Can Disney pull it off?

While Fridays will primarily be for Disney posts, I had to write one after seeing THIS!

It's a trailer for Disney's newest animated feature The Princess and the Frog. The movie is set to hit theaters on Dec. 11. From the trailer the movie looks fairly promising. But it's hard for me to tell quite yet. I'm a huge Disney fan, and I feel like the company hasn't put out, in my opinion of course, a 'classic Disney film' since Tarzan in 1999. And even Tarzan almost didn't make the cut for me because none of the characters sang. From watching the trailer it doesn't seem that any of the characters in The Princess and the Frog do sing, but according to Wikipedia there are a few songs and a voice cast.

The film looks promising, and I think it's great that there will be an African American Princess. However, there is already some controversy surrounding this. When information about the film was first starting to surface the title of the movie was reported as being The Frog Princess and the main character was named Maddy. Her name caused some question of how sensitive Disney would be about an African American princess since Maddy can be seen as a slave name. However, more recent reports have stated that the movie will be called The Princess and the Frog and the heroine's name will be Tiana.

In addition, by watching the trailer, it is clear that Tiana is transformed to a frog very early on in the film. If she remains in this state through most of the film, it takes away from the fact that she is an African American princess. However, the film is set during the roaring 20s in Harlem and it seems that much of the culture of that era will be drawn into the film - literally.

Hopefully this will usher in another run of films similar to the ones my generation grew up with, and maybe children of the 20th century will rediscover a love for the older, but beloved, Disney films.