Sarah Turner: The Princess and the Frog

Summary: In her article, “Blackness, Bayous and Gumbo: Encoding and Decoding Race in a Colorblind World,” Sarah E Turner discusses the depiction of race in The Princess and the Frog. Given Disney’s delicate task of portraying its first black heroine, Turner argues that Disney’s approach to handling race is to remove any influence race has on the film. Turner labels this phenomenon as “colorblindness,” describing how Tiana’s race plays no part in the development of the movie (83). Turner believes that, “while Princess Tiana is clearly black, that is not the point of the text – she is simply a princess who “happens” to have black skin but is not representational of blackness” (84). Through this colorblind approach, Turner believes Disney was better able to avoid being potentially racist; however, Turner seems to indicate that this approach is a bit cowardly by avoiding to address race head on. Turner explains how the film was very aware of the delicateness of race, and how Disney consulted many sources such as representatives of the NAACP and Oprah to avoid sending the wrong message. Turner thinks that rather than attempting to depict Tiana as a black character highly influenced by her culture, the film focused more on “who she is than what she is” (84). In the middle of the article, Turner shifts her focus to the film itself, summarizing the film and analyzing the films themes and how they relate to race. Turner believes the film successfully creates a progressive princess who attains success through hard work and motivation, sending a positive message to many viewers. Turner concludes her argument by again focusing on race, describing the difficulty of addressing race in animation. Turner believes that it is impossible for the film to be politically correct while appealing to its entire audience, labeling it a “can’t win situation” (94). While Turner does not love the approach that the film takes, she concludes that Disney deserves credit for at least attempting to deal with the complex issue of race.

Response: I think that Turner did an excellent job entering the conversation of race with respect to The Princess and the Frog. Turner makes sure to incorporate the opinions of many other critics, giving me solid understanding of how many various people received the film. I enjoyed how Turner also incorporated evidence beyond just the movie, such as deleted scenes, interviews with film writers, and the portrayal of the movie at the Oscars.

However, I think that early on in the article, Turner’s frequent quoting was excessive and somewhat detracted from her argument. The use of some many people’s opinions made me lose sight of what Turner was trying to argue. As far as clarity goes, I felt that Turner’s explanation of Stuart Hall’s articulation of encoding and decoding was a bit convoluted and hard to follow. I think that that constant use of quotes as well as several block quotes made the article a bit choppy and disconnected at times for me. Later into the article Turner focused more on her own ideas and I found this more effective.

Overall, I don’t fully agree with Turners argument. I don’t think that the film is colorblind as there are quite a few displays of black culture especially with the soundtrack of the film. Turner seems to criticize Disney’s colorblind approach, but I fail to see what a good alternative would be. To make Tiana “more black,” the film may rely on offensive stereotypes. What characteristics would Disney have had to give Tiana for the Turner to not consider the film colorblind?

Turner spent almost the entirety of the article discussing the depiction of Tiana, and I think in a movie where the majority of the characters are black, it would have made sense to incorporate those other characters in her discussion of colorblindness. Lastly, I think turner should have done a better job establishing her stance on her argument. It is clear that Turner believes the film tries to circumvent the race issue, but I never felt that she explicitly said how she felt about this approach. It seemed like she wasn’t entirely happy about the depiction, but I am not sure what she would have liked to see changed, especially given her belief that the depiction of race is a lose-lose situation.

Cheu, Johnson. "Blackness, Bayous and Gumbo: Encoding and Decoding Race in a Colorblind World." Diversity in Disney Films: Critical Essays on Race, Ethnicity, Gender, Sexuality and Disability. Jefferson: McFarland, 2013. 83-98. Print.

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http://www.clickhole.com/article/5-disney-princesses-reimagined-caucasian-698