When word first leaked about The Princess and the Frog the working title was The Frog Princess, which would have been fine if the movie wasn’t starring Disney’s first black princess. Racial overtones were immediately and rightly spotted but it all might have been curtailed if Disney had pointed out that the movie was an adaptation of the book series by the same name, and it definitely could have been avoided if they had simply not made the main character black after deciding on a title like that. That’s like making a movie called Spic and Span about the adventurers of a magical cleaning woman and then deciding at the last minute to make her Hispanic and give her a best friend named “Span.” You have to see this coming.

Some might say, “Poor Disney.” They get criticized for letting 2D die and then when they do try to resurrect the art form they’re subjected to more criticism. I can’t help but wonder why Pixar is never subjected to the same scrutiny but there seem to be five very good reasons:

1. Pixar sticks solely to anthropomorphic animals and objects that are fairly genderless/raceless/classless.
2. People are under the assumption that Disney is still run by the cryogenically preserved head of Walt Disney who was arguably a racist and a fascist.
3. Pixar seems to be heralding the Golden Age of Man.
4. Pixar is heralding the Golden Age of Man.
5. Disney makes some stupid decisions.

Kissing a frog is never a good decision. Unless you're into that sort of thing.

After that fiasco, Disney couldn’t catch a break as people protested the princess’ name (Maddy was too slave-like they said, so she became Tiana), her day job as a chambermaid (because apparently today’s audiences lack perspective and a knowledge of Cinderella), the setting (New Orleans was too black and jazzy? I’m still not understanding the controversy behind this one), and the plot point that all frog transformations are the result of voodoo. So once again, in trying to diversify their princess line-up and appeal to little girls of all ethnicities, while also promoting a more PC-image which is good in corporate marketing land, Disney has created a potentially racially insensitive work. (The other suspects include Pocahontas, Mulan, The Lion King, and Aladdin – basically any movie where Disney tried to cast a non-white lead or create an ethnic setting.)

Now comes the latest controversy for The Princess and the Frog: the titular frog (prince) is not black. Prince Naveen (pictured below) is clearly white, maybe even sort of Hispanic, but we can’t know for sure because he’s from the made-up kingdom of Maldonia where race means nothing and CrestWhite strips are distributed freely. But he does have a nice tan so we know he’s at least a little rich or, you know, very Hispanic — maybe even both. Point is he’s not black.

Prince Naveen: He's also clearly an asshole.

It doesn’t even matter that Disney has a history of promoting romantic relationships that cross racial and class divides (e.g. Ariel the mermaid and Prince Eric; Princess Jasmine and the street urchin Aladdin; and the The Jungle Book’s Mowgli and Baloo) the fact that Disney passed on a black prince is enough to piss people off. Though I wonder if we could technically call Simba of The Lion King the first black Disney prince and not get smacked for it because we all know that’s what Disney was aiming for — the black prince thing, not the smacking.

Meanwhile the forums — always breeding pools of intelligence as exemplified by badly cropped avatars and pithy signature quotes from shows no one watches — believe that Disney is trying to say black people can’t be princes. Well, they can but Naveen can’t since “frog” is still in the title and clearly “frog princess” went over so well that Disney really wants to try that again.

So a Hispanic-like prince it is, but there is one thing that people are overlooking: the prince looks like a total tool. If anything Hispanics should be upset that their first Disney prince looks like a douche and he’s not even from a real Hispanic country.

My advice to Disney: hire a focus group that consists of people who are, you know, not white every so often or hire better PR to explain your understandable choices (chambermaids are a fairy tale cliche) and apologize for your downright stupid decisions (that Frog Princess title).