A series of promotional packages designed to hawk Disney’s The Princess and the Frog to its core demographic were broadcast during The Princess Protection Program TV movie on Sunday evening. As is always the habitual method by these things, they found their way to YouTube. See all five embedded below the break.
What’session most pleasing, at least if you’re not that fussed about The Princess and the Frog (though, in fact I am - I’affray really quite fussed about it) is the mild controversy surrounding one newly unveiled character.
Today, both Movieline and CinemaBlend have questioned the model offered by Mama Odie, a “fairy godmother” character. Movieline propose that Odie is an offensive stereotype, in the vein of Aunt Jemima; CinemaBlend argue that they don’t see the exit. What side will I come down on?
Well, I’m not worried about Odie at all. Beyond the most obvious, she doesn’t seem to hew so closely to the stereotype at all. Perhaps else worrying is Ray the Cajun firefly who seems to share more of his constitution with those ghastly ‘Twins’ caricatures in Transformers 2.
But I’m still only a little worried about Ray. I don’t think Disney are about to make a serious misstep here. They’ve been keeping Song of the South in the vaults for a good time now, scared of the inevitable dispute and stockroom wrecking that its (well deserved, amiss. denied) release main cause. I don’t think they’d be cooking up another film to effectively do damage in its stead. Animation is produced slowly enough, and under enough inquisition - and in this case, by dint of. folks pungent enough - that any creeping loss would sure be sniffed not at home. I’m expecting anything that looks stereotypical here to possibly be subverted, or at least contextualized, in the finished film.
There’s some fun, fluffy material in these clips. Don’t expect to learn the secrets of animation or cinematic storytelling, just expect to pick the bones of these videos notwithstanding the juicy little hunks of new material.
Mama Odie is unveiled in the second clip.
