Sarah Turner Response

As The Princess and the Frog represents Disney's first movie that has a black princess, there has obviously been much debate surrounding the film. Some believe Tiana, the princess, isn't black enough while others believe the movie is too black. This argument has gained much academic attention, including by Sarah Turner who in her essay "Blackness, Bayous, and Gumbo: Encoding and Decoding Race in a Colorblind World" examines the role of race in the film.

For Turner, it becomes apparent that she believes Disney considers The Princess and the Frog a truly colorblind film. She cites a number of instances in Disney being especially careful in regards to race. For example, it hired correspondences to watch and critique the film (which actually ended up in the naming of the princess's name from Maddie to Tiana), included prominent African Americans in the film (such as Oprah Winfrey), and had a relative lack of race in the actual plot line. While Turner considers this "coding" of the movie to be inconspicuous enough, the decoding by the audience poses another side of the argument, which she asserts is not as overwhelmingly colorblind and positive.

Turner cites a number of instances in the film where race could and has been considered to be a prominent factor by the audience. These include the antithesis of Charlotte, the typical white princess characteristic of most Disney films, with Tiana, Tiana's job as a waiter in a generally black restaurant, the ambiguous ethnicity of Naveen, and the idea of if being frogs marginalizing "blackness." All these assertions definitely express the concerns many people have shown towards the film.

Nevertheless, although she never explicitly states it, Turner seems to believe in Disney's intentions of creating a colorblind, inspirational story, even if their ultimate goal is to make as big a profit as possible. Through an overall logical argument, inclusion of relevant evidence, and the usage of outside opinions and perspective, this assertion becomes especially strong for Turner.