The first five minutes of the opening scene of the upcoming movie “Princess and the Frog” were leaked to the media. The movie starts in the beautiful mansion of La Bouff in historic New Orleans, where a young Tiana and Charlotte La Bouff are listening to the story about “the Prince and the Frog” told by Eudora, Tiana’s mother. Ironically, Tiana tells her mother that she would never kiss a frog, while her friend mocks her by trying to make Tiana kiss her transformed Frog puppet. One can definitely see that the montage of the movie is not finalized yet, given the lack of color in the scene with James, Eudora and Tiana. This clip gives us all a sense of joy and warmth, that is reminiscent of the old Disney Classics. I have a strong sense that the movie could become more popular than most analysts and studios are projecting and will be important to Disney’s new Renaissance of classic hand-drawn 2D movies, because of the audacity to use black people as main characters and the wonderful combination of music, joy, characters and story line, that hasn’t been enjoyed by large audiences since the Lion King and Aladdin.

Willem de Vocht