In the Defense of Tiana

Whitney: It’s time to move on to the 21st century princesses. A lot has changed from when Snow White first came on the scene, but then again, some things haven’t changed. Now, I’m not a huge fan of The Princess and the Frog as a movie, but I think Tiana is a great character. She works hard (just like Cinderella or Mulan or Belle) for what she wants and she’s kind to the people she meets. I mean, she does have a hard time connecting to Naveen at first, but he turned her into a frog, so who could blame her?

Becky: Plus Naveen was an idiot. Hardly a likable character at all. The thing with Tiana is she was so focused on her goal [not a bad thing!] that she was forgetting to live. Mama Odie made that point fairly clear with her epic gospel number that really SHOULD have had a reprise, but nobody sang along with Ray, so that’s that. Tiana is a strong woman. No one had to save her, because what she faced was a bit harder to deal with. She lacked money to make her dreams come true. But she would work night and day for it on her own, so there was nothing that anyone HAD to do for her.

Whitney: I like that instead of them moving back to Naveen’s country, they stay in New Orleans and open the restaurant. This means that Naveen grew up and learned about what is important and was willing to make sacrifices for Tiana. Tiana didn’t have to sacrifice her dream in order to marry the prince.

Becky: Yeah, poor Tiana. She got her dream restaurant, got to stay in New Orleans, and oh yeah, she got a prince who worships the ground she walks on. I bet she was really bitter when they had to go to...where the heck was he from again? Maldonia? Wherever. When they had to go there and do the whole royalty thing, I bet she was really hating it. I think the point of this story was when the royalty was stripped aside, when the working girl was stripped aside, and everyone was a frog...and could conceivably have been frogs forever, they found themselves, and that enabled them to find the good in each other. And it took WORK. They didn’t like each other at first. Hello, real relationship storyline…..

Whitney: No love at first sight this time around. It’s pretty easy to show when the prince is around the whole movie. Maybe we should be defending the princes . . . they get a bum rap.

Becky: Well, you’d have to forgive Snow White’s Prince Charming if we did that.

Whitney: Right . . . maybe not then.