As all of you know, Disney is coming out with the first full-length animated film, The Princess and the Frog, where the princess is African American.

I, for one, am ecstatic. I absolutely love two-dimensional Disney movies from The Little Mermaid to Beauty and the Beast to Aladdin. I cannot wait to see the movie.

However, there has been growing controversy over the film. Why?

1. Stereotypical characters. There’s a lightning bug with missing teeth who sings the blues; Tiana, the main character, works for a white family in New Orleans and was originally called Maddy (Maddy = Mammy).
2. Prince Naveen of Maldonia ain’t even black. The movie is set in New Orleans where there are black people everywhere, so why can’t the prince be black too?

What disappoints me in this situation is that we make everything about race all of the time. We just saw Precious, a movie that was sad and depressing and filled with stereotypes, can we just watch a simple cartoon without searching for things that are going to make us angry?

I definitely understand that it is disappointing to have a character that was named Maddy. I really do. But this movie was set in New Orleans during the 1930s, how many Tianas do you think there really were back then?

And about Prince Naveen not being black, how many black princes were there in the United States? I’ll tell you. None. Why? Because America wasn’t founded by royalty. That’s why the Brits left England. Duh. I bet the same people who think that there should be equality for all are the ones that are balking at this interracial relationship. And honestly, they spend most of the film in frog bodies. Not black frog bodies. Not Arab frog bodies, but green, since that’s what the colors of frogs are.

I’m not saying that we should overlook the fact that there may be some stereotypical undertones in the movie, but I really believe this is going to be a great film, and I can’t wait to sing along.

But can we wait until after the film comes out before we criticize? Please?