The Princess and the President

It’s 2009 and we have a half black President sitting in the White House and Disney has released it’s first African American themed animated feature. In the minds of many these two events represent significant watermarks for the progress of black people in America. I beg to differ. I haven’t sat down with other black people to discuss this nor have I gone into any black community to gauge their collective feelings and opinions about these matters. This is strictly my own viewpoint, my own opinion, as one black person in America.

I vividly remember election night, November 4, 2008. I happily purchased two bottles of champagne to celebrate the soon-to-be President Obama’s victory. Unlike many people I knew he was going to be victorious. I wasn’t worried or nervous. I was 100 percent certain that Obama would win. When John McCain selected Sarah Palin as his running mate, in my eyes it sealed the presidential victory for Barack Obama. Up to then I was concerned the GOP would pull off another masterful cheating scheme to win the presidency as they had done in 2000 (Florida) and 2004 (Diebold voting machines). When the GOP allowed McCain to select Palin it was a true sign of their desperation. It’s not like they had a lot of great choices. Their new up and comers like Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee couldn’t beat out retread McCain. Giuliani couldn’t hog enough of the 9/11 spotlight from George Bush to cash in on the patriotic/fear vote. Ron Paul was an outsider who really never had a chance. Fred Thompson, I don’t know what he was thinking. He wasn’t a leading man on fictional tv shows so why would anyone buy him as a leading man in the real world?

I had barely gotten home from work and uncorked the bubbly when the networks were already declaring Obama the winner. I remember turning to my girlfriend Denise and saying, “Do you know what this means? Now when we tell little black kids they can grow up to be President it will actually mean something.” In the next 10 minutes every network’s token African American analyst said the same thing, except for the FOX Network which had no prominent or token African American analyst. All they had was that deer-in-the-headlights look on their face as they mumbled in disbelief over the election results. Two bottles of champagne, $35. The look on the Fox Network newscasters after the election, priceless.

All over the world people were celebrating Obama’s victory. They were saying, “Look what America did”. The French news was querying why had they not produced an Obama ( I guess the French see themselves as the THE nation of western progress). In the eyes of the world America had redeemed itself, at least somewhat, for eight years of the Bush administration and what it wrought on the planet. Around the world Obama’s victory was not seen as a victory or validation for black people, it was a validation for the country as a whole. It was not an indicator of black progress, it was an indicator of American progress. That’s kind of how I saw it too. We didn’t put him into office. Yes, we voted for him but there aren’t enough black votes to put him into office. If you look at the voting record of black people over the last two elections we voted in almost the same numbers for Obama as we did for Gore and Kerry. The next day, sobered up from the champagne, I knew that the world would still be the same for everyday African Americans. I knew that the problems that plague our communities would still be there. I knew that just because we had a black President it wouldn’t mean that black issues would get top shelf treatment. A government for and by the people had changed over decades by war and globalization, into a government for and by the wealthy and powerful, who’s main instrument of control was the corporate structure, debt, and taxation. I didn’t see Obama as one who’s Presidency would be about radically altering that shift or changing that system. Presidents change but the corporate lobbyists remain. It’s a revolving door for elected and appointed officials to go from public service to private lobbying or to sitting on boards of large corporations, using their influence to dictate legislation that helps the rich get richer and stay richer. When the economy collapsed where did the all the bail out money go? Who was given all those hundreds of billions of dollars? It wasn’t the average, everyday, working American.

If anything the election of Barack Obama has ratcheted up the intensity of the hateful race rhetoric that has always been part of post Civil War America. The mindset of many Americans is since we now have a black President there is no excuse for black people not to be doing as well as other groups. It was like the election was supposed to make all of our problems and the history and legacy of racism, segregation, and institutional violence, disappear overnight. Don’t get me wrong. I was very happy that Obama was elected because I have a history of voting for people who don’t win (Nader, Camejo) and to be honest I never thought I would see a black President in my lifetime. I think Obama’s election was a greater nod to the country as a whole than to the black people of America. It proved to me that there are many many tens of millions of Americans who have moved beyond the politics of race and are willing to elect anyone to the office they feel can do the job.

Did Obama’s election have any influence on Disney’s decision to make its very first ever black themed animated movie? Maybe, maybe not. Was it due to years of pressure from organized groups of African Americans? Maybe, maybe not. If there has been a pressure put on Disney by black groups it hasn’t been on my radar. In my opinion, being recognized by Disney is extremely low on the priority list. We don’t need to be validated by the Disney corporation. Disney, like any other corporation, has one primary function and that is to be profitable and reward its stockholders. The only color that concerns them is green. I am completely ok with that. This is America where capitalism trumps all, including democracy, the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution. I do have a problem with that last part but I do understand and accept that making money is the most important thing happening under the banner of Americanism. Disney’s choice to make a black themed animated film is simply a matter of diversifying its assets and tapping into and widening new markets. Although almost completely absent from the American media, there is a black middle class that exists and its consumer habits are no different than any other middle class. I'm sure Disney is counting on this movie to have audience appeal beyond the black middle class. They are counting on it to appeal to the majority of the middle class, because ultimately, that's where the big bucks are.

Like any other kid I grew up watching and enjoying Disney movies but I never drank the Disney kool aid. I never was one to pine for Disney trinkets and memorabilia. Growing up in LA I loved going to Disneyland. One of my earliest traumatic memories was going into the mouth of the whale on the Storybook Land canal ride. I can still vividly remember the frightening whale eyes, the humungous whale teeth, and the big thing that hangs at the back of the throat that I do not know the name of. I literally thought I was about to become whale food and it scared the bejeezus out of me. It was scary but it also was thrilling and I liked thrills. On my 8th grade graduation field trip we went to Disneyland and it was one of the most exciting days of my entire life. Space Mountain had just opened and there were no crowds on a beautiful May day in Southern California. Me and my classmate must have rode Space Mountain about 10 times. We would get off the ride all hyped up and get right back on to ride it again as there were literally no lines. Up to then it was probably the most thrilling thing I had ever experienced. I was also a huge fan of the Pirates of the Caribbean. Pirates was less about thrills and more about atmosphere. It was the kind of environment that transported me to another world and another time. It was a fantasy come to life. That’s what Disney meant to me. It was all about the “E” ticket rides of thrills and adventure.

The movies on the other hand, especially their animated features, I didn’t think much of. Even as a kid I knew they were tame and sanitized. Because I do animation for a living I do respect Disney for what they have done. They practically invented the genre and works like Fantasia and Snow White are true masterpieces from a technical standpoint, but I was never drawn to them by the stories being told. When I think back to my childhood and what animated features really stuck with me, none of them are from Disney. Watership Down, Fantastic Planet, Ralph Bakshi’s Lord of the Rings, and The Yellow Submarine were the animated films that captured my imagination. There is only one Disney movie that ranks among my all time favorites and that is Dragonslayer which came out in 1981 and is a movie that breaks the Disney mold as it has much violence and a princess that actually meets a dire fate and literally becomes a meal for some not so cute baby dragons.

Watching these movies as a kid I was not at all concerned with skin color. I didn’t expect to see black people in Disney movies, it was just something that was understood about movies and television in general. To me movies and television seemed segregated. Whenever I saw black people on screen it was usually in what are now called, “blaxploitation” movies. On tv it was shows about living in the ghetto, shows like Sanford and Son, Good Times, and The Jeffersons. I watched them anyway because black people were in them. Something was better than nothing. As I became older and more knowledgeable about media I began to notice that when black people were in mainstream productions they were always playing the role of a low class person, like a drug dealer, pimp, or criminal. When a black person appeared in a film and they weren’t playing a stereotype it was very noticeable. In the movie Bullitt, George Stanford Brown played the role of the lead doctor. In Planet of the Apes, Jeff Burton played the role of one of two astronauts accompanying Charlton Heston. In the Omega Man, Rosalind Cash plays the role of Charlton Heston’s love interest and featured the first interracial romance I ever saw in a movie. The Outer Limits, a very progressive early 60’s sci fi tv show, featured a few black actors in the role of scientist or astronaut, and of course there was the original Star Trek series featuring Nichelle Nichols as Lt. Uhura. These characters stood out to me more than the gangsters, pimps, and drug dealers. I would actually wonder to myself how the actors obtained the roles. There is always the exception to the rule and of course that was Sidney Poitier. He was the only black actor who consistently played a wide range of characters that weren’t supporting the stereoptypes. It was almost shocking to see him paired up with Bill Cosby in the urban ghetto comedies, Uptown Saturday Night and Let’s Do It Again, that were produced in the mid 70‘s. I love both of those films, first and foremost because they were hysterically funny and secondly because of the presence of Poitier and Cosby which allowed the films to rise above the stereotypes.

So now we have The Princess and the Frog, Disney’s first black themed animated movie starring a black princess. There’s been a lot of hype over the film because of this. Really, what is the big deal? Is a black princess supposed to be meaningful to black people? If I remember correctly this country was created as a result of rebelling against a monarchy. In the Thomas Paine version of the Declaration of Independence(which Jefferson used as the foundation for the actual DI) one of the main reason for declaring independence was because of the African slave trade business that had been imposed by the monarch of England, King George. Many of the first Europeans that came from England to the Americas were indentured servants. You would think that Americans would have no interest in royalty, yet we do. How do you explain the American fascination with Princess Di? As a nation we are fascinated and thrilled by royalty and royal blood. Having a black princess does nothing for black people in America. If a black princess is supposed to be a boost to black self esteem then we are in serious trouble. You can’t grow up to be a princess in this country. You can grow up to be the President, an astronaut, or a doctor, but you can’t be a princess no matter what you are told. A black princess in a Disney movie serves Disney more than anything else. They get to take a crack at expanding the market for their movies into the black community and I think it is working. I’ve seen many parents with little boys and girls saying, “finally”, but really you think the kids are going to care? Is one black princess in a Disney movie going to have a profound, life changing effect? I think it’s the parents who are being affected more than the kids. They have probably struggled with trying to find positive black images in mainstream culture to bestow on their children and will seize upon anything halfway suitable in our highly visible, heavily saturated, 24-hours-a-day, digital, pop culture (even babies have i-phone apps now).

That’s what I am at issue with. We shouldn’t need to turn to the media for positive role models. Black people have been succeeding in America since the earliest days of its formation. We have a great legacy in this country of black achievers and it would be great to shine the spotlight on that. They aren’t going to see these people on movie screens and they won’t learn about them in school. We have been succeeding in this country long before Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement. I love the reality of Sojourner Truth, an ex slave that went to live among the Dutch and learned their language and became a powerful spokesperson for women and black people. Even more intriguing is the story of John Horse, a man who escaped slavery and went to live among the Seminole tribe and became one of their most important leaders. He organized ex slaves and Seminoles to fight against the U.S. Army using guerilla warfare tactics. He is the only enemy combatant to fight on U.S soil and earn a peace treaty with the U.S. government. They could not beat him. How about Marcus Garvey? He began the pan African movement in the United States and was one of the very first black entrepreneurs. He was born in Jamaica but came to the United States to organize black people all over the world under one movement to advance African people. He started several successful businesses in pre World War II America. The first successful open heart surgery was performed by Dr. Dan Hale Williams, a black doctor, in 1893. In 1909, African American Matthew Henson along with Robert Peary discovered the North Pole. Today we have famous rappers and entertainers like P. Diddy and Kanye West but long after they are gone and forgotten people will still be influenced by the works of Langston Hughes. Barack Obama was only the fifth ever black Senator and only the second in the last 20 years. The first three black U.S. senators made it to that level in the Nineteenth century. Usain Bolt is the fastest man possibly ever but before him there was Jesse Owens smashing the myth of Aryan supremacy by winning four gold medals in the 1936 in Germany, humbling Hitler and severely undermining his philosophy of white supremacy.

Africans have proven they can succeed in America long before Barack Obama and we don’t need validation from the Disney corporation. I’m not saying that the Princess and the Frog is a bad movie, on the contrary, I have heard it is a very entertaining film, but it isn’t a significant indicator of anything happening with black people in America. If anything it’s time we took control of telling our own stories. It is time to start teaching our kids the legacy of black success. Much of what I have learned about black heritage I have learned through my own research. There is more to our history than Martin Luther King and slavery and we shouldn’t have to wait until Black History Month to learn about black history. In this new age of information everyday is an opportunity.