Even though I’m 19 years old, I love to watch animated shows and movies that are meant for people considerably younger than me (I’m looking at you, Gravity Falls). One of my favorite such movies is Disney’s The Princess and the Frog, which I’ve seen scores of times, naturally. This is the story of a Black woman in 1920s New Orleans who, despite the odds, breaks a curse, marries a prince, and realizes her lifelong dream.
Tiana is an amazing woman. She’s smart, beautiful, determined, hard-working, and so much more. There is no question that she is an overwhelmingly positive depiction of Black women. This isn’t to say she has no flaws, however; the movie has to have conflict. Tiana’s central flaw is that she is single-minded. She focuses so much on her dream of opening a restaurant that she forgets the importance of love and interpersonal relationships that her father taught her. So far so good: she’s a high-achieving and empowered Black woman, but one with flaws because, of course, she’s a human being, right? Well, it may be more complicated than that.
I think that, despite giving her significant flaws and character development, Disney still somehow managed to make Tiana larger than life, perhaps out of the fear of depicting a Black woman negatively. This sentiment is great, but in practice in this movie, I think it ultimately robs Tiana of her humanness.
Tiana as a Heroine
I cannot treat this topic without mentioning perhaps this movie’s biggest and most-noted potential problem: Disney finally (2009!) wrote a Black princess and proceeded to make her a frog for a large majority of the screen time. To be charitable, that aspect is central to the source material, but it raises questions nonetheless. How human is Tiana, really? On the surface this seems like a silly question because, like I said, she is overtly flawed. But let’s look closer at these flaws. The main one is discussed in the song “Dig a Little Deeper,” which sees Mama Odie bluntly telling Tiana to loosen her singular focus on her dreams and broaden her understanding about the value of love. Tiana, of course, misses the point entirely, and at the end of the song she rants about how, if she just digs deeper (that is, works harder), she can realize her dream. In the end she’s wrong. She eventually learns her lesson and gets her dream, but not alone. She does it with hard work, yes, but this individual progress is crucially aided by true love and friendship.
In short, Tiana’s only major flaw is that she works too hard and wants her dream too much. While it’s made to be a significant source of conflict, this flaw in itself really is not a bad thing at all. I believe that a true heroine should have legitimately bad flaws that are redeemed by her strengths. Tiana has flaws that are redeemed by the fact that they are actually strengths, just ones that occasionally give her tunnel vision. This is the difference between a caricature and a true reflection of human nature. I love Tiana for her intelligence and determination, but she deserves humanity.
All this said, I still love this movie. Its plot and aesthetic are beautifully orchestrated, and it importantly provides Black girls with a princess who looks like them. It celebrates Black history and culture while examining Black womanhood and intersectionality to some degree. But it’s still art, and since it’s created by people who themselves are flawed, the examination of both its good and bad aspects provides insight into the essential complication and imperfection of humanity.
I want to end with this:
I am white, and while this is my opinion of Tiana’s character structure, Tiana’s story is in no way mine to tell. Here are some WOC and sociological perspectives on this and related topics:
Black Love is Not a Fairytale by Rebecca Wanzo
Race and Gender in “The Princess and the Frog” by Gwen Sharp
Trapped in the Mouse House: How Disney has Portrayed Racism and Sexism in its Princess Films by Jessica Laemle (a fellow Her Campus contributor!)
Talking Race: Disney’s Princess Tiana | Interview with Dawn Trice