A few months ago, Entertainment Weekly’s story about the upcoming fall season revealed that the only new black character would be Cleveland Brown, the star of the new Family Guy spin-off called Cleveland (which actually won’t debut until next year). But Mike Henry, who originated the role and is not black would supply his voice. I don’t remember any big protests about this but rather there was more concern about the lack of real black characters in prime time television. But perhaps Fox thought it would be easier to address the ethnic diversity of this show rather than actually casting actors we could see on any of its new projects. That said, I am glad to hear that Sanaa Lathan will be the voice of Cleveland’s wife, Donna and Nia Long will lend her pipes to the rebel in the family, stepdaughter Roberta.
This is all good but I read another story that made me think that maybe we’re spending too much on the minutiae associated with animated characters. I read a report in the British newspaper called The Independent today that mentions how Disney had to go back to the drawing board on the new animated movie they were doing about its first black princess. Apparently, it was going to be called The Frog Princess and was going to take place in New Orleans in the 1920s during the vibrant Jazz Age. There was lots of fanfare because this ‘toon would be hand-drawn in the vein of classics like Cinderella. Well it turns out folks protested on everything from the title to the character’s name, Maddy, to the fact that she was supposed to play a chambermaid. Apparently Maddy sounds too much like Mammy. Really? I wonder how many people who have that nickname have found that to be true? Instead, Disney now is calling the character Tiana but she will live in a fictional land and end up with a prince of a different race.
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July 19th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Amen! Good point, Corynne. I’m glad to hear that Disney is planning a black princess because my daughter needs some variety. Not to mention, television cartoons are leaps and bounds ahead than Disney in having ethnic diversity. As a woman, regardless of race, I’m just kind of sick of the whole princess finds the prince storyline.
July 19th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
i am a sucker for a good love story but I don’t need the princess either. But it seems like the princess phenomenon has been growing over the past decade. Now its not just fairy tales but assorted paraphrenalia that surround young girls in their room emblazoned with “Princess.” Building a healthy imagination is important but are we giving our girls unrealistic expectations?
July 29th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
HBO used to run a princess series targeted towards black girls. The girls were both empowering but also princesses. Till this day I do not understand the princess phenomenon (when I was younger my email address had queen in it instead of princess like all the other teens), but that series was really good and it used popular black actresses and actors to supply the voices. It was called Hapilly Ever After. Here’s the link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111996/
Maybe they should bring this back.
October 24th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
We many be sick of it but it seems each generation needs their princess. Why not a black girl and thank goodness NOT the Frog Princess (I just couldn’t take that in general). Just to put the devils advocate spin…should we still be interested in RACE?