Subsonic Radio

I found an interesting article from the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) about the upcoming Disney movie, "The Frog Princess" and some changes that had to be made.

http://nab365.bdmetrics.com//NST-6-5007 ... eR5pqd6w8=

Political correctness strikes again! how dare anyone mention slavery? we should hang those people that bring up our past. notice you can't speak your mind....but reality tv has become the number one source of entertainment...why? because the so called Reality Tv (mostly scripted) allows the people to speak their mind. Diversity is ok. lets embrace it. of course there will be people that get offended...say sorry...but don't change things lest we start using numbers instead of names...don't want to offend anyone with my name.

There's really no way to please everyone, I really hope Disney doesn't get caught trying too hard. They need to focus on telling a fantastic story to bring back hand drawn animation.

I think an African American heroine is great, but must all the heroines be princesses? Just because it's a huge franchise doesn't mean we need to have royalty in our American stories. No matter how hard they try Mulan will never be a princess and she's one of the best characters they've put on screen.

::steps off soap box::

I guess if you're designing a fairy tale by committee (a dubious prospect at best), then it's no big deal to get input from everyone. There's a difference between bringing a classic story to the the screen and building something from the ground up, especially if the whole purpose is to create a film with a particular kind of character.

Esmerelda makes a good point, though, that a fairy tale doesn't need royalty.

Boo. I was really looking forward to the original outline I heard for this one.

That article confuses me, though. I know it refers to her as Princess Tiana, but it also says she's in a country that's never had a monarchy, and is in fact set in Jazz-Age New Orleans.

How is it she's actually a princess then? Or is the Disney spokesperson using Princess in the same sense as 'Princess Mulan' and 'Princess Giselle'? I.e. the 'everyone's a princess now, here buy an outfit/shoes/matching wand and tiara' sense.

DisBeamer wrote:How is it she's actually a princess then? Or is the Disney spokesperson using Princess in the same sense as 'Princess Mulan' and 'Princess Giselle'? I.e. the 'everyone's a princess now, here buy an outfit/shoes/matching wand and tiara' sense.

That would be my guess.

Lame.

I was thinking that this 'Naveen' would be a Prince from somewhere, making Tiana a Princess after they get hitched.

Croaker wrote:Political correctness strikes again! how dare anyone mention slavery? we should hang those people that bring up our past.

It's funny, because if we take out all mention of slavery from our past, then we have nothing to explain the Civil Rights movements of the past 50-60 years. All that people like MLK and Rosa Parks will be for nothing.

I wish people would think before jumping to the 'I'm offended!' stance.

PC is why Disney won't release Song of the South in the US. If we bring up our racial past somehow we condone it?? I don't understand where we are as a country. When you start rewriting the history books because it might offend a group of people (I'm talking any group!) you've gone very wrong.
I have a huge collection of banned cartoons. Some if not all where banned for racial reasons. Not just black issues but a whole lot of them where (so called) banned because of the WWII racial content from the war.
If we hide ourselves from our past, we'll you give those sicko's that want to tell you things (Holocaust for one) never happened traction. Yes things have happened that were wrong!! VERY WRONG!! But to hide from those facts make the pains and struggles people had to go through seem very diminished!
We need to be truthful and honest with ourselves and our kids. Only with an understanding of history can we prevent it from repeating! Remember our society is only as strong as our weakest member. If we deny our past we keep the weak, weak and give those who have done wrong a license to repeat what has happen!

I will now climbed down from my soap box and have a BEER!

The thing that worries me most about the story being ... not good ... apart from the fact that I don't want them to turn out a 'not good' movie and the very good points about forgetting history -> doomed to repeat it, is that when the movie fails at the box office, they'll blame the fact it's not 3D animation. That'll be the final nail in that coffin.

I hope it's better than it sounds.

They should have stuck with the origional ideas on this one. I like the idea of the frog prince with the New Orleans backdrop so much better than some un-monarchy princess. I dont understand the whole "pc" thing, everyone is always going to complain about something, and it is not ecactly like Disney will stop selling movie tickets. I agree with DisBeamer, I sure hope that it turns out better than it sounds. - blue

as long as it is better than chicken little and home on the range, it would be an improvement. Of course now all of the 19-year old girls from manarched countries who fall in love with black, handome fellows will complain because they are underrepresented. Geez Disney, can't you try a little harder to make everyone happy?

is this a joke? disney isn't trying to bring up past problems or anything racial. they're simply trying to make the best of a story. i hope to God that this movie sparks interest in hand-drawn animation and that they don't make the charcter too fluffy because of story board change.

It just doesn't sound like a very good story. How can you even have an American Princess? is she gonna be the princess of Mardi Gras? This PC thing is getting way outta hand. I love song of the Song of the South, it does take place in a time in US history that we can't forget or ignore. Uncle Remus is not a racist character I don't know why people think that, he is the wisest person in the movie. However the the term tar baby is used and it is a racist slur and its a shame that its in the film, but Disney didn't write the story. I worry that this new movie will just be another quick profit, short sited film. Even hand drawn animation is done with computers today. They just call it hand drawn sometimes when its D2.

You make a good point about the Song of the South tar baby thing. In context, it's not racist at all and anyone complaining about it is trying to hard to find something wrong.

In contrast, however, you wouldn't create a brand new story today with a tar baby in it, even if the usage were totally innocent.

As I said before, it's a matter of not cheesing off the audience you are specifically targeting, and that makes sense. All that said, maybe they should have gone with an African fairy tale or some other piece of existing American literature. You can find all kinds of problems with old stories, but those are a product of their time. This is a different time, and it doesn't make sense to create new issues, even if the story is set in the past.

Captain Schnemo wrote:You make a good point about the Song of the South tar baby thing. In context, it's not racist at all and anyone complaining about it is trying to hard to find something wrong.

In contrast, however, you wouldn't create a brand new story today with a tar baby in it, even if the usage were totally innocent.

As I said before, it's a matter of not cheesing off the audience you are specifically targeting, and that makes sense. All that said, maybe they should have gone with an African fairy tale or some other piece of existing American literature. You can find all kinds of problems with old stories, but those are a product of their time. This is a different time, and it doesn't make sense to create new issues, even if the story is set in the past.

Does anybody wonder why Mel Brooks doesn't make movies any more!