Racial Controversy over THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG a Lot of Hulaballo Over Nothing

When Disney studios makes its return to the world of 2-D animation this December with its film The Princess and the Frog, it will feature its first African Princess. Tiana, an african woman who starts out as a maid in New Orleans before finding her happily ever after, would seem like a good step forward in bridging the racial gap among Disney Princesses. But some people just won't be satisfied.

First, there's the AOL article that rips Disney's decision to have a Caucasion-appearing prince (though he's technically he's from the Mid-East) angrily asking why, at a time when our President is black, an African is apparently not good enough to be royalty. Another article has an unnamed woman claiming that having a white prince makes that statement that "black love isn't good enough." Would an all-African cast have been nice? Of course. But look at the flipside: this is an interracial courtship and marriage that's going to be taking place on the hallowed screen of Disney. What could be more ethnically diverse? In my view, making a film with only black characters has the danger of reinforcing the idea that blacks and whites can't occupy the same space; it would say you either have one ethnicity or the other. And those complaning about the prince's "whiteness" have to realize they can't have their cake and eat it too: they're also complaining that the villain of the film is black, which demonizes black people. Which is it folks? Are you saying that it is impossible for Africans to be villains? Heaven forbid that the two women struggling in the fight for good vs evil both have the same skin color.

And then there's the complaint about having the heroine Tiana being a maid to a spoilt rich white family in New Orleans. Attackers say this reinforces the idea that blacks should be serving people. This is a film where Tiana is 99% likely to get her come-uppance over her employers and leave them groveling at her feet as she becomes a princess and they loose all rank on her. She will break free of her role underneath the white family and have a triumphant happily ever after. Isn't that an uplifting and rewarding message, that anybody can be a princess, that no one is destined to remain forever subserviant? And isn't showing the white family as stuckup and snobbish a way of showing the pitfalls of such a system?

In short, there are people out there clamoring for attention, making mountains out of molehills. The Princess and the Frog may not be a perfect solution for the world's problems, but its making good steps in the right direction, and I look forward to its release this December.

Glasses of the Future?: A Review of Bolt and 3-D

A little over a month ago, I posted at the Vault my thoughts on the future of 3-D film making, writing that I believed that the technology has a viable future in cinema. This weekend, I had the good fortune to find friends who would indulge me in my request to not only see the new Disney animated feature Bolt, but to see it in a three-dimensional screening as well. The film, which was the first at Disney to be produced under Pixar-head John Lasseter, follows the saga of titular hero Bolt, a dog who is unaware that his "super powers" are the result of television special effects, a fact he discovers as he journeys cross-country to find his owner, Penny. The movie is also the first of several using the 3-D process to be released by animation companies over the next few years. While my experience revealed that the use of 3-D is by no means flawless, I saw hope for the technique.

To start with, the perennial glasses provided by 3-D company RealD are a step up from the bulky contraption I used the last time I saw a film of this nature. They were as lightweight and as comfortable as everyday sunglasses, resting easily on the head and causing no problems during the film. As for the screening itself, I found myself agreeing with the test audiences of the 3-D Journey to the Center of the Earth mentioned in an article in The Guardian in my last post. Those viewers complained that too many cuts made them unable to appreciate the depth of the images created by watching a film in three-dimensions. My impression of the action sequences of Bolt was that they were distracting because of their blurriness; before the picture could settle and my eyes could reestablish the 3-D effect, there would be a cut to another shot. Since the opening ten minutes of the canine movie was a lengthy chase scene, I worried that the quality of 3-D was not what I had hoped. Later parts in the film, though, proved my doubts wrong. Quieter, more contemplative scenes that allowed for long camera holds showed how powerful the depth of field of 3-D could be. At one point, Bolt and his friends sit in a hilly meadow, and I felt like the grassy plains really did extend into the distance. Another powerful moment contained Bolt clambering through a burning building. The three-dimensional effect of iron beams resting askew on top of each other provided a perilous jungle environment that looked real enough for a person to clamber over. These instances lead me to believe that the technique of 3-D will definitely have a place in cinema in the future.

What do other bloggers think of 3-D and Bolt? Karen Dahlstrom of Big Picture Big Sound was mesmerized by it, writing that the technique was "appropriate and seamless." She also gives the interesting observation that since it renders the animation on a more realistic scale, it might be "too harrowing for young children." Bruce Handy at The New York Times is more of the opinion that Hollywood is going through another fad, making comparisions to the earlier three-dimensional boom of the 1950s. He makes great use of news articles from that era to show the relative rise and fall of the technology during its first foray into mainstream cinema. Finally Sherwin Loh of The Straits Times thinks the movie is a definite step up from the usual gimmicky affairs associated with 3-D, as Disney focused more on enveloping viewers in the environment than in making them duck from flying objects. The bottom line, however, is that it will take more than one successful application of the process in a film to prove that 3-D is here to stay. With several such movies slated for release next year, we will have to wait to render a more thorough analysis.