Which Disney Princess Would You "Give the Royal Scepter"?

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

true enough

[Pak-Man]

Just so ya know, I picked the list that I did because those are the eight "official" Disney Princesses, as seen here.

There WERE eight! There will be nine. Introducing Maddy!

http://movies.yahoo.com/mv/news/ap/20070308/117340194000.html
Now the princess collection is a little more racially diverse. :^)

[Sharktopus]

There WERE eight! There will be nine. Introducing Maddy!

http://movies.yahoo.com/mv/news/ap/20070308/117340194000.html
Now the princess collection is a little more racially diverse. :^)

First impression? I don't really wanna do her.

What?

[AmandaGal]

I think that's a better drawing.  She's got a nice rack at least...what am I saying?  : :

[Cibernético II]

she's not exactly Disney-scale, her proportions are a little deformed

she looks like a character from a Disney channel cartoon rather than Disney movie

[Pak-Man]

Agreed, which worries me. This is how Disney returns to traditional animation?

Of course, they're probably still hammering out the design. Maybe it'll be more polished when it hits the big screen in a couple years.

[Sharktopus]

Far be it for me to criticize a project I know nothing about, but I smell a movie based entirely off someone's complaint that there's no black Disney princess. At least they're going back to the tried-and-true fairy tale adaptation. Leave the the original stories to a studio with a spine.

[LadyKenobi]

I smell a movie based entirely off someone's complaint that there's no black Disney princess.

Yeah, it sounds like they're forcibly trying to be ethnically diverse here.  Not that this is in and of itself a bad thing, but this reeks of the Princess Affirmative Action Program. 

My experience is that little girls are little girls, and most of them just want to be pretty.  They like the idea of princessdom more than anything.  I worked at Disney World for a while and used to see girls of all colors running around in princess gear.  I thought that was pretty cool, that these kids just identified with the fact that Belle liked to read or Jasmine owned a tiger.  They saw beyond skin color and looked to what was really important:  Glitter.

If they're going to do this, why not base it on an African fable or something?  Then it would seem less panicky and more culturally authentic.  Or what about telling the story of Cleopatra (well, up until the snake part, anyway)?  Some think she may have been black.  At the very least, she wasn't lilly white.

Ah, my fond childhood memories of reading tales about the Princess of New Orleans... oh, wait a minute..

[AmandaGal]

Jasmine and Mulan weren't white either.  I agree with you, there are some great African fables/tales that could be told in the same vein as Aladdin or Mulan.  It looks they're going to bring in some of the Voodoo elements and such to make the story work though so it could be ok. I'll wait to judge.

Reading the summaries, I'm going to predict it's going to be taken as racist.  We have the first black princess and she's a chambermaid to a plantation owner, we have a white rich girl and the main black characters do voodoo.  Can you get more stereotypical?  I know Disney does that all the time but, I have a feeling there will be "outcry."

I, on the other hand, still like Song Of the South and want to tell people to shut up, it's just a movie for god's sake.

[Cibernético II]

If they're going to do this, why not base it on an African fable or something?  Then it would seem less panicky and more culturally authentic.  Or what about telling the story of Cleopatra (well, up until the snake part, anyway)?  Some think she may have been black.  At the very least, she wasn't lilly white.

not to detract from your argument or anything but Cleopatra was white. Specifically she was Macedonian. She was the daughter of Alxeander's general Ptolemy, whom Alexander appointed pharaoh of Egypt. After he died, Cleopatra and her brother Ptolemy XIII became joint rulers.

whether you could call the inhabitants of ancient Egypt black Africans is a different argument. (I tend not to because they referred to Nubians as being the "dark" or "black" people)

[LadyKenobi]

Actually, I've done a lot of reading on Cleopatra-- she's fascinating-- and it's a subject of scholarly debate as far as her race.  Culturally, she was indeed more Greek than Egyptian, but there are some out there who think she was dark-skinned.  Me, I've never met her, so I can't say for sure

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

i wonder how heavily madri gras is going to play into this.  Everyone did notice that she is in new orleans, that alone might have political or at the very least social implications and modivators.  Maybe disney thinks new orleans needs something to look forward too and be happy about who knows.  I know this.  If the sound track isnt new orleans style jazz or zydaco (spelling) then ill have no real reason to watch it. 

[LadyKenobi]

If the sound track isnt new orleans style jazz or zydaco (spelling) then ill have no real reason to watch it.

It's the stylings of that jazz master, the great black composer... Randy Newman!

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

i just cried.  i hope your happy now lady kenobi

[LadyKenobi]

Reading the summaries, I'm going to predict it's going to be taken as racist.  We have the first black princess and she's a chambermaid to a plantation owner, we have a white rich girl and the main black characters do voodoo.  Can you get more stereotypical?  I know Disney does that all the time but, I have a feeling there will be "outcry."

I'll tell you another potential controversy with this project as it currently stands:  Some Christain groups are not going to be happy with the portrayal of voodoo on religious grounds (although I think it could be interesting.)  Disney just might have a huge fight on its hands.

You know who might be cool to do a couple cuts  for the soundtrack?  Jimmy Buffett.  He played in New Orleans for a while in his early days and wrote at least two songs about it.  He has one of his Margaritaville restaurants there.

But there ain't nothin like pure, good Dixieland jazz.