Abby Davenport- MPA Podcast

The hosts of the podcast "Representation or Negation" discuss the lack of representation and unrealistic beauty standards in Disney's "The Princess and the Frog." They argue that the film sets unrealistic beauty standards for Tiana's culture and fails to affirm the beauty of black women. They also criticize the inaccurate portrayal of the 1920s setting, as the film glosses over segregation and racial tensions. Furthermore, they point out that Tiana's character is overshadowed by her transformation into a frog, which diminishes the representation of black princesses. Overall, they conclude that the film leans towards negation rather than true representation. Hello and welcome to the first episode of Representation or Negation. I'm your host Abby Davenport and I'm joined today by my roommates Peyton Toombs and Alex Davenport. First we're going to talk about our role models growing up. Do y'all have any that y'all like to say? I have an obvious one. It's my mom. Yeah I think we can all agree. Yeah. Did you have? Yeah go ahead. Do we need to? No. Okay I also I really loved Gabby Douglas. I talked about this to most of y'all already. She was just so happy all the time like she was so good spirited and she was just an amazing role model and she was so good at gymnastics and I always wanted to do that so. Did you do gymnastics? No I never did. Thank you Peyton for pointing that out. So we can all agree that role models are really important especially for children. Okay good. Okay having representation of a person's own race or culture to look up to at such a young age can stimulate and help to further the development of people's racial and cultural identity. So we're going to talk about this in Disney's The Princess and the Frog. So let's move on to our first talking point which is unrealistic beauty standards. So do y'all want to add anything yet? No I want to know how you feel about the unrealistic beauty standards in this. Okay. I didn't do my research. So yeah first of all I just want to say that it sets unrealistic beauty standards for the children of Tiana's culture. I'm going to go ahead and move on to the first piece of evidence. So I said this claim is supported by Kimberly Moffett and Heather Harris's article of negation princesses beauty and work black mothers reflect on Disney's The Princess and the Frog. They say that when black women are represented their images do not affirm their Africanist but rather they are presented as aspiring white women often negating their beauty. I guess I can sort of see it but I don't know. I'm not a person of color myself. So yeah. It's hard for me to speak on that because I don't like to. I mean okay I guess I'm going to say I'm a flip side watching movies any like typical Disney princess movies such as like Sleeping Beauty or Cinderella or Cinderella. Yeah. Or Snow White. They say unrealistic beauty standards. Yeah I can see that too. It's just any white girl. Yeah. She's super perfect in that. There's no diversity. Yeah. I agree. So I guess it would be the same for young black girls watching movies or watching The Princess and the Frog. Neil Lester in his article Disney's The Princess and the Frog the pride the pressure and the politics of being first. He says that defining Tiana as a first also means that Disney costumes her in what is already familiar to Disney's audiences. Physically she is young thin brown-skinned and with straightened hair. That's like what I just said. Yeah. I still don't understand the straightened hair because I do not remember Tiana's hair being down in the movie. That one scene in the diner. Okay. But for the rest of the movie it was either I think in a bun or it looked like it was in a curling iron or she was a frog. Yeah. Okay. I guess we can move on to talking point number two which is inaccurate setting. So we talked about this before. I told y'all that this movie was actually set in the 1920s and y'all kind of said that y'all would never have picked up on that if you didn't. No personally I would have thought it was probably the 50s era. Yeah because obviously it was older. Yeah. I mean it's definitely not current. Yeah. I wouldn't think it was that. Yeah. Yeah I looked back we're looking at pictures and the only time it feels like the 20s is whenever she's singing Almost There. But that's whenever she's in actual like the stereotypical hair do for the 20s. Yeah. So I do want to say that the claim that it was an inaccurate representation is mentioned in Colleen Karn's article Cultural and Linguistic Misrepresentations in Disney's The Princess and the Frog. She says Disney decided to gloss over the segregation and oppression of people of color in New Orleans. Y'all agree? Yeah definitely agree because it doesn't seem at all like a time where there was high tension between you know races. Yeah exactly. I said in this movie the black community is shown to be happy and treated very well by everyone in the town. Tiana even works as a waitress that serves multiple races in a non-segregated diner. She also has a very close friendship with Charlotte despite the fact that her mom works for Charlotte's family. This friendship was included in the movie in order to ease the racial tensions that took place during the 1920s and I think that that's really unrealistic for the time period. Yeah. Leading children to believe in a twisted reality. Yeah I was going to say I think that that was Disney's way of keeping a light heartedness in the movie because they're not going to bring up, Disney's not going to bring up segregation in anything but they should not have chosen to do a movie. In the 1920s at all. Yeah when segregation existed. Exactly. That's the problem. Yeah I agree. I'm going to go ahead and move on to talking point three. The claim is this film is not supporting of black princesses. Moffat and Harris speak on this in their article and they say that the findings showed that the women felt negated even in a film geared to reflect their daughters and their black bodies because of the absence of that body throughout the majority of the film. I didn't even notice. I didn't even realize that. Well yeah you don't think about it. I wouldn't have even noticed anyway and I mean obviously I don't think little girls will but that's not funny. Most of this is parents speaking on this. They were like they were so excited for their daughter to be able to watch a movie and feel like she is her and then boom she's gone for 70% of the movie. Yeah she's yeah. A frog. Esther Terry did have a positive view of her becoming a frog and he said this in his article. Rural as racialized plantation versus rural as modern reconnection. Blackness and agency in Disney's Thumb of the South and Princess and the Frog. That was a mouthful. You need to cut that down. He says that the bayou teaches her a lesson and that Disney effectively balances this with the need to keep the audience engaged in Tiana's ongoing journey. Okay but remind me of this lesson. First she does not want to find a prince. It's Charlotte that wants to find the prince. But remember the frog hops in Disney. But once she turns into a frog what happens to her? Yeah so they have to go on a trip through the bayou to find Mama Odie who is the witchcraft like person or can find the way to transform them back. So it's just this long journey of like we need to get back to our normal life. We need to get back to our normal self. And then like after she transforms back you know she works hard and gets her own restaurant. Yeah but I still don't get how that connects to this guy's point. I just don't get it. There's no doubt that it had a positive influence on her story but I mean that doesn't take away from the fact that she still was a frog. Exactly. Exactly. And she wasn't a black woman but instead of. Yeah she wasn't depicted. Frog. And didn't get the screen time to any. That was just a story. That was the whole story. Yeah that's what Colleen Kong says about it. She says I was disappointed because for the vast majority of the movie she was a frog and when I look at the other Disney princess movies they are human beings. With all that being said do y'all believe it was representation or negation? Probably negation. I agree. I agree. Thank y'all for listening.