Did Racism Blunt The Princess and the Frog?
Animated films have been all the rage over the last several years. They are assured moneymakers; even cheaper, independently-produced animated films (think films like Hoodwinked) make remarkable returns on their investment. And for major players like Disney and Pixar, their animated films are almost legendary moneymakers.
In recent years, there has been an almost insatiable desire for computer animated films, as opposed to the traditional hand-drawn method. This is mostly due to the market unearthed by Pixar’s Toy Story, which showed that computer animation looks more like a child’s toy, and therefore translates into retail product much easier.
But traditional animated fare has survived – and even thrived – despite the rise of computer animation. Films like Coraline and The Fantastic Mr. Fox show that traditional animation methods can produce healthy box office returns.
Given this, what caused the relatively small box office take for Disney’s hand-drawn The Princess and the Frog this past weekend? The film made $24.2 million on a whopping 4,800 screens, hardly matching the larger returns for Disney cartoons of the past. Despite the film setting a record for box office returns in December for animated films, this sum must be considered disappointing by anyone rationally watching such things (namely, Disney accountants). By comparison, Coraline made $16 million and then $18 million in two weeks the dead zone of February of 2009 on far fewer screens, and that film wasn’t promoted nearly as hard as this newest Disney film. Disney is probably looking at a domestic gross of only around $120 million for this film, far lower than the monster hits of the past.
So if not the audience, what caused the lack of performance? For me, it comes down to simple racism. The film, which features Disney’s first foray into African/Cajun themes since Song of the South, simply seemed too ethnic for the majority. The witchdoctor character seemed too black … the setting is too Louisiana backwoods … and the heroine seemed just a bit too “what-choo-talkin’-bout” for most people’s tastes.
One cannot blame Disney’s promotional team, which seemed to hit the right notes with the trailers and teasers. You certainly cannot fault the animation itself, which is gorgeous. And let’s not forget that the film had star-power with voices like Oprah Winfrey and John Goodman in the cast.
In the end, I don’t think average Americans want to see this much ethnicity and cultural “flavor” in their animated children’s films. It’s a sad commentary on how far we have yet to come to embrace differences and instill that in our young.
