Of Negation, Princesses, Beauty, and Work: Black Mothers Reflect on Disney’s the Princess and the Frog

Abstract

The overall response to Disney's The Princess and the Frog (Clements & Musker, 2009) was lackluster. The film served as Disney's first attempt to reify and embrace young Black girls’ identity; however, its box office performance did little to proclaim a vested interest of a Black movie-going audience in this particular princess film. Nonetheless, as this is the first such film to center a young Black woman as a Disney princess, the voices of its audience are invaluable. This audience reception study explored the reflections of a group of Black mothers upon screening the film with their daughters. Four themes emerged from their discussions: (a) film as negation; (b) princess as unattainable; (c) beauty as internal; and (d) work as virtuous. Recognizing the role that context plays in framing perceptions, the readings are analyzed in consideration of what some now perceive as a postracial society. Based on the findings, it is suggested that Black communities consciously interrogate the images used to represent them in media as well as develop opportunities with the use of media literacy, to empower themselves and counter the seemingly incessant, prevalent, and degrading screen images.

KEYTERMS:

• black mothers
• Disney
• film
• princess

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors would like to acknowledge Drs. Carol Hedgspeth and Kamilah Woodson for their significant role in making this project possible. We also thank our reviewers for their insightful guidance on an earlier draft of this paper.

Notes

For a more comprehensive understanding of Disney's flawed attempts to represent marginalized groups of color in its films, please see Bell, Psy, Haas, and Sells (1995) and King et al. (2010).

Although Lindlof and Taylor (2002) cited the ideal size of such groups as six to 12, the mode of solicitation only generated 11 women who were able to commit to the additional time necessary for the focus groups following the screening of the film.