There are 13 official Disney princesses and six are women of color. Only one (Princess Tiana) is Black. “The Princess and The Frog” inspired actor Halle Bailey to play Arielle in last year's live-action remake of “The Little Mermaid,” she said. “Black princesses are possible.
In Disney's nearly 100-year history, there has been only one Black Disney princess — Princess Tiana in “The Princess and the Frog,” a 2009 animated feature starring Anika Noni Rose. The singer Brandy starred in a 1997 made-for-TV film version of “Cinderella,” a remake of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical.
Tiana is recognized for being Disney's first African American princess. As the film's writers and directors, Clements and Musker claim that their decision to depict Tiana as an African American young woman came naturally simply as a result of the location in which the story takes place.
Disney's animated film, The Princess and the Frog, featured its first Black princess. Princess Tiana's flick opened at the top of the box office when it debuted in 2009.
There are currently only five non-Caucasian Disney Princesses: Jasmine, Pocahontas, Mulan, Tiana and Moana. Jasmine is Arabian. Pocahontas is Native American. Mulan is Chinese.
we still don't have a black disney princess movie...
What ethnicity is Ariel?
Disney's Ariel is not the same as Anderson's little mermaid. The movie is loosely based on the fairy tale, so Disney has the freedom to give Ariel any skin color they want. In the 1989 movie, Ariel was born in the fictional underwater kingdom of Atlantica, which technically makes her Atlantican, not Danish.
Moana as she appears in Moana (2016). Inspired by Polynesian mythology, Moana is depicted as the strong-willed daughter of a chief of a Polynesian village, who is chosen by the ocean itself to reunite a mystical relic with the goddess Te Fiti.
The movie surprisingly underperformed and did not make as much revenue as anticipated, according to the Washington Examiner on November 27. The main character, 18-year-old Asha, is an afro-latina villager determined to restore the forgotten wishes of her family and those belonging to the kingdom of Rosas.
While some claim Jasmine is Arab because the movie opens with a song called Arabian Nights, others believe that the architecture in Agrabah is clearly based on the Taj Mahal, making Jasmine Indian. It's a debate that has fueled speculation that in Hollywood, Indians and Arabs are interchangeable.
There are 13 official Disney princesses and six are women of color. Only one (Princess Tiana) is Black. “The Princess and The Frog” inspired actor Halle Bailey to play Arielle in last year's live-action remake of “The Little Mermaid,” she said.
After 34 years, Disney returns under the sea with its live-action adaptation of The Little Mermaid, premeiring in theaters on May 26. The new version stars Halle Bailey, most known for her role in the Grammy-nominated Chloe x Halle R&B duo, as Ariel in the actress's first starring feature film role.
Even if we get nothing else out of these remakes, being racially nimble with how they are cast helps both old and young audiences reimagine what our cultural icons look like. Representation is important, but we also need to separate canon from whiteness and decolonize society's sense of who children should look up to.
In the original 1989 Disney animated classic, Ariel's character is White, with straight red hair. But as Murphy and other young Black and brown girls head to theaters this weekend to see “The Little Mermaid,” they'll find an Ariel that is very much a reflection of themselves.
Yes, Asha is biracial. Half African and half Iberian. According to Director Chris Buck, and Disney's casting call for Asha in the Disney Parks, and the artists responsible for Disney's Wish storybook, Asha's mother is North African and her late father was Southern European.
If you mean American Indian, then that would be Pocahontas. The only other Disney character I know of close to India's Indian would be the Jasmine character but I believe she considered to be more a Middle eastern character. There is also Jungle Book which takes place in India, but there isn't really a princess in it.
Although Moana is from the fictional island Motunui some 3,000 years ago, the story and culture of Moana is based on the very real heritage and history of Polynesian islands such as Hawaii, Samoa, Tonga, and Tahiti. In fact, once you start looking for ties to Polynesian culture in Moana, it's hard to stop!
The easiest answer for why the Frozen women don't count is simply that Elsa is a queen in the first movie, and gives up her crown for Anna to take over in Frozen 2. They are therefore Queens and not Princesses. But, as we've seen, royalty isn't even a condition of entry, so that alone shouldn't rule them out.
Raya is a fictional character in Walt Disney Animation Studios' animated film Raya and the Last Dragon (2021). Created by screenwriters Adele Lim and Qui Nguyen, Raya is the thirteenth official member of the Disney Princess line-up and Disney's first Southeast Asian princess.
Snow White is only 14 years old, making her the youngest. Jasmine, who is supposed to be 15, is the second youngest. Cinderella and Tiana are the oldest, both 19 years old.
