I would like to go into more depth because I think this then meets with the depiction of women, because I would really like to talk about the intersectionality of Tiana's gender and her race. But hopefully, I've just set up a bit of background for that. And I think what we see, just to wrap up this whole history section, is that we see there are some quite disparate elements that are coming into this film. So the original Frog Prince story and then the frog princess novels, um, they are very much not black stories. No, they're not, no. And then they are meeting this idea of New Orleans and the first Black Disney princess. And so a bit like New Orleans itself, you've got this massive melting pot of ideas and cultures, and I think potentially it doesn't work as well in this film as it does in the very distinctive culture of New Orleans, which loads of people love. Yeah, yeah. I'm not sure how well it comes across in this film.
BronwenCan I just add just because these a few things came up in my in my stuff looking at race that came up that I think, like you say, would are quite might help with the setting up of things. So I think another thing that I was read I read a bit about is Louisiana voodoo. Ah, yes. Because that is obviously quite important for the film and the depiction of it has been critiqued. Because it's a very real religion. It's a very real religion, and it's it's what is dis it's an African diasporic religion, which basically means it was developed by people who have ancestry in Africa but outside Africa. So it existed in Louisiana and and in the broader Mississippi River Valley between the 18th and early 20th centuries. So very much this the film is showing the end period of Louisiana voodoo being a common religion in the area.
MeganJust on that point, um, I think the film confuses voodoo and voodoo, doesn't it?
BronwenI don't know that much, but yeah.
MeganBecause I think it's just kind of convenient for them that they rhyme, but they're actually different things and they're used interchangeably in this film. Um and they also they just have the shadow man seems to have lots of elements of different religions, like he uses tarot cards as well.
BronwenHe's he makes me feel quite uncomfortable. The only other thing I was gonna say on this kind of just the on the tiny bit of history that I looked at was did you read about Leah Chase? Why does that name ring a bell? So John Lassiter talked about how Tiana herself was inspired by restaurantea Leah Chase, also known as the Queen of Creole cuisine, and she was a big advocate for African American art and Creole cooking. So her restaurant, Duke Chase, was opened by her and her husband. In the 60s, it became a gathering place uh for people participating in the civil rights movement, and it was also known as a gallery of African American art because they had loads there. In 2018, it was named one of the 40 most important restaurants of the past 40 years by Food and Wine magazine. Sounds like something they would know because I think one of the things that is important here is that because we have so much kind of like falsification of history, I think even though it's really important that we know that this restaurant did not exist at the time that this film is this was not happening during Jim Crow. Yeah, what you said about being aspirational, that Tiana being something, somebody with sort of you know, her meant to be representing sort of aspirational dreams, I think that that's really important. And I think it's good that they had just they at least try to make her somewhat realistic, even if not completely, because like I don't think that Leah would have been able to do what she did at the same at the time that Tiana was doing, but yes, there's a little bit of truth.
MeganYeah, yeah. That's a good additions, thank
Psychology
Meganyou.
BronwenSo I can talk a little bit about like I say, I I I'll talk a bit about some of the sort of the psychological aspects that I picked up again with Tiana. I'm gonna talk a lot about Tiana. Um, I will say that a lot I did spend quite a lot of time, like I said earlier, thinking about sort of the racial components of this because that felt more important in this film. And like I say, actually, if we go outside of Tiana, there's not a huge amount to discuss really, I don't think, in terms of psychology. In terms of sort of something to really get your teeth into, I don't think, outside of like I say, that this for me watching this film, most of what I want to talk about is stuff that's all related to race. A lot of the stuff I have to say about music is related to culture and race. So I was inspired by myself. Oh wow. I was inspired by myself and what we talked about last time when we went into thinking about the big five aspects of personality, and we were talking about them in quite general terms. And for me, I think that Tiana has, if we think about her from a big five perspective, one of the ones that seems key is conscientiousness. Um definitely. So just just to remind everybody, in case you haven't listened to our frozen episode, and if you haven't, why haven't you? Pause this and go back. The big five are the most successfully repeated personality traits that are shown in humans across time and across place. And one of those big five is conscientiousness, that is looking at competence, striving for achievement, orderliness, self-control, and deliberation. And I think that Tiana really shows that she's she's someone who kind of feels very keenly that like this is something that she really wants to do. She really wants to open a restaurant, she really wants to do that, and she works very hard. She knows she has a plan as to how she's going to do it. She's very, you know, self-controlled, like her friends are there having a good time, and she's just working because she wants money to be able to buy the or put the down payment on the uh restaurant.
MeganShe doesn't sleep, she doesn't sleep, she works so many jobs, she just goes home, yeah, has to put on the uniform for the next one.
BronwenYeah. And to me as well, she comes across to me as quite a perfectionist. She wants to do many things well. So when she can't get the the specific restaurant that she wants, that's really difficult for her. And the idea of not getting that is quite big in her mind. So I wanted to look at what's the relationship between conscientiousness and perfection. Is there a relationship? So the first paper I looked at is by Stober et al. 2009 looking at this relationship. Oh, so same year this film came up. Yes, same year this film came out. They they obviously saw Tiana and thought, yeah, we want to look into this. So Stober et al. start by saying that there are numerous studies that show the relationship between conscientiousness, so that's the idea of being competent and striving, being orderly, and self-oriented perfectionism, i.e., wanting to do well for yourself. And they also show that there's a link between neuroticism, which is more of that personality trait that's to do with being highly strung, a relationship with stress, that sort of thing, and socially prescribed perfectionism, i.e., I want to do well so other people will like me, other people will respect me, I will fit in with other people. Does that I'm like does that make sense, the the difference between those two things?
MeganTwo two relationships of two things.
BronwenYeah, so the relationship between uh conscientiousness and self-oriented perfectionism, which is I'm going to strive for myself and neuroticism and socially prescribed perfectionism, which is I feel I have to do this for other people, basically. The question is whether that conscientiousness and neuroticism also predict longitudinal changes in self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism. Stay with me because I'm going to make a really interesting point at the end. I'm with you. I'm with you. They took a sample of 214 adolescents aged 14 to 19. A lot of social psychology personality research is done with adolescents, which I think is a bit strange because they're still like they're developing. Well, yeah, which I yeah, so take that as a limitation. And they're all from Eastern Germany, so again, you've got a very, very specific cultural set of people. And they completed some measures on big five personality traits and perfectionism twice over a period of either five or eight months. And again, that's not very long because they want to they're looking at whether those big five personality traits can predict what your perfectionism will look like over time. What they found is conscientiousness predicted longitudinal increases in self-oriented perfectionism. So to put that in the case of this film, we would predict that because Tiana's very conscientious, that means that she's very self-oriented in her perfectionism, i.e., she wants to get her restaurant because she wants it for her, because she thinks this is that's the right thing to do. She wants to work hard because it's the right thing to do for her, and she achieves that in the end. It stays with her. Neuroticism, however, does not predict any longitudinal increases in perfectionism, either self-oriented or socially prescribed. So we're gonna go back to what we were saying about Elsa. Oh, yeah. So Elsa, I think she's scoring quite high on neuroticism, right? Very anxious, easily stressed. At the end, if we think about where she ends up, she initially is we can see that socially prescribed perfectionism. Conceal, don't feel, don't let them know, just be the good girl we're always supposed to be. Yeah, she's doing that, but in the end, she lets it, she lets it go. Yeah I was gonna say that anyway. I was gonna say she lets it go. That was a complete pun that I did not intend. She lets it go and she just then decides that actually I there are other ways of doing life and love will save me.
SPEAKER_01What whatever it is that Frozen says at the end, who knows?
BronwenSo she doesn't end up doing what everyone else wants. So I think that this the the two films we put it together, they kind of show the impact of so Tiana is conscientious, so her perfectionism is around wanting to do things well for herself, yeah, and like she and then that helps her achieve those things. Whereas Elsa's neuroticism, yeah, um, meaning that she just wants to do things so that she doesn't upset other people, actually doesn't end up doing keeping on going with those things to be perfect. I hope that makes sense.
MeganYeah, it makes a lot of sense.
BronwenSo that these findings suggest that conscientiousness is a trait that plays a role in the development of self-oriented perfectionism. Now, the th the reason I wanted to look at perfectionism is I was quite worried about Tiana's like general mental health. Like not in the film. I think she's fine in the film, but I worried about like you know, she's a striver. And I just in in my my role and my job, I see strivers become very stressed and depressed and experiencing like a burnout. So I wanted to see whether there actually there's a link between any both those types of perfectionism, self-oriented, doing it kind of for yourself, and socially prescribed doing it for other people. See if there actually is a link between perfectionism and like struggling with mental health. And I was really surprised to find that there's not. Um Liu et al. I apologize if I've said your name wrong, uh they wrote a paper and they did some again some surveys of adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic. So a time that was very stressful for all of us and for young people, obviously. And they found that conscientiousness, so adolescents who scored higher on conscientiousness, that was negatively associated with anxiety, depression, and perceived stress. So basically, the more conscientious you were, the less likely you were to be anxious, depressed, or stressed.
MeganInteresting.
BronwenYes, okay, yes. Another paper that's a little bit older, Javara Zet al, in 2012, they wrote a paper for the journal Emotion. It's just called Emotion. And uh they found a Disney film title.
MeganYeah.
BronwenOh no, they went with Inside Out. They went with Inside Out. So they looked at middle-aged adults. Now I want to complain and say middle-aged started at 35.
SPEAKER_06Oh yes.
BronwenOh, that's quite exciting.
MeganAlmost there.
BronwenAlmost there. Not quite. And they found that the measure of conscientiousness and self-control as well, so self-control is very linked with conscientiousness, predicted greater recovery from, but not reactivity to, negative emotional stimuli. So basically the same thing again. That it's so the same thing in adult brains rather than adolescent brains, we see the same thing. So all of this suggests that actually Tiana is less likely to have poor mental health than others, such as Elsa, for example, who is less conscientious and more neurotic, in my view. No offense, Elsa, sorry. So yeah, I feel like that's a good thing. That's pretty interesting.
MeganCan I chime in?
BronwenYeah, please do.
MeganUm that I feel that runs contrary to I think what the film is trying to tell us, particularly through Mama Odie. Yes, who sings a very confusing song. Very confusing, called Digging a Little Deeper, which like I had only ever thought about on a surface level before, and I thought it was about working harder. It's actually about the opposite. Yes. It's about kind of working out who you are, and uh letting that decide what you do. So it's much more obvious with Naveen that she very explicitly says to him, You want more money, but you had money, and that didn't make you happy, but love will make you happy. Whereas with Tiana, she's like, You're you're just a tough nut to crack. You you work too hard. Yes. You need to work out who you are. Yeah. I don't know what it is that you want or what you need, but you need to work it out. And so it feels like the film is saying that Tiana works too hard. Yes. And that like she needs to be conscientious.
BronwenAnd here's the thing, I I agree with that, which is why I found that research so confusing. Like at every stage, when I was like, okay, let's look at conscientiousness and perfectionism, and it basically was saying that this isn't isn't a bad thing because conscientious people are perfectionistic for themselves, and that doesn't have an impact on their mental health. And I was very confused by that because yeah, my my sense was that the film is trying to say that Tiana is has pushed away the idea of wishing so much that you can't just wish for things, you can't just hope they happen, that you have to actually make it happen, and then you have to spend your whole life doing that. That the film is sort of saying, Yeah, okay, just wishing is a problem, but also working too hard is a problem. I actually agree with that, I think. But what the research is saying is that perfectionism isn't necessarily a problem in and of itself, it's more related to where it's coming from. So if it's socially prescribed and is coming from a much more anxious place in the first place, yeah. If that makes sense.
MeganYes, uh, yes, that just made me think that nuance made me think about this thing again that you see on social media a lot. Like we talked about how you see like big sister syndrome on social media a lot.
BronwenI haven't actually been contacted by any big sister to rage at me, so I'm really pleased about it. So I thought I might get hay.
MeganBut just like that, you see a lot on social media about people who were gifted at school. Yes. And now have all sorts of mental health problems. Yes. There seems to be a pattern that is observed a lot on social media that'll be like, oh, tell me you were a gifted pupil without telling me, sort of thing. And it's all people who are having mental breakdowns because they were like an A-star pupil and now life is harder.
BronwenWhereas, yeah, it's it's so much more nuanced than that. Because really, if you're a perfectionist, what I hadn't really thought about before looking at this research is it really does depend where that perfectionism comes from. Yes. Is it for uh for yourself or is it for others? Yes. Because if you could do it for yourself, because basically what that would mean is if you're doing it for yourself, assuming that you have a fairly good relationship with yourself, when you fail, it's okay.
MeganYeah.
BronwenWhereas when somebody who is, for example, trying to strive at school or at work, whatever it is, to, for example, to feel loved and respected by their parents or to feel like their manager respects them. Then when you fail, it's this big external no one loves me, no one likes me. So it kind of depends where that's coming from. And so I think with Tiana, what's keeping her safe? It doesn't mean that she never gets sad, but I think what the research is saying is keeping her safe is that that motivation was instilled in her by her father, but she's doing it for herself.
MeganYes, yes, it's clearly a very genuine personal desire to have the restaurants.
BronwenYes. So based on that, again, this is where it things are a bit different compared to Frozen, because in Frozen, I did feel that the message was confused and it didn't make sense from like a mental health perspective, in that you know, you Elsa isn't actually free. You know, this whole thing when she's like let it go, that I went on a big rant about it. She's not actually free, she's just using a safety behaviour. We're talking about someone who is presenting us someone who's not mentally well. That's what I'm thinking. Elsa is. I don't think Tiana is. I think Tiana has seems to have be very robust. Yeah, she has a really good support network, she seems to have good self-esteem. Yeah. So definitely in this case, I would say there's actually nothing wrong with her striving, which makes less sense to me because I'm like, well, I'm worried about her down the road, but apparently the research tells me I don't have to. But yeah, it does make the actual message of the film a bit more confusing. Because at the same time, I sort of agree a bit with there is more to life than working. I'm a great believer in that. I think work is can be a great place for you to get a sense of value and purpose and structure to your life, but at the same time, you need to have more than just work. So I think I've all I've done is confuse myself. I still think Tiana's great, and I know that you love Tiana.
MeganYes, absolutely. Uh again, there's a lot, there's a lot I'm thinking about the depiction of women that ties into this. Yes. So, but no, it's good to have the psychological setup for that. Um, because it's maybe challenging a few things that I had thought. Yeah, same,
Music
Megansame. Bronwyn, would you like to get us started on the music? Because I think you've done quite a lot of research.
BronwenI've done some, yes. This film represented a return to a Broadway musical style format of music that was typically used in the Disney Renaissance. So the film that it's probably we've done so far that they wanted to connect this to was like Hercules, for example.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I'm not really sure I think it meets the Disney Renaissance standard in this. Oh no.
MeganNo, if we're just starting out with our personal feelings about the music, I would say I like it, but I don't love it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
MeganUm, like I think in particular, I think all the songs are really catchy. Yeah. Like they all stay with me. Yeah. Particularly the thing that Nicholas and I have been singing like for the last couple of days is just constantly gone down the bayou. Gonna take you there. Gone down the bayou. We just keep doing that. So they're really catchy, but nothing makes like my top Disney songs.
BronwenWell, all of them are, I would say, quite mid, except gonna take you there, because that's the most catchy. Yeah, I'll go through my thoughts on each individual one. But yeah. Cool. Okay. Um, I also, you know, if we compare it to Frozen, which was also meant to be this great return to like old school Disney, Frozen was is leaps ahead in terms of the music. And I would also say what I said about Frozen in the music was that the music felt so important, like this film wouldn't really work. I get that less with this film, except for the other side, the the villain, the villain song. Yeah, and maybe actually um dig a little deeper, actually. You need those two.
MeganYeah, you need that sort of explanation from Mama Odie about kind of the thesis of the film.
BronwenDown in New Orleans, When I'm Human, and gonna take you there, you don't actually need, I don't think, in terms of pushing the story forward. I always thought this was an Alan Mencken film.
MeganAh.
BronwenIt is not, so it was supposed to be, wasn't it?
MeganYeah, originally.
BronwenSo yeah, Mencken was at the time scoring the Disney film Enchanted, and John Lassiter thought that the music might be too repetitive. Again, I'm not sure I agree. Enchanted is a very different film trying to do a very different thing. I think that Alan Mencken, the great Alan Mencken, would be able to separate out those two ideas.
MeganHe's so versatile, as well, he's such a chameleon. Yeah. I I think we'll come on to this later. I don't think he would have been the right choice for this film either. No, but I think he probably would have done very well.
BronwenYes. So Musk and Clements suggested Randy Newman, who is most well known for his work on Pixar films, Toy Story, a Bugs Life, that sort of thing. And it's really interesting you saying that this was happening, they were producing this film at a time when there was this sort of merging of the two that was happening in terms of Disney buying or taking Pixar, much more under a quest. And so he was chosen because he is a jazz composer and he grew up in New Orleans, and you can hear that he really understands the music, and yeah, he composed, arranged, and conducted all of the music. I think this is awkward because the music that's presented, which is jazz, zydego, blues, and gospel, these are all very much from black culture. And so I think it's a I think Disney could have gone to New Orleans, gone to Louisiana and found a composer, a black composer from there and found and used them. I didn't know what Zydago was, I hadn't listened to any. So it's a music genre that was created in rural southwest Louisiana. Yeah, it's very specific to this area. French-speaking African Americans of Creole heritage. So for people like me who didn't know about Creole, it's an ethnic group that developed in former French colonies. Almost There and Down in New Orleans were both nominated in the Best Original Song category at the 82nd Academy Awards. They both lost to a song called The Weary Kind from Crazy Heart.
MeganOh, haven't even heard of the song.
BronwenNever heard of the film, never heard of the song. I'm learning through this process of doing this podcast. Yeah. The Oscar Awards for songs are quite random, and so it's probably very much based on what's in at the time, who had a better campaign, and that sort of thing. Down in New Orleans was also nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Song written for a motion picture, television, or other visual media at the 53rd Grammy Awards. Again, it also lost. Again to the weary kind. So go and listen to the weary kind. Apparently, it's a great song.
SPEAKER_02Fine.
BronwenYeah, and my uh reading this, the music was generally well received by critics. Matthew Wilkinson of Screen Rant stated The Princess and the Frog is among Disney's finest princess films and found its soundtrack to be outstanding. He considered the film's portrayal of New Orleans culture for its vibrant jazz music, varied songs, and depiction of Mardi Gras to be particularly effective. Grace Magee of Comic Book Resources describes the Princess and the Frog as an underrated Disney film, emphasizes that whilst its visuals can be unsettling, the music is a highlight. I don't know what is unsettling. Now finally, we're going to get to Alex Pedidris of The Guardian, asserted that the soundtrack features a series of excellent pastiches of New Orleans music and found its greatest movements to be a tribute to Voodoo, which is a bit complicated. So yeah, I just had some other general thoughts about the music. So the first song being Down in New Orleans, it sound to me I thought it was really appropriate for the film and the time. And the woman who sings for Tiana, I think, also does the voice, just the voice completely.
MeganAnika Rose.
BronwenAnika and only Rose, yeah. Her vocals are amazing throughout the entire thing. Yeah. Did you have any specific thoughts about Down in New Orleans?
MeganOh, um, no. I liked it. We get a reprise of it at the end, don't we? Which I think makes sense. It just ties into New Orleans being the character in the film, doesn't it? Yeah.
BronwenUm, the other side, Lorna, so my my friend Lorna, shout out to Lorna. Uh, she really likes this one. She likes all the wordplay uh in this one. It's very fast.
MeganYes. Well, it is more kind of spoken than sung, isn't it? So that makes sense. It probably ties into your kind of Lim Manuel Miranda stuff. Yes.
BronwenI was thinking this feels very Robin Williams doing The Genie in Aladdin, that sort of speed that they that he could do. Yeah, but yes.
MeganI think the voice actor was quite limited in his range, so they wrote him a song that he could sort of sing.
BronwenYeah, yeah, yeah. When I'm human, that reminded me of Human Again from Beauty and the Beast.
MeganOh, yeah, absolutely. Yes, Human Again, which doesn't appear in the original version of Beauty and the Beast, does it? But it appears on the Broadway musical and there's they cut it from the film, didn't they? So there is an animated sequence for Human Again.
BronwenYou can watch it. Yeah. I think it's like a special.
MeganBut it is basically, yeah, the same message. Like when we're human, this is what we're doing.
BronwenThese are all the things we're gonna do, yeah. Gonna take you there is my favourite song. Yeah, it's a good one. And yeah, because it reminded me also of Tiana's Bayou Adventure.
MeganYeah, I was gonna say that the music is used to really good effect on the ride, isn't it? It works really well.
BronwenYeah, yeah. Dig a little deeper. It's I think it's the it's a great song, and it's interesting to hear Disney saying uh money ain't got no soul. Yeah, it's like you're a literally multi-billion dollar corporation, but okay, fine, fine, whatever you say. I like the idea that Tiana needs to understand herself beyond what her father wanted her to do. We've just kind of spoken about that. I actually I don't like this song for a very specific reason. It's on my I have a Disney running playlist, so when I run and want to listen to Disney, this often comes up, and so it reminds me of being hot and sweaty. Oh, that's but to be fair, I'm hot and sweaty right now.
MeganSo I think I put it on that play. I didn't know and I think it's part of my misunderstanding of this song because I hadn't properly like absorbed it before, and so dig a little deeper. That feels like work hard to me. That feels like the message, but actually, as we've said, that's actually not the message.
BronwenWhat she's saying to dig deeper into yourself, yes, rather than work harder, yes, yeah. Then over the credits is a song called Never Knew I Needed by Neo. That felt like very Disney Renaissance to have a pop song to play over the credits, yes, that's true. Yeah, yes, and that was the only one.
MeganSo Neo wrote it, didn't he? So it's the only one that's not written by Randy Newman, yeah, and then it's followed by some music over the credits that is by Randy Newman, and that particular music sounded very Toy Story to me.
BronwenOh, I didn't I didn't listen to that. I didn't go that far. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, but yeah, almost there, I think is a great song. Uh but the thing that makes it for me, yeah, like I said before, is the animation that they do for that section, that whole section is incredible. So good.
MeganI in fact, I think for a lot of the songs, the visuals are standout. Yeah. So like the other size, uh all of the really vibrant colours for the spirits and the masks, that's really good. And then for dig a little deeper, particularly that bit where the sun is shining through all the bottles, it's really beautiful. Yeah, yeah. So a lot of the songs have really nice visual sequences.
BronwenThey had really thought about that, and that feels very renaissance to me to make the songs pretty, basically, to make the animation pretty.
MeganYeah.
BronwenThat's all I have to say about music. Do you have anything you wanted to add?
MeganOnly a very tiny thing, which is that there were a couple of bits that reminded me of music in the Magic Kingdom in Disney World. Yeah. So the music that accompanies Tiana and her mum when they're on the streetcar, that reminded me of music that's on Main Street USA. Yeah. And then the music that accompanies this is kind of a niche little bit, the hunters, when they're on the boat. We've had all of the stupid shenanigans with the hunters, and we've got the final bit with them on the boat, and there's this music. In the background that makes me think of Frontierland in the Magic Kingdom.
BronwenNice. Yeah.
MeganSo that was nice. Yeah.
BronwenShall we talk about the sort of intersectionality of this film? Does that mean?
MeganYeah, so obviously we have our normal depiction of women segment. And I think with Tiana that very much leads into depiction of race.
BronwenYes.
MeganSo we are traditionally starting with the Bechtel test. Yes. And this film passes the Bechtel test. I mean Tiana has conversations with her mum, and she also has conversations with Lottie that are not about a man. Yeah. So the film passes the Beckdoor test. Great. So it's clearing that very minimum
Depiction of women and race
Meganbar. Yeah. The more I've thought about this film, the more I've had problems with it from a feminist perspective. Because I started off by thinking it was pretty good from a feminist perspective. But the more I've absorbed it and actually thought about the plot properly, the more I think it's quite problematic in various ways. So I think the good thing is that Tiana is ambitious. Yes. And that she dreams of having her own restaurant. And that dream is fulfilled in the end. So that's good. What I think is not great is that she's inherited that dream from her dad.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
MeganSo actually that was interesting in terms of what you were saying in the psychology section about where your motivation derives from. I think this is interesting because it is believable that it was her dad's dream and that it's her dream as well. I do genuinely believe that she really wants to do it. She for herself, she wants to have that restaurant. She's not just doing it because her dad expected her to or something. It feels real, but I don't know why they had to do that. From an a storytelling perspective, the decisions that they've made there, why couldn't it just be her dream? Why does it have to be from her dad?
BronwenIt's a bit of a confusing message because I kind of feel like the what I get from the film is what she at the end, the thing that she's most excited about having is the restaurant. That's what's great. It's not the beam, it's not the marriage. Yeah. You know, Taylor Swift, sorry to I have to go back to the holy texts. And uh Taylor Swift uh writes, In your life you'll do things greater than dating the boy on the football team, which is ironic now.
SPEAKER_04That is, yeah. It's ironic now.
BronwenBut she's but she's saying there's more to life than marriage, you'll do and obviously achieve other things. And I think that this film kind of is saying that as well. Like, you know, yes, it's great, she gets married and that's great. Um, but the thing that it's like we're meant to be like, yay, she did it, is the marriage, not the marriage. Sorry, the restaurants, right? And that is what we finish on. That's the ending shot. And I kind of and they want her to, but I suppose what what's her name again? Mama Odie. Mama Odie is saying is that like to telling her to dig deeper that like there's other things to life. It's kind of the uh the other side of Taylor Swift. It's like, yeah, but there's also more to life than achieving. There's also about just being happy, experiencing life. I kind that's my sense. And a part of that might be being in a relationship and spending time with you know people that we love. So yeah, based on that, yeah, I I I kind of agree with you. I hadn't really thought about it, but yeah, it doesn't need to come from her dad, does it? No.
MeganUm and that's sort of that's just the beginning of the problem. Yeah, okay. Because she then, much worse, prioritises a man over her dream. You think? Yes, because so you've got this climactic scene. Naveen, his plan is to kiss Charlotte, marry her, and give Tiana the money for her restaurant. That's the plan. But Tiana stops him from doing that, and there's um she says, My dream wouldn't be complete without you in it. Right. So she would rather have only him than only her restaurant. Yeah, yeah. And there's that would be one thing if I actually believed in this romance, but I absolutely do not. Yeah. I I don't think it's believable at all the fact that these two characters fall in love, particularly her with him. I don't see any reason why she should fall in love with him and then prioritise him over her dream. Megan looks really angry right now. I got very worked up about this. Yes. Because I think this is clarified for me in a deleted scene where Tiana says to her. I I mean, we get this idea from the film that we see, but it's just really explicit in this deleted scene. Tiana says to her mum, I don't need a prince to sweep me off my feet and take me away to fairy tale land. I'm making my own fairy tales. Yeah. So this is this is what she's about. She doesn't need a man.
BronwenIt's like it's that famous share, a share quote where she says, But mum, I am a rich man. Because when mum when her mum says, Well, you need a rich man, but mum, I am a rich man.
MeganYeah, yeah, this is it. Um, I don't need it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I think we see this very motivated, very conscientious Tiana sacrificing her dream for this creep manfly.
BronwenI get what you're saying. I hadn't really thought about it like that, yeah.
MeganI think it it makes a real difference that I really dislike the character of Naveen. I'm really not buying into this.
BronwenHe's quite creepy. Like when he first meets her about wanting to kiss her, and then like when he when they turn in the bow frogs and they he wants to like cuddle up in the tree when they're hiding from the gaiters, like he's all like, oh, we can cuddle up. Like he's quite invasive.
MeganYes, and he's dismissive about women. Um, so like in the human again song, he's he sings about having a brunette on his left, a redhead on his right, and like a series of blondes or something. And then that bit where he's about to propose to Tiana, he says something about, I've been with thousands of women, and it's like it's so he's so dismissive of women. There's nothing appealing about this character. Yeah. So I don't believe that Tiana would fall in love with him, and certainly don't believe that she would I don't think she'd even put him in her dream less alone and decides to be in a relationship with him as a frog instead of be a human only restaurant.
BronwenYeah, yeah. I get that. Going to back, sorry, can we talk just to talk about her dad for a second? Yeah, in his role.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
BronwenSo I read a really interesting article on a website called Feministing, uh, and it's written by someone called Rose, doesn't have a surname. The Princess and the Frog, a feminist fairy tale. And she writes about seeing Tiana's dad at the beginning cooking gumbo, which the whole family evening meal. We see him doing that as Tiana and her mum are returning from her mum's seamstress job. And Rose was kind of saying how nice it is to see the shared labour of the husband and wife.
MeganYeah.
BronwenThat like he's doing the cooking while she's out working, and that also that slight difference than we expect, like the man coming in from work and the woman cooking. So it's both shared labour and also that they are not necessarily in with they're not coming into the film in the typical roles that we might expect, and he's just as involved in terms of parenting as well. So I get that his position in the entire film is complicated, but he's presented in a way that sort of like seems that he wants to be like an equal partner.
MeganYeah, I take that. I take that. I uh think they are both working jobs at different times because we then get a flashback later on where you see him arriving home from work exhausted. So it's like he's done a nice job. Yeah, exactly.
BronwenBut it's the sh it's more about the kind of like the shared labour of the family. That's that's that's happening.
MeganYeah. No, they do seem a really nice family unit.
BronwenYes, yeah. So the other thing that Rose says in this article is she writes, it's important to note that Tiana turns into a frog after she tried to trade in a kiss for money. Maybe I'm reaching, but Disney seemed to be making a point here about sexual morality that I found disconcerting. It seemed that they consider Tiana's work as a waitress more honourable or worthy of receiving her restaurant than offering the Prince Frog a kiss.
MeganI see what she means. It is a stretch of interpretation, but it slightly comes back to my question about why does she turn into a frog?
BronwenYeah, yeah, yeah. And it's the institution of marriage that then saves her from being a frog at the end, is kind of where Rose kind of ends up.
SPEAKER_06Oh that's interesting.
BronwenThat that that the whole like this is how you do relationships properly, obviously, within within wedlock, basically.
MeganI thought that was a really interesting take. Yeah, I hadn't thought of that. That is really interesting. But yes, even as frogs, like they have to get married, yeah, to be in a relationship. Yeah, even though they're frogs, like frogs don't get married, but yeah, Mama Odie marries them. Yeah, yeah. Mmm, interesting, yeah. Good point, I think. Yeah.
BronwenAnd when it comes to Naveen, I I agree with you overall. I do think it's from my perspective, I I think I do like the fact that the film at least attempts to make an idea of them teaching each other. So he teaches her to dance, yeah, kind of representing having fun, yeah, and she teaches him to mince, so to work hard basically. And you know, the idea again coming back to that the idea of what I take away from the film is that you need both in life. You both need to have drive, but you also need to have fun and you need to know yourself, and you know, and then they they at the end they're building this business together. So, but I I take your point that he's he's uh he's problematic on both in terms of him as a person and characterization and all of that.
MeganYeah, I mean, even at the end, I think he's still completely useless and pathetic. Like so, in terms of buying the restaurant, it is her money, her saved money that she takes to the horrible men, and uh it's the fact that Lewis is there, like growling at them that means they accept it. So he hasn't contributed anything financially.
BronwenNo, yeah, you make a very good point. You do make a very good point, yes. Now, another article I read, so this was written in Essence magazine. So this is a magazine that is, I think generally is written by African American women when they wrote about the Princess and the Frog when it came out. They said Princess and the Frog is the story of a beautiful girl who kisses a prince who's been turned into a frog, only to be turned into a frog herself. It presents themes about believing in love even in tough circumstances, the struggle of moving up from one's social standing, and the idea of beauty being skin deep. These are all great lessons to be taught by Disney's first black princess. It's quite yeah, it's a complex film, isn't it? With its play. I don't think it it knew how many ideas it was playing with when it came in.
MeganNo, this is the thing. I think there's potentially too much here. Yeah, I have like maybe one main other point to say about the feminist side of things before we then go into race, which is about Tiana's mother and as what her mother wants for her. So the film already makes me a little bit uncomfortable. It's just as we're going into the almost there song, her mother says to her, That's all I want for you, sweetheart, to meet your Prince Charming and dance off into your happily ever after. And then a couple of sentences later, she says, I want some grandkids. And that so her mother, so I'm not saying that her mother is not supportive of her dreams because she comes along with the gumbo pot. Yeah, she's just gonna be. Six?
BronwenAnd I think that's just such such a simplified view of like what women are for to get married and have babies.
MeganYeah, and Tiana just laughs it off. So the film isn't like I mean, this is realistic of some mothers. Yeah, of course. Fortunately, our mother has not been like this. No, but I think it's a sad thing to present modern day little girls with this idea still present in the film, like, oh, the most important thing is that you get married and have babies. And I feel like the end message of the film, so she hasn't had babies by the end of the film, but it's still very important that she's met Prince Charming and got married, is when she had her own aspirations and wasn't interested in love and yeah, the end it gets the sense that the ending wouldn't have been complete if she hadn't met her man, if she had just got the restaurant. Yeah. Like that wouldn't have been good enough.
BronwenThat wouldn't have been good enough. No.
MeganOne more thing about gender specifically, and actually, this is a point that really does lead into the race thing. Yeah, it's a point that's been made very often, is that Tiana spends very little time as a human in this film. I think on screen I've heard she's a human for 17 minutes, and the rest of the time she's a frog. And I think that's not great from a feminist or a race perspective. So I have this issue with the design of the frogs that they are so gendered. Yeah. That he is this bulky man frog, yeah, and uh, she is this skimpy, tiny little skinny frog thing, and uh, I think there's something, there's something unseemly about them. I really think they should have clothes on. I don't think we should be seeing these naked frogs. I don't know, I don't know, but they need to cover their modesty. I'm shaming these naked frogs, particularly when they're standing up, like on their hind legs. Oh, this frog shouldn't be standing like that. It's flipping weird.
SPEAKER_04It is weird.
MeganIt makes me really uncomfortable their designs, and it's a shame because you see this in the deleted scene that they weren't originally like that, they were much more frog-like and much more similar to each other. Right. And I just much prefer that as a design. The the frogs they come out with you're like this is NSFW. Yes, and as but more important than that, I think, is the fact that we have our first Black Disney princess, and as yet we barely see her in her black body. We see her as a frog.
BronwenAbsolutely. So, yeah, let's shall we go on and think about sort of the racial components of this. I want to start, and I don't know about you, but I kind of want to position myself in this because I am obviously I'm not a black person, and neither are you. I care about the way that race is presented, and I know both of us want to think about it really carefully, but it is possible that our thoughts on it aren't representative of what if if there was someone black in this room with us would think. But yeah, for now it's just the two of us trying to do this as sensitively and respectfully as possible, but absolutely holding in mind that we're coming in with a white lens.
SPEAKER_04Yes.
MeganUm can I just add to that? I just want to signpost something that I listen to, which informs a lot of my thoughts now about uh race in this film, was that I listened to an excellent episode of a podcast called Black Men Can't Jump in Hollywood.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
MeganAnd uh it's a podcast that is made by people of colour, and they discussed particularly filmers where like the main characters are black, and uh their conversation about the princess and the frog was just so insightful and thoughtful and nuanced that I would really recommend that people listen to that.
BronwenYeah, mm-hmm. I've said some of this, but I'm just gonna go through my thoughts in the beginning, if that's okay.
MeganYeah, absolutely.
BronwenSo we start with a theme on wishes, which is a classic Disney thing. It feels like Disney, in a way, going back to its basics. We have a star in the sky, yeah, and there's an idea of do we wish on this thing or do we not? And I think it's Tiana's father who says to her, You can't expect to be able to wish upon a star. I think it's her father who says that.
MeganI've written down the quote if you would like to do it. Because it is interesting, it's it's slightly nuanced. He says, You wish and you dream with all your little heart, but you remember, Tiana, that that old star can only take you part of the way. Yeah. You got help it along with some hard work of your own, and then, yeah, you can do anything you set your mind to. Just promise your daddy one thing that you'll never ever lose sight of what's really important.
BronwenI can't help but think it's really interesting that that idea of wish upon a star, but you also have to work hard comes in when we have our first Black Disney princess.
MeganYes.
BronwenAbsolutely. It feels like there's a recognition here of the white privilege of just being able to wish upon a star and things coming true.
MeganMmm. Okay, that's more self-awareness than I had credited it with.
BronwenI don't know. Now, it's yeah, when I say recognition, I don't necessarily know if Disney was sitting around in boardrooms talking about white privilege. But where c unconscious, uh, if what if I just watch this film with my hat on of trying to understand how her race intersects with her becoming the first Black Disney princess and it coming in with that kind of new, a slightly nuanced take, a slightly different take on the concept of wishes. That's kind of where I land. That it feels like up until this point, all everyone who's been wishing on stars has been white uh and everything, and it's just it can come true. But it does present Tiana with this sort of very just world way of seeing the world. If you work hard, good things will happen to you, and that's not true. And I don't think that a black woman at that time would have had that view. Anything you wanted to say on that?
MeganYes, yeah, it ties in very much with maybe one of my headline thoughts about this film, which is I really have to challenge myself on this, that I love Tiana as a character, and that remains true, but I think I really have to question myself on the fact that the thing that I find aspirational about her is how hard she works, and that is so bound up with her race, which is not a thing I had considered before. Yeah, I'm obviously coming from this white privilege where like I'm thinking, oh, isn't it isn't it amazing that she works so hard for what she wants, but she has to work hard. Yeah, yeah, it's not a choice that she has, whereas from my privileged standpoint, it is a choice that I have. So I I I have to really question myself on finding that aspirational in her.
BronwenI think we can still sort of be proud of Tiana and still see it as it's complicated, isn't it? I think it's holding that nuance, isn't it? Of like this is an attribute which I think sh that we can be proud of how hard she works, whilst also thinking it's not fair that she has to work this hard, and that we that we as white people are very, very, very unlikely to find ourselves in that same situation. But yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I think it's something that we have to hold quite carefully, isn't it?
MeganYes, and there's I think it's important for me not to hold full responsibility for that feeling towards Tiana because I think that's what the film wants us to feel. Yeah. That they present her as a really hard worker and isn't that brilliant, and they don't actually address the underlying structural issues, which mean that she has to work hard because she is a black woman. Yeah. The film doesn't deal with it, doesn't it? So it presents me with this brilliant hard work.
BronwenI think you're in terms of the self-awareness of the film, I think it goes back to something you were saying earlier about the an the shot that's showing the change in the houses. It feels like they're showing it. Maybe they were hoping to show and not tell, but like it feels like there's this real undercurrent of quite nasty stuff that we're not speaking about that's just not addressed. Yes. So it's like this is what Louisiana was like. We're just showing you like the way it is, but we're not going to actually commentate on that at all.
MeganNo, there's only there's this kind of one moment, I think, where it makes it almost obvious, but still not quite, that they're talking about race, which is when the two white men speak to her at the party, yeah, and there's their the saying that she's been outbid for the restaurant, and they say to her, a little woman of your background, yeah, you're better off where you're at. Yeah. And so you know that's code for that's as close as they can get though.
BronwenYeah. And I imagine you know, Disney, Disney is always so playing it so safe in these areas. In so many different areas when we're talking about minoritized people. That's as close as they could get without probably thinking, oh, we're gonna start alienating people and people aren't gonna wanna come. See our films because they're gonna think we're lecturing them, which is problematic. Yeah, that's as close as they could get.
MeganAnd I think this is the problem that they've ended up with this strange halfway house. Yeah. Because you can see they are kind of trying, but they've got this compromise of you've got this kind of semi-realistic world, semi-fantastical fairy tale world, and uh you're left with this princess that you're not quite sure what she is. She's not she's not fantastical and aspirational in the same way that most Disney princesses are. She is grounded in some realism, but they don't address the the colour of her skin being important in that. And I guess, sorry, it just kind of sets up the question of which way should they have gone? And I don't know the answer to that. No. Um, but I feel like they should have chosen one way or the other. Because you could have a sort of a much more, I'm just gonna keep repeating this phrase because it's the one that comes to mind, a fantastical aspirational princess. And I'm thinking of a sort of a sort of colour blind thing in the way that Bridgetton is colourblind, that you've got all of these people of colour in re regency costumes and very wealthy. So that's one way of doing things, or you could have properly addressed the fact that she is poor because she is black and she's gonna have to come up against that in her entire life. They've tried to go somewhere.
BronwenThey went somewhere in the middle, and yeah, and it doesn't make sense which sort of links what I was gonna say next, which is about her relationship with Charlotte and her father, which is quite complicated because on the a superficial level, Charlotte and her father are pleasant, polite, have a good relationship with Tiana and her mother, but they also they seem completely unaware of how hard Tiana has to work in order to achieve the same ends. You know, Charlotte is very cute in a lot of ways. Yeah. Like she's a she's a little spoilt brat, but quite cute about it. Yeah, she's she's sweet. She's likable. Yeah, she's funny. And I I think one of the things that makes her likable is the fact that she, at least on some level, sees Tiana as a friend and respects her.
MeganShe does care about her. We do see that.
BronwenAnd you know, she calls her a genius at one point and stuff, but I don't necessarily know if she sees her as an equal, like she just hands her, for example, a whole load of money at some point in this. Like that I don't think the film had I don't know what the film were trying to do with Charlotte and her father and her relation their relationship with Tiana and like her mother. Yeah, it's confusing.
MeganAgain, I think it's that halfway house that they're trying to show yes, there would have been this sort of hierarchical relationship between the white people and the black people in this film, like the white people are employing the black people. Yeah. But they still want them to be friends.
BronwenYeah, just you know, and Charlotte dressing up Tiana in her clothes, and but then Tiana has to go back to like being a waitress, you know. It's complicated, and there's sort of no sort of there's no commentary on that. We don't get any of Tiana's feelings on that.
MeganNo. Um what I would like to know is like Lottie and her father are obviously wealthy enough to help Tiana buy her restaurant. And as it could well be that Tiana wouldn't want to accept that, but this isn't discussed, and I feel like it's such a big question. Like, Tiana is scrimping and scraping and working every hour under the sun to save up this restaurant. Like, why aren't her wealthy friends in inverted commas helping her? Yeah, and uh, like you could you could deal with that, but they didn't.
BronwenThey didn't deal with that, no. I've kind of just left this as a question. You might have more to say about we've talked a little bit about the villain. We have as the villain a black voodoo witch doctor as the villain.
MeganYeah. Doesn't sound great. No, it's particularly not great when you don't if you had like a black prince that was giving the other side of things, like a good character, but the only black man that we are presented with. No, that's not true. Her father is in it. Her father is a good example of a black man, but he's only there for one scene. Yeah, and then he's gone, and mostly we get this this villain character.
BronwenWe do, yeah. I think as well, and I'm sure you've read about this, is at the time at which this was the film was in production, the setting was questioned.
MeganYeah, because of Hurricane Katrina. Yeah, exactly.
BronwenSo just to remind our audience, uh, in 2005, Hurricane Katrina really heavily damaged New Orleans, resulting in the expulsion of large numbers of mostly black residents. And some critics claim the choice as a setting for a Disney film with a black heron was an affront to the victims of Katrina. And I kind of get that. This to me again speaks to the idea that it feels like in this film Disney didn't do a huge amount of collaboration with the people of which that they were trying to show. If they had gone to the people of New Orleans and said, we want to make a film that really celebrates New Orleans and the vibrant black culture that exists here, will you help us? We'll pay you to help us. Or if they were to pledge some of the like a proportion of the profits from this film to support victims of Katrina, but it feels like they made a film about these people to make money without thinking about involving them at any stage in the process. Because from my perspective, I don't think it's wrong for them to have made it in the in New Orleans, because where better probably to make a film that's musical and vibrant and set historically. It works in a lot of it. It makes perfect sense, but yeah, they did it in a way that really it seems like quite alienated the people of New Orleans at the time at which they were making the film, which is problematic. Shall we just fit have some general thoughts that haven't fit anywhere else? Yeah, I don't actually have anything like that. Okay.
MeganSo you go ahead. What hasn't fitted anywhere else? We have we have a kitty cat. Oh yes, actually, I was gonna mention that later on. Um we have a kitty cat.
BronwenI think this is the third cat we've seen. Because Snowball. Sorry, you go ahead, you're the kitty cat.
MeganOh no, what I wasn't uh Snowball in Hercules. Yeah. What was the second one?
BronwenThe one in Battle of the Mouse Great Mass Detective. Oh, Felicia. Felicia. And this one doesn't have a name, I don't think, this cat.
MeganSo I looked up the name after the fact. I don't think you hear it in the film. But when I looked it up,
Final thoughts
Meganapparently the cat is called Marcel.
BronwenMarcel.
MeganI feel sorry for Marcel. She's Marcel has a tough time.
BronwenIt's been squeezed really hard by little Charlotte.
MeganEnds up on the ceiling.
BronwenYeah, yeah. Having a bad time. Bad time for Marcel. Marcel is cute. I actually really liked the fact that this film really weird. Shows an actual death.
MeganYes, actually.
BronwenSo Ray actually dies. It's not a Disney fake death where they come back at the end. Yeah.
MeganIt looks like it's gonna be a fake death. Yeah. Because he gets squished, and then you're talking to him later on, but then he does die.
BronwenAnd you know, he becomes a star next to Evangeline, and I think that's beautiful. I genuinely think that's beautiful. Uh, and so I like that because there's some realism to that. It's not so in the centre of the film that it's like utterly depressing, but it is sad because Ray, Ray has a whole song, but you know, Ray has been singing about Evangeline and everything, so he now gets to go to Evangeline, which I think's lovely.
MeganYeah.
BronwenWell, I was gonna say one last thing. For me, I think this film drags a bit. It feels long, it's the second act for me. The second act really drags like down the bayou and just the shenanigans, as you call it. Step and shenanigans.
MeganThis film is mostly shenanigans.
unknownOkay.
MeganI tire of it.
BronwenSo, Megan, what are your final thoughts on this film?
MeganI think it can generally be summed up by I'm very conflicted about this film.
BronwenYeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
MeganSo I love Tiana, yeah, but do need to challenge my own privilege and what I find aspirational about her. I think some of the animation is really beautiful, like we've said, for some of those particular musical sequences, it's gorgeous. But yes, uh a lot of the swamp stuff I don't like because I specifically don't like that swampy green.
BronwenThis isn't gonna be the last time this comes up on this podcast.
MeganIt's not. I have very definite thoughts about colours. I like the music, I wouldn't go any stronger than that, but I do think the composition lacks integrity. I think they should have got a black composer. We've spoken a little bit about him in terms of race, but some people really love Dr. Fazilier as a villain. They're they're like, oh, it's one of the last great Disney villains, and uh I just think he's pretty weak as a villain, that he's just driven by money, basically, and uh he's basically controlled by the spirits. He's not very powerful.
BronwenWe do get some evil Disney Green, don't we? Around it. Which is nice, a nice return to Disney evil green.
MeganYeah. I don't like the frogs, don't like Ray, don't like Lewis, I don't like the shenanigans, I really don't like Naveen. And I definitely don't buy into the romance, which I think really undermines the feminist message that they were trying to go for.
BronwenBut but but Disney Megan really wants a job with me.
MeganOh yeah, I love shenanigans. I can't say it. I can't say it. I don't love shenanigans, I hate shenanigans. I am glad. I am very glad that we have a black Disney princess in the canon of Disney princesses, and it was a bit late coming, but we got there, and I think their intentions were good. I think it will have been important to a lot of children. I just think if they made it now, they would have a much better idea of going about it. I think they'd be much better at doing like co-production with black people and actual black artists involved at every stage.
BronwenJust kind of appropriating and enjoying it for 90 minutes and then getting to go back to your white life, basically. Yeah, yeah, 100%.
MeganSo I've historically been rating this like the last few times I've watched this, I've rated it as three stars. Yeah. But given my summary of my thoughts, I think that's too generous. I think that's too generous. I think I've got to go for maximum two and a half. Okay, okay. Because essentially, I probably wouldn't choose to watch this. And not even uh like I'm I'm not gonna take any kind of moral high ground on this. Mostly I wouldn't choose to watch it because I find it boring. Yeah.
BronwenI hear you, I hear that.
MeganSo, yeah, I think it's probably at about two and a half stars. Which probably means that I need to move it.
BronwenYeah, I'm pretty sure I last saw you rate it at three.
MeganMy list. Uh so it has been just over halfway down. Yeah. It's been at 36. I think I am gonna have to move it down to about 40, I think. Yeah. So that's where I am. Okay. How about you, Bronwyn? Final thoughts on the film.
BronwenI don't I don't think I I will say it doesn't bring up as many feelings in me. So I'm giving it three stars. I love having a Black Disney heroine. I think that's really important. It's far too late, as you say. Uh I think it has some really lovely animation and some nice bits of music, nice songs. For my money, it does drag in the middle. I find myself switching off a little bit. I think so. The plot could be tighter. I don't think it needs the screen time that it has. And also it the film feels very complex to sit and watch, you know, as a white person, and knowing the way that this film came into being could have been done with a bit more sensitivity and well just done with a little bit more just genuine like joy and like bringing in like people of colour, the people of New Orleans I think they've done better with that latterly, haven't they?
MeganWith things like Moana, yes, for example.
BronwenThey they are definitely doing better now. Back in 2009, I probab probably wouldn't have said any of these things, not only because I was 15, but even if I'd been my age, I probably wouldn't have held this level of awareness. So it's easy to critique in hindsight. Very easy to do.
MeganOh yeah, this is quite a long time ago now. Yeah, 17 years.
BronwenSo for me, it comes in at about number 38 out of 64.
MeganOh, okay. So we're in a very similar place.
BronwenFrom slightly above to slightly below.
MeganYeah, yeah, yeah.
BronwenUm but I loved going back to traditional animation. That made me very happy, and I miss it.
MeganYeah, it is the penultimate time that we get it. Oh, really interestingly, actually, this doesn't fit in anywhere else, so I'll say it now. I have this book of Disney essays, and it was published in 2011. So you've had Princess and the Frog in 2009 and Winnie the Pooh in 2011, and they very much thought that what was going to happen going forward was that they would alternate between 2D and 3D animation. I know, wouldn't it be good? But in fact, Winnie the Pooh was the final one. Oh, there we go, there we go.
BronwenWell, I think that is it for talking about the princess and the frog. Yeah, I think so. I think we've we've talked it all out. Like I say, if anyone out there has more has thoughts they'd like to share with us, like from their perspective on the film, please get in touch. We'd love to know. Shall we do Megan's favourite bit, which is picking the next film?
unknownYes.
BronwenWhose turn is it? It's your turn.
MeganOh the thriller gets to hold the hold of the hat. Oh, we've been quite we've been quite modern just recently. I'd like to go back in time. I'll try and take us back in time.
The next film draw
MeganHere we go. She's going in. She's got one. Here we go. It's in her hands. The next film we are going to talk about is Robin Hood!
SPEAKER_04Oh my goodness, that isn't Oh, the history is gonna Oh mad! Oh my goodness.
MeganYou're gonna be busy. You are going to be busy. I can go back to the Robin Hood era I had when I was about eight.
unknownBeautiful.
SPEAKER_04This is like we love this one.
MeganI feel like we love this one so much more than anyone else does. Well, I I think it's actually quietly a very popular one. You think it's a sleeping people don't talk about it. I think it is, and everyone obviously fancies Robin Hood. Obviously. Obviously. Obviously. Maybe you can talk about the psychology of that.
SPEAKER_01I don't want to do that. That that that's locked in a vault.
BronwenI'm thinking more about the concept of like Robin Hood syndrome, the idea of seeing from the rich to give to the poor. I think is a really interesting um it's gonna be thinking about morality and how people make decisions about what's ro moral and what isn't. That's where I'm gonna go.
MeganThat sounds really good.
BronwenYeah. We've got Maid Marion, we've got Lady Clark. Oh, Lady Clark. Well, this is an exciting one. We're going back in time, we're going into the dark ages. Yes. Yeah. An interesting time at the studio. Yes. Wow, that we've got homework to do and a cruise to go on. Yes.
MeganSo um Yeah, it might be a little while before you get a normal episode. Yeah. Because there will be a bonus episode. Yeah, that is the plan. Gaggle sisters are cruising. Gabble sisters. Gabble. Someone knows the name of our podcast.
SPEAKER_01I don't actually. People ask me what's the name of your podcast? And I have to go hang on a second, let me think. Is it a B or a G?
MeganI say gaggle every time. That's that's what our fans can be called, the gabble gaggle.
BronwenYes, that's what they're called when they exist. Okay, I think there's only one thing left to do. Oh yes. Bye. This is not an official Disney podcast, and the views expressed are our own. Thanks for joining us on another stop on our walking tour through the Disney landscape. We look forward to seeing you next time. Until then, you can follow us at Gamble Sisters on Instagram. Be sure to subscribe and rate us wherever you listen to your podcast, and please recommend us to all your Disney pals.
MeganThat's what you loved, Sir His. Oh he's a I think Because you've got a purse with him on. Yeah, so I thought you liked him. You don't
Outro
Megannormally get purses with your enemies on.
BronwenTo be clear. Yes, he's on it, but not because of him. It's a Robin because I really like Robin Hood and I got a Robin Hood purse.
MeganI only ever noticed a hiss. Maybe that says more about me.
SPEAKER_04That says quite a lot about you, I think.
MeganYeah.