After 75 Years of Magic: Disney Answers Its Critics, Rewrites African American History, and Cashes In on Its Racist Past

Abstract

This paper explores representations of the historical intersection of race and gender in Disney’s The Princess and the Frog and black women in animated film in the USA. It examines how Disney and Pixar studio executives and animators attempted to use The Princess and the Frog to respond to its critics’ claims about the perpetuation of sexism and racism in its animated features. It has three major sections which explore how: (1) Disney attempted to answer criticism about the absence of African Americans and mothers in its films, the presence of physically over-sexualized and emotionally prince-dependent maidens in distress; (2) representations of animated black women in the history of film and Disney’s rewriting or sanitizing of African American history and denial of its and our nation’s racist past; and (3) Disney’s attempt to cash in on this denial of its racist past and its use of The Princess and the Frog as reconciliation.