New Orleans: The Remix

*Credit to Jim Hill Media*

So I'm sure many have heard of the new Disney animated feature film (in all the glory of 2D animation), The Princess and the Frog, set to be released in 2009. Here is a description of the movie:

A musical set in the legendary birthplace of jazz — New Orleans — The Princess and the Frog will introduce the newest Disney princess, Tiana (voiced by Anika Noni Rose), a young African-American girl living amid the charming elegance and grandeur of the fabled French Quarter. From the heart of Louisiana's mystical bayous and the banks of the mighty Mississippi comes an unforgettable tale of love, enchantment and discovery with a soulful singing crocodile, voodoo spells and Cajun charm at every turn. http://www.firstshowing.net/2008/01/14/first-look-disneys-the-princess-and-the-frog/

Now I for one am glad young black girls can finally identify image-wise with a Disney princess. Not gonna lie, I was kinda sick of dressing up half-naked like minority royality Jasmine and Pocahontas (and throw in mermaid Ariel too with her seashell bra). I will be interested in Disney's marketing campaign for the film though. Disney Princess movies generally cater to a young white female audience. The reason why Jasmine, Pocahontas, and even the less discussed gypsy Esmerelda (because Hunchback was awful, let's just be honest about it) were able to be consumed so effectively was because of their exoticized nature.

Now little Tiana isn't African. She's black. Plain ol' black. And the place of the film isn't an amorphous far away fairy tale land. Nor is it located in the wilds or villages of a reductive vision of Africa. No--Tiana lives in New Orleans, an American city rich with history, culture...and current sociopolitical and economic issues that definitely cast a shadow on Disney's new venture. What are we to make of this constructed mythical city of the film in the face of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath?

I don't have any answers. But from the description it's hard not to cringe a little at the tropes that Disney is using to reconstruct and essentialize New Orleans into a magical space of voodoo folk culture. I'm not trying to negate this aspect of the city's heritage (films like Eve's Bayou have certainly re-envisioned this identity of New Orleans) but to showcase it as spectacle, because it will inevitably be seen as this and commodified as such, could be considered, dare I say it, problematic. It'll be interesting to see the finished product and the promotion surrounding it.