Disney’s first African-American princess

Disney Black Princess

The Walt Disney Co. has started production and is schedule to release its latest animated film The Princess and the Frog: An American Fairy Tale, in Dec. 25, 2009. This will be Disney’s 48th animated movie and their first to feature an African-American or Black heroine.

This animated musical fairy tale will be set in New Orleans and feature the Walt Disney Studio’s first black princess. “The Frog Princess,” a musical scored by composer Randy Newman, is “an American fairy tale” starring a girl named Maddy who lives in the French Quarter in New Orleans, said John Lasseter, chief creative director for Disney and Pixar Animation Studios.

Disney did not provide details of the plot, but the company showed shareholders preliminary drawings from the movie. Newman and a jazz band played a song from the movie’s score.

Maddy joins eight other Disney princess characters, who have generated $3 billion in global retail sales since 1999. Disney Princesses is the fastest-growing brand for the company’s Consumer Products division.

Disney introduced its first non-white animated heroine in 1992′s “Aladdin”: a Middle Eastern character named Jasmine. Three years later an American Indian princess appeared in “Pocahontas.”

The creation of the Chinese heroine from “Mulan” came in 1998. Other Disney princesses are the main characters from “Cinderella,” “Sleeping Beauty,” “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Little Mermaid.”

Most people are positively hailing Disney for its first African-American heroine and the impact it will have on African American little girls. Others on the other hand are wondering why did it took so long for a Disney African-American heroine. Meanwhile, some are bring back reminiscent of 1993, when some Muslims protested for what they claim as "Aladdin depicted the Middle East as barbaric.” Some are also claiming that the main characters are black while most or all of the story and production crew are white.