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It’s nice seeing Disney work the multicultural angle neatly into their animated movies. And now they’re going to have their first black princess in their upcoming movie, The Frog Princess.

Like any little girl, my daughter loves Disney princesses. However, her favorite princess is not a Disney princess. She loves Rapunzel best, and she hasn’t even seen the Barbie version of that movie.

No plot hints, aside from calling it an American fairy tale about a girl in New Orleans.

Some people are concerned with how sensitive Disney will be, calling the movie with their first black princess “The Frog Princess”. It’s certainly not the most flattering title. But if Disney follows the current formula, she’s be headstrong.

Disney is certainly not perfect in their treatment of princesses from various cultures. They could certainly do worse, of course. Jasmine is no passive princess waiting for just any old prince. Pocahontas was rather little like the person the story was based on, but headstrong, etc. Mulan wasn’t 100% true to the original story either, but you can’t really call her a weak female.

For “The Frog Princess,” they are promising a strong princess character once again. Should be interesting to see how well they deliver.

Oh, and my daughter is furious that this won’t come out until 2009. She saw the picture in the article and wanted to go see it immediately.

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