In a press release last Friday, Disney revealed some new details about this upcoming Princess and the Frog attraction at the ESSENCE Fest in New Orleans. The event featured jazz music and a Q&A with the imagineers who worked on the ride as well as Stella Chase, the daughter of the late Chef Leah Chase, who provided inspiration for Tiana's character. It looks like it was a lot of fun to attend and reminds me of the 10th anniversary event I went to for the film in 2019. The press release features video footage of an interview panel with Stella Chase in which she discloses the positive princess traits that her grandmother brought to the character such as chasing after her dreams and accepting people from all walks of life at her restaurant. These are indeed admirable traits that were represented beautifully in the film, but this interview discussion has very little to do with the ride itself.
Another topic discussed at the ESSENCE Fest in the press release is the new outfit that was designed for Tiana to wear on this ride, which takes place after the ending of the film. Despite being a frog for most of her movie, Tiana has more original looks in her premiere film than any other Disney Princess, so this adventuring gear is just one more historical dress up piece to add to her extensive closet. Costume Designer Ida Muldrow forgoes Tiana's glamorous gowns for a pair of 1920s style khakis, a yellow button-down shirt, red bandana ascot, cloche hat, and hiking boots perfect for navigating the swampy terrain of the bayou. The ride is the first time since Wreck-It Ralph 2 that Tiana is featured with her hair down, an intentional decision to show off her glamorous curls and place emphasis on the versatility of black women's hair and its significance to their identity around the world. The new look reflects how "Tiana was equally at home in the bayou as she was at a banquet". It makes sense for her to wear something more comfortable for this adventure after instead of any of the fancy gowns Charlotte leant her in the film.
One thing that surprised me about this press release is the lack of references to the original Splash Mountain ride. I know it's a controversial topic, but if the ride is being rethemed to be about Tiana, some things will likely remain the same, such as the log flumes and the big drop. How will they justify falling down a big waterfall as part of Tiana's story? It may seem like a silly question for any other theme park ride, but Disney is all about storytelling. Splash Mountain takes you on a complete journey with colorful characters from Song of the South. Similarly, Tiana's Bayou Adventure is supposed to immerse parkgoers in Tiana's first Mardi Gras as a princess alongside friends like Louis. I would have loved to hear more about how the ride would function to tell this story, but the event seemed to focus entirely on the culture behind the ride's retheming. The short film about the research the imagineers did in New Orleans seems to avoid telling us anything about the actual ride. However, I'm sure there will be more specifics revealed as we get closer to the release date in two years.
As a big fan of Princess Tiana, I am cautiously excited for this "new" ride that will replace one I was mostly indifferent to. It was great to see so many people come together to celebrate the film at the ESSENCE festival, and I love how much care they are taking in being authentic to the culture of New Orleans and the 1920s. I just wish I knew more about the ride itself as the press release seemed to discuss everything but. Are you eager for a Princess and the Frog ride to join the ranks of the Disney Parks, or would you rather see something brand new featuring these characters? Let me know in the comments!
Only one month after my recent obsession with Find Me in Paris , the time-traveling ballerina princess drama dropped its third and final season on Hulu today. Though somewhat predictable, this season offered a satisfying conclusion to the show's unique concept that combined dance with science fiction and tied up all remaining loose ends from the previous seasons. We finally learned the truth about Lena's birth and why she's always being chased by anyone remotely interested in time travel. Nearly every character got paired off at the end, even if it meant some questionable decisions on behalf of the writers. The season also offered some of the most beautiful dance sequences in the show yet for its key story moments. While I could have done without the repetitive recap sequences, the final episodes made it clear that this was always meant to be the end and gave the cast and crew many happy memories to look back upon. The final season of Find Me in Paris incorporated the ...
Yesterday, the Starz network released the series finale of The Spanish Princess , concluding The White Queen trilogy of miniseries that began in 2013. Based on a book series called The Cousins' War by Phillippa Gregory , the trilogy covers the women who stood behind the men in power in the English monarchy from 1464 to the 1530s, preceding the first two sovereign queens, Mary and Elizabeth. The White Queen , The White Princess , and The Spanish Princess grant us a rare opportunity to see what life was like for medieval monarchs. Watching them reminded me of why I prefer the fairy tale versions of royalty. Those stories do not contain the gory deaths, gruesome births, and invasive politics that historical dramatizations like these exemplify. In fact, I had very little interest in watching the second season of The Spanish Princess until I watched some historical videos and learned that the king that Catherine of Aragon was married to was none other than King...
Today is a major accomplishment for me. I started this blog 100 days ago, and I've managed to write a new post in it every day since then. Some of the topics were easier to come up with than others. I also had to go back and edit some after the fact due to poor proofreading. Speaking of which, I'm really sorry about the disastrous short story from my first Story Saturday post . The whole thing was written on my phone on the way to a Mermaid Art Show event in San Diego, so I was a little distracted. I promise to put more effort into future Story Saturdays, which should be easier now that I will no longer be writing new posts every day. Don't worry, though. I will still keep everyone informed of the latest princess news and review all the new princess movies and specials. Without further ado, in celebration of my 100th post, here is a list of 100 princesses with all of the posts I've made about them (in no particular order). Thank you so much for reading my blog. 1-11:...
Four years ago, I shared a review of a cozy strategy game called Yes, Your Grace , in which players take on the role of a king who must wisely distribute resources to protect his family and his kingdom. Now, the game has released a sequel called Yes, Your Grace: Snowfall, in which the stakes have been raised exponentially. Snowfall features similar graphics and gameplay to the original, albeit with some small updates, along with a significantly darker tone. Players begin as King Eryk, the protagonist from the first game, but things quickly take a turn for the worse with his circumstances and health, and Queen Aurelea must step in to protect what's most dear to them. The game begins by allowing players to input over their story decisions from the first Yes, Your Grace. For those of us who played it almost five years ago, it might be hard to remember what those decisions were. This task can be bypassed by asking the advisor to make the best decisions, or just give it your best guess....
When I wrote my series of fairy tale origin posts , one major story that I skipped was "Sleeping Beauty." It wasn't because I didn't care for this story as much as the others, but instead that it had a less complex narrative of changing with the times . In fact, this fairy tale is so simple that no matter how many updates modern adaptations incorporate, it is rarely altered so drastically from its roots to the point of being unrecognizable, except in the case of a ridiculous 2016 horror movie called The Curse of Sleeping Beauty . Of all the movies I argued against depicting the theme of "Be pretty, girls, and things might work out," Sleeping Beauty is the biggest outlier. It is probably for this reason that it is the only Disney Princess movie that did not get a direct live-action remake , but instead a creative reimagining with Maleficent , which focused on the more active villain than the mostly passive princess. Determining how much Sleeping Beauty h...
Since I have a tendency to binge things, it's difficult for me to keep track of newer visual novels in Time Princess when they keep getting split into two separate releases. Even though I completed the Mirror of Masks story, I had a hard time following it. Still, I have received positive feedback on my other Time Princess reviews, so I will cover this one as well. If nothing else, I love the overall vibe that Mirror of Masks gives off. Its 2D cover is a work of art, and it does a great job of creating a metaphor for espionage under the guise of fake and pretentious Hollywood glamour. That said, this story bit off more than it could chew by attempting to cover too many genres at once. Leila Federer is a young ingenue who just got her big break in a major motion picture. Nothing on set is what it seems when an actress is mysteriously murdered, and Leila is recruited to join a secret organization investigating the scandal. Suddenly, her ambitious quest for stardom turns i...
The first post I wrote in this blog was called "How the Disney Princesses Stayed Modern for 80 Years." The answer was a combination of creating new princesses to match the times along with branded promotional videos, events, and merchandise that combine the old with the new. The latest example is this year's Ultimate Princess Celebration , which is an attempt to celebrate all of the Disney Princesses, including ones that may feel outdated by today's standards, by releasing imagery that makes it look like they're all friends. This is a wonderful method of keeping some of my favorite childhood characters relevant , but it is also a shield used to cover up a darker truth that many of these characters would not be deemed acceptable by today's standards. We have reached a point in Hollywood in which traditional feminine traits are considered weak or problematic . As such, characters like Raya are considered the only acceptable way to portray a woman in the medi...
Almost two years ago, Disney announced that they were working on a spinoff series to Sofia the First . The best place to reveal new updates about this mysterious series would have been the D23 Expo , which took place in Anaheim last weekend. Instead, Disney Jr. quietly posted on Instagram today that we can expect to see the new series, Sofia the First: Royal Magic on Disney+ in 2026. This is fantastic news if it's true, but Disney has broken promises on many other upcoming shows over the upcoming years, so it's a good idea to take all their announcements with a grain of salt until there is something more substantial like a trailer or release date. Still, it's exciting to have a title and more information about the series. Unlike the original announcement about it being a spinoff like Elena of Avalor , the show will now be a direct sequel that continues Sofia's adventures after graduating from Royal Prep . The official summary is as follows: "Sofia the Firs...
Disenchanted the Musical is a project that began in 2009 and made its way to off-Broadway theaters in 2012. Not to be confused with the upcoming Disney+ sequel to Enchanted , this stage show is a parody of the Disney Princess brand that is in no way sanctioned by Disney, as proven by the public domain-approved character autographs on the poster. The show contains far too many Disney-specific references to be an interpretative musical about fairy tales in the vein of Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods . Disenchanted! is far less sophisticated than Into the Woods with a focus on low-brow humor and an overall lack of plot, which explains why it never could have been a contender for the elite world of Broadway . It must instead settle for off-Broadway and low-budget local productions like the one I streamed over the weekend. The show's childish humor about cartoon princesses might imply that it is meant for very young audiences , but the light swearing and song abou...
It's the premiere week of Mysticons , so let's talk about magical girls and their impact on princess mythology. The magical girl craze began in Japan as a genre of anime called "mahou shoujo." No one knows exactly how it started, but it is believed that the first magical girl appeared in 1966 as Sally the Witch . Though individual stories vary, all the series in the mahou shoujo genre contain grade school-aged girls who receive sparkly trinkets that allow them to transform into pretty superheroes. They fight bad guys by screaming magical words and releasing different types of spells, usually in a pretty sequence of recycled animation. The concept seems rather silly from an outside perspective, but it definitely sells. Not all magical girls are princesses, but it is a common overlying theme, most likely because the genre was created for the same target audience. The most princessy magical girl anime would probably have to be Go! Princess Prett...
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