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Do children care if their Disney princesses are white, brown, or black? For the voice cast and production team behind Walt Disney's THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG, the answer is no. Watch THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG movie trailer
At a recent event held on the Walt Disney Studio lot in Burbank, California with Terrence Howard (Iron Man, Hustle & Flow), Anika Noni Rose, Bruno Campos (FX's Nip/Tuck), Keith David (There's Something About Mary, Armaggeddon), Jenifer Lewis (Tyler Perry's Meet The Browns), Walt Disney's Chief Creative Officer John Lasseter (Cars, Toy Story, A Bug's Life) and the writer Rob Edwards describe what this Disney first means to them and today's audience.
Tiana, the African-American princess comes to life in the traditional Disney format---the 2D hand-drawn animation. The animated musical THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG set in the city of New Orleans, takes the classic story of the princess kissing a frog that turns him into a handsome prince and reverses the effect. When Tiana (voiced by Anika Noni Rose) kisses a frog claiming to be Prince Naveen (voiced by Bruno Campos) from the the far-off kingdom of Maldonia, Tiana transforms into a frog herself. Together as frogs, they travel the Bayou in search of a voodoo lady Mama Odie (voiced by Jenifer Lewis) who will transform them back into humans. Along the way, the brown-skinned Prince Naveen isn't the one saving the young maiden Tiana but it is she who rescues the young prince from his selfish ways.
Walt Disney breaks ground on this film on very different levels. Disney's new leading lady, Tiana an African-American woman is a first for the world-famous studio who has dominated animation since 1923. While the 2D visuals capture the essence of classic Disney films, the message, the protagonists and the inter-racial romance are non-traditional. For children, these differences will escape them but for adults, these changes are monumental.
Anika Noni Rose, the voice of the first black princess Tiana, perfectly sums up what this film will mean to different people:
 "It depends on what time they grew up in. For my nephew it will be the norm. He will think nothing of it. Each person who sits in that theater will have a different journey that they're bringing to the story will make it different for them. Disney is americana and we've simply opened a new chapter in americana. It's just another step in the completion of story of what America is."
Academy Award nominee Terrence Howard voices Tiana's father who inspires Tiana to achieve her dream through hard work, agrees that color of the skin doesn't matter to children whether it be an animated human or talking animal found in many Disney classics. 
"Disney has always covered most of the world in the films that Disney has made because the Little Mermaid was a fish that every little girl can relate to that little mermaid. With Minnie and Mickey Mouse, you never wondered about whether they were black or white. Every child can relate and associate with them."
The success of non-white characters in Disney's The Jungle Book and Aladdin are further testament to Howard's point that children relate to on screen characters and not their shape or form.
In the romance department, THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG also breaks ground with the prince and the princesses different ethnic background. While there have been an inter-species romance in two of Disney fairy-tales such as Ariel the mermaid and a man in The Little Mermaid and a woman and an animal in The Beauty and the Beast, the coupling of the brown-skinned Prince Naveen and Tiana can't be overlooked. Children again might not take note of it but we over-thinking adults couldn't get away from finding out Prince Naveen's origins. Is he Arab, Latino, light skinned-African American? The French-talking, Antonio Banderas like voice threw many of the adult viewers off. The Latino journalists figured him for Arab but many black journalists pegged Prince Naveen as Latino.
 Is the casting of Bruno Campos as the voice of Prince Naveen an indication of the Prince's ethnicity? Bruno could only say that he wasn't imitating Antonio Banderas and his influence came from his Brazilian father's accent, "I was actually channeling my dad throughout the movie. He's kind of a funny upstart guy."
When writer Rob Edwards was asked to clarify Prince Naveen's origins, he too skirted around the question, "He's from Maldonia which is east of .... "(he covers his mouth). He further added;
"We wanted to have 2 people come from very different places. The exotic prince and the grounded girl. We just started looking around and the best possible idea was this mythical land that no one's kind of heard of and he is this charming prince from it and off he goes and they fall in love. And the most unlikely pair fall in love in an unlikely place ... in the bayou."
And it's in the bayou where Tiana and Prince Naveen fall in love as frogs where they are on equal ground.
Overall the reaction to THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG has been very positive from all age groups but there are those naysayers with negative comments about the groundbreaking film. CineMovie posed the question to John Lasseter, the chief creative officer of Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios who directed Toy Story, Toy Story 2, A Bug's Life, and Cars, about handling these comments, '"We always say we're proud of the movie. See the movie."
Terrence Howard hopes many will turn out to see THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG which in turn might convince Disney to bring about more films like this, "I hope this movie sets a landmark, a precedent for other culturally diverse films. I'm very happy that Disney took this step and I'm looking forward to having more of it."
 John Lasseter told CineMovie exclusively that they are waiting to see how THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG performs at the box office before deciding on other multi-cultural 2D films.
He did confirm more 2D animation films with Winnie The Pooh headed into production with Jim Cummings as the original voice of Winnie The Pooh and Tiger. Jim Cummings appears in THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG as the adorable Ray the firefly.
There is no doubt THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG will be a hit with audiences from all walks of life but more importantly, little girls now have a new kind of princess and a prince Charming that reflects the real world around us.
THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG opens in limited release November 25 in New York and Los Angeles movie theaters and nationwide December 11.
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