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.
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.
The name "Tiana" is of Russian, Latin and English origin and means "follower of Christ". Tiana's princess personality is "Inspiring". Tiana is the first dark-skinned princess of Disney. Tiana's web personalities are ambitious, determined.
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.
we still don't have a black disney princess movie...
Is there a Disney princess of every race?
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.
Anika Noni Rose opens up about her legacy as the 1st Black Disney princess. The actor who voiced Princess Tiana in the 2009 animated film "The Princess and the Frog" is opening up about her legacy portraying the groundbreaking character.
One thing to note, Hans Christian Andersen left out race, skin color, and character names. For the animated movie, Disney made the little mermaid white, made her hair red, and gave her a name, Ariel.
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.
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. This casting of a Black woman as the iconic mermaid has made waves.
Nationality. Polynesian. 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.
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.
As for whether Elsa and Anna are white … the Northuldra are modeled on the Sami, an indigenous people scattered across northern Scandinavia and northwestern Russia who have faced a great deal of discrimination, but there's a lot of disagreement about the genetic and linguistic origins of Sami to this day.
The new instalment is coming out next year, with quite an ironic twist: Snow White, who is described as having 'skin as white as snow' in the original Grimm Brothers version, is no longer white at all. Instead, she will be played by actress Rachel Zegler, a Latina of Colombian ancestry.
The casting is beautifully “colour blind”, with the prince being white and his mother being Black (he is adopted). At the same time, the Little Mermaid's father is white, while her mermaid sisters are of various different races and ethnicities.
While it is known that her mother perished, there is no story attached to the event. However, much later, in 2008, an animated The Little Mermaid prequel revealed that Ariel's mother was crushed by a pirate ship during an altercation between humans and merpeople.
And while creators of The Little Mermaid originally wanted Ariel to have blonde hair to stay in keeping with the fairy tale written by Hans Christian Andersen, Splash's massive popularity was still too hot to ignore. So, in a bid to stand out from the crowd, an iconic change was given to the underwater princess.
One theory is that each of Ariel's sisters represents different oceans that are home to various cultures and ethnicities. It's pretty problematic to have mermaids who all look the same representing such an expansive underwater world.
Ariel, is a fictional character, with no defined skin color in her original material. She was originally written by a Danish author in the 1800s. She has been portrayed in ballet and movies by Asian, Russian, and mixed-race individuals, her cartoon depictions are typically pale.
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His skin is brown, but he isn't African-American. "A lot of moms had issues with that," Coleman said. "It felt like it was a slap in the face to black men." Coleman asked a Disney executive if Prince Naveen was Creole and was told that his background was made up; he's whatever ethnicity they have in fictional Maldonia.
5) In the film's novelization, Moana's age is given as 16. This makes her the only Disney princess to be voiced by an actress younger than herself. Moana was released on Cravalho's 16th birthday.
