Movie Report: The Princess and the Frog

Happy Holidays to all! I'm here to report on Disney's newest animation princess film, The Princess and the Frog (which I'm sure everyone has seen previews for!) My best friend came home and the first thing we vowed to do over our Christmas break was to watch it! Being an avid Disney animated movie fanatic since I was little, I was more than excited to see this movie. I grew up living and breathing Disney movies. I have just about every Disney animated movie you can think of and I still know every character's name (well, most of them! yes, like Smee and Clayton and Phil...and even Rajah! Kudos to you if you can guess which movies those characters are from!) I already had high hopes for this movie because it was drawn traditionally, just like the movies from childhood, it features for the first time in history, an African-American princess, and the best part...IT'S A MUSICAL! Everything about this movie is wonderful. The movie is set in New Orleans, Louisiana in the 1910's-1920's; at the height of the Jazz revolution and the end of World War I. With music by Pixar's famed composer, Randy Newman, the score and tunes envelop the vision and sounds of Louisiana and its culture. In my opinion, this movie teaches many different messages and morals; many of which taught me something to apply to my own life. This movie inspired me so much and made me cry more than once (despite only being one hour and a half). If a movie (especially animated) can make a person cry, you know it's gotta be worth it. I don't want to give much away about this movie, but I definitely recommend this movie for anyone who loves Disney and appreciates traditional 2-D art.

After the movie, me and my friend contemplated many issues and ideas approached in the movie. A few concepts we noticed that differentiated this movie from other Princess and Disney movies in general:

~This was the first Disney movie where the Prince falls in love with the Princess for her personality; not her looks (Aladdin first revolutionized Prince (rather..."street boy") falling for Princess....however, he fell for her for her looks because he knew nothing about her.)

~This movie was the first to show a woman (especially a "minority") in charge (Refer to the song "I'm almost there" and the last few moments of the movie)

~The first African-American Princess (duh!)
~This movie makes the audience try to understand and interpret the fairytale for themselves and has many different twists and takes that keeps the audience bewildered and stumped about what will happen next.

~It shines light (no pun intended) on minorites and personifies those of low income/class/education/background (through the characters of Ray, Tiana, and Naveen) and age (through the character Mama Odie) in a new way; as noble and respectable people; no different from anyone else. (Refer to the song "Dig a Little Deeper")

~It's the first time there is a friendship between two distinctly different women; Charlotte and Tiana (through the color of their skin and their backgrounds).

~It's also the first time that the Prince's feelings, personality and life is developed.

~It teaches that while it's good to dream on a star and hope your wishes come true, it takes a little bit of one's own hardwork to make that happen.

~The movie goes beyond the concept of living the "true" fairytale life, redefining it, where instead of the prince and princess living their days in royalty, doing nothing but loving each other, instead, it shows the Prince (Naveen) wanting to escape that lifestyle and having both Tiana and Naveen living their days well spent and earned thanks to their hardwork.

There are many other interesting ideas we came up with but we'll leave them up to you to figure out for yourself to get the meaning out of this movie!

The concept of this movie is summed up in this statement repeated frequently throughout the movie: "Never knew I needed". My favorite character has to be Ray. He's such a sweetheart. I also love love love Prince Naveen! Best prince ever! He's just so dreamy! And everyone says that the live Prince Naveen at Disneyland fits him perfectly! haha! If you haven't seen this yet, go go go! It's worth the money. Disney has succeeded in creating yet another wonderful masterpiece; one where they have been able to overcome the animosity and barriers of racism, sexism and other socioeconomic issues to bring about to the public a movie that teaches life lessons all the while keeping the magic and wonder of its fairytales alive.