I’m quoting Abe Lincoln here because I didn’t want to use a common paraphrase of one of his really famous quotes, the one about pleasing (or fooling) some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time.
I thought of Abe when I was reading some of the discussion around the new Disney movie, “The Princess and the Frog.” Disney isn’t going to catch a break here: blasted for decades for not having a more inclusive ethnic representation in their cartoon lineup, they’re getting blasted now because not everyone likes the way the story unfolds.
Reading some of the comments in this analysis on CNN, I was struck by how all over the place the comments are. (I was also struck by how incoherent so many of them were, but that’s for a different day.)
Some commenters fully support Disney and their effort. Some blast the ‘toon for not providing an African-American prince for the heroine to fall in love with (his race is ambivalent, since his home country doesn’t exist in real life).
Some blast the blasters for not using the term ‘black,’ since not everyone of this ethnic group is actually an American (so says the Jamaican-born Brit who really went off on a rant here, and I have to admit that I’ve wondered about that…my kids report a history teacher who taught in class that Nelson Mandela was African-American. Um, not so much.)
It’s making me dizzy. It’s also annoying me a little. Only one commenter caught the real problem here, the real bigotry that plagues our civilization, the one that Disney is never, ever, ever going to address:
WHEN ARE WE GOING TO GET AN OVERWEIGHT PRINCESS? When are we going to get a princess who isn’t a size 2 and still inexplicably gets a prince?
Mom, Interrupted 
I’m not a fan of the term “African-American”… I think it’s hard for me to understand how it’s not offensive to the group it describes… after all I don’t know how far back I’d have to go to find their African roots. I wouldn’t want to be called Irish-American… really I’m not that Irish and it’s 3 generations back that lived there so yeah, I’m just American and so are they.. well, not Nelson Mandela =).
I think part of my issue is having dealt with a Hispanic friend’s annoyance with being called Mexican.. her parents were from Honduras. Just seems weird to me that it’s PC to lump all black people as being African.
As for the movie.. I haven’t seen it nor read the comments but when I saw the preview I was thinking that Disney was going to catch some flack for racial stereotyping (specifically the Mama Odie character – http://www.imdb.com/media/rm3217001984/tt0780521)
I hope I live to see the day when most main stream movies and tv shows have a diverse main cast and they don’t feel the need to make a big deal about it. Certainly I think the drama’s have gotten better but comedy’s still seem to have their main characters all be of one race.