The Bechdel Cast - The Princess and the Frog with Lexie Grace

Episode Date: March 2, 2020

On this episode, Caitlin and Jamie turn into frogs to discuss Disney's The Princess and the Frog with special guest Lexie Grace!(This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @SmileLexie on Twitter. While you're there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELP  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that?

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this season on the new podcast, Rip Current. Hear episodes of Rip Current early and completely ad-free and receive exclusive bonus content by subscribing to iHeartTrue Crime Plus, only on Apple Podcasts. On the Bechdelcast, the questions asked, if movies have women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effin' vast, start changing it with the Bechdelcast. Hello and welcome to the Bechdelcast, my name is Caitlin Durante.

My name is Jamie Loftus, and we're doing a princess movie today. Princess! Well, that was a good intro. That was one of our best. A good job. I think that we've been recording a lot lately and when we're recording more, I feel like the intros were just like, um, the show is starting. Hope that's okay.

With your permission, the show is starting um but this is our uh the bechdel cast is a feminist movie podcast that analyzes the role of female identifying characters in famous movies it's true and what do we do well we use the bechdel test ever heard of it sometimes called i don't know her uh it's sometimes called the bechdel wallace test and it's a media metric created by cartoonist allison bechdel who knows who we are now wow confirmed she hasn't listened but like she knows she knows she knows we exist and that's step one baby steps yes yes but uh allison if you eventually you know probably in like 2025 no pressure no pressure when you get to this episode you'll hear this invitation for you to come on the show

anytime her favorite movie is groundhog day so there's i've just been like tapping all my sources to find out her favorite movie is groundhog day so she'll hear that episode first yes we should we did cover that one but like re-upload it and be like we know you're listening anyways what's the Bechdel test oh geez who knows what if we said that and then we didn't know what it was um two female identifying characters with names have to speak to each other about something other than a man for at least two lines of dialogue that is our specific bar yes so let's uh let's demonstrate let's do it hey caitlin yes jamie um do you remember oh no wait that wasn't gonna pass um it's so hard to pass the bechdel test that passes we did it hell yeah i was literally about to bring up the fireflies

funeral i'm like that was a male oh yeah i just can't get over the fact that they killed the firefly we're talking about the princess and the frog today uh shall we bring our guest in yes let's do it uh she's terrific she's a wonderful comedian she's so funny it's lexi grace hey welcome we're so excited to have you i'm glad to be here i'm very excited yes there's so much to talk about today. Yes, it is. Starting with, Lexi, what's your relationship, your history with this movie? So Princess and the Frog, I actually saw it when it first came out, like Christmas Day 2009. Nine. Yeah.

Yeah. And I was in New York. I watched it with my mom. We did two movies back to back that and Sherlock Holmes and then he went so pure but yeah I went and saw it like I saw it opening it was either opening week or like the second week I think it was opening week because like I feel like as a black woman like it's really important to like support because she was like the first uh animated african-american princess but my favorite african-american princess would definitely be uh brandy yes oh my gosh brandy cinderella yes that's oh that was like my formative cinderella she's so good and then it's isn't it whitney houston is the fairy godmother oh that's a

special movie that's a really special movie and then oprah and then i know whoopi goldberg and the prince have like an asian son which yes but that that movie was great that's like the rogers and hammerstein one too yeah oh baby i gotta see it you've never seen it oh you have to watch no oh it's so but i have seen and this is not this is not a princess movie because i don't think wizard of oz's dorothy is considered a princess but i've princess. But in the extended universe. She's a princess adjacent, I would say. Sure.

I have seen the Ashanti and Queen Latifah Muppet Wizard of Oz, which is... It's okay. No, it's great. It's okay. It's one of the better Muppet adaptations. I think so. Yeah. I love that movie

yeah i love ashanti yeah but yeah you have to see brandy cinderella okay oh oh oh it's so good it's really good you're gonna love it uh but so you saw princess and the frog in theaters yes awesome so did i uh i also saw it as a double feature and for some reason i thought the other movie was terminator salvation but i looked up the release date of that movie and the timing doesn't line up because that movie did come out in 09 but it was in May so that wouldn't have that doesn't so I don't know what the other movie was but I did see uh The Princess and the Frog in theaters and uh I hadn't re-watched it uh until this week to prep for the episode but I'm very excited to talk about it Jamie what about you uh same satin theaters haven't seen it since I double

featured it with avatar which so it was like that day that day was a lot that day was an absolute lot uh-huh um but it was because i remember like we had tickets to avatar i think that we saw avatar first and then saw princess and the frog which is a weird order to do that and i remember liking it but i wasn't watching it critically at all but i'm like oh i like it tiana's cool um the the songs are pretty good is that oprah's voice yes um that's what i those are the thoughts i remember having um and then yeah i hadn't revisited it in in a while but we get a ton of requests for it yeah and so it's it's long overdue i'm excited to i mean and it's like it's it was frustrating to re-watch because you like the elements of a

movie i could like are there and then just everything kind of agreed. Like I, when I watched it, like I was so excited for this, like this, like African American princess. And then I was like,

why does she have to do the most? Like she's got a clean, she's got a cook. She's like handling business. Everyone's like, why are you working? So like, it's like,

why can't you just be like a regular princess? know what i mean right right and and she doesn't like get to visibly be a black woman for 70 of the movies she's a frog most of the time why is this happening like every oh god and then she's got like the worst prince out of the lot of them because like most prince are like generals or they have like an army or they've got some sort of wealth. He's like a broke. Like the prince is like not dissimilar to like Lena Dunham's character in Girls. It just like starts with like he's like, I've been cut off. Now I'm going to go to the city and see what happens.

I'm like, I hate this parallel. This is horrible. It also reminded me of Eddie Murphy in Coming to America yes yes yes that's a way better comparison that's way more favorable right and in that movie like we know why he's coming to America in Princess and the Frog

Naveen is just like for some reason I'm in New Orleans now we don't know why anyone's doing anything except you know why Tiana's doing things, even though men are constantly trying to distract her from doing the clear set goal she has. But everyone else, you're like, what are they doing? Yeah, everyone in the movie is just telling Tiana,

they're like, why are you working so hard? And it's not like she's working so hard that it's detrimental. Because I could understand like she's working so hard that it's like detrimental. Because like I could understand if like she's working hard and she's like missing like, you know, birthdays and like her, you know, her dad's funeral or something like that. But she seems to clearly have like a good work life balance. Right. Right. Like it's she's working towards a clear goal.

Like that element of the story, you're like they're making her do the most, but we know what she wants. And she's like capable and working really hard and she's gonna achieve her goal and then they're like well you can't achieve your goal until you're you get a man a frog man involved and you're just like oh really in 2009 we were still but of course we're still on that we are still on that uh-huh oh frustrating And also, I mean, there's so many issues with the Shadow Man that we'll talk about. Oh, yeah. But just story-wise, he didn't say, at first you're just like, he's just doing evil shit because.

And then he says, at the almost exact halfway mark of the movie, he finally reveals what his motive is. You're like, why is this coming up an hour into the movie he's like oh yeah you know how i've been doing all this evil shit for an hour actually i just remembered it's for i i hate john goodman and you're like what like what it just is a mess yeah yeah is a mess well should i try to describe the plot yeah in the recap yeah we'll talk about what's there okay so we meet tiana as a young girl the year is 1913 and i know this because someone is uh holding a newspaper that said wilson just elected and i looked up what year woodrow wilson was elected in and it was 1913

so i feel like they were trying to tell us it was the 19... Oh, but fast forward to 20. Later. Yeah, when she's... Got it. I think when we see Tiana as an adult, she's, I think, 19 years old. Damn, the movie's really counting on you knowing when Woodrow Wilson was elected to office. In a very throwaway visual. Children will be like, ah, yes. Ah, yes, Woodrow Wilson.

He was elected in 1913. So Titanic has been sunk for one year. When the story opens. The nation's hurting. The nation is in distress. And we're in New Orleans is how you say it. I don't know. New Orleans is not how you say it. And she loves cooking. It's her dream to open up a restaurant with her father. Her mother is a seamstress who makes dresses for this rich white girl, Charlotte. And Tiana's mom also reads The Frog Prince to the girls. Right. Cut to Tiana as a young woman working two jobs, waiting tables. She's saving up money for this restaurant. She sings the best song in the movie i like almost there a lot yeah i do too that's a fun that's the that's the banger for

me in this one i like the song at the very beginning and i don't remember how it goes but it's something like there's a city in the south end oh yeah this or something that's like they're like poor provincial town yes exactly yeah they're like this is where we are that's yeah that song was fun. So she's saving up money for her restaurant. Her father has since passed away. So in this movie, we have a dead parent, but it's a dead father instead of a dead mother. They really galaxy brained this one, too, because they're like, OK, we're going to subvert the narrative by killing her father instead of her mother. But still somehow her father and her relationship with her father is the most important exactly and you're just like

scam like every five seconds it's like but my dad right like why did you even kill him like why if he's gonna be so looming over the story yeah sneaky like even when the mom comes over she brings like a it looks like a new pot and like it's sorry i'm jumping ahead but she's like oh it's dad's pot like it's and then her mom has the like most regressive view and oh yeah there's a whole thematic thing that i want to talk about but there i really felt like they pulled one over on us with like the, no, we killed the dad this time, but don't worry, he's still the most important parent. Like, no. Okay, so then we meet Prince Naveen of Maldonia,

which is a fictional country, which I'm guessing is right next to Genovia and Aldovia. It's right between Genovia and Aldovia. Is Maldonia? Maldonia is where Prince Naveen is from. Got it. He shows up to town and Charlotte is trying to fuck him. So she hires Tiana to make a bunch of beignets for a ball that she's throwing, I guess, in like Prince Naveen's honor or she's inviting him to the ball or something.

I don't know. But it's happening that night. And with the money that Charlotte gives Tiana to make all these beignets. Her horny beignets. You're just like, Jesus. She's definitely, Charlotte is definitely like Blanche from Golden Girls. Like younger. Just chaotic, horny. I found that character to be so profoundly annoying.

Well, again, I feel like that was Disney trying to make commentary. I hate when Disney tries to comment on their own work. It just always comes off really annoying. Where they're like, oh, in a normal Disney movie, she would be the princess. But now she's a stupid jackass. And you're like, that's not the direction. Why? Why? Right.

But anyway, so with this money, Tiana now has enough money to, I guess, put a down payment on the building that she wants to turn into her restaurant. Right. Just huge. Huge. Such a big, oh. It's like a million square feet. I don't know how square footage works meanwhile this creepy man uh the shadow man dr facilier is like hey prince naveen you're broke and you're here in town to marry a rich girl let me help you with

that he at first i thought he was there as like mr exposition but then he gets to do stuff but he does like his first five lines are like as we all know you are a prince and you are here now but you don't have any money well what should you do i'm like oh my god and also the prince right away is like you're a fat man right oh yeah just like fat shame fat shame fat shame yes right yeah and that character is, Prince Naveen's valet or something. Yeah. Lawrence. So Dr. Facilier goes to Lawrence and he's like, hey, you're tired of being pushed around by all these rich people, right?

Let me help you with that. And then Naveen and Lawrence kind of separately make a deal with the devil, quote unquote. Then it's the night of the ball and Charlotte is dancing with Prince Naveen. And Tiana learns that her offer for the restaurant that she put in has been outbid. And unless she comes up with the money kind of right away, the place will not be hers. Also, the guys who are the realtors are dressed up as a horse yes correct i did laugh at that there are a few things i'm like all right what i like is they retracted their offer right after like her and her mom had like cleaned the

place yeah i know i guess they really made it seem like she had the keys yeah they take it away and i think they're like well it's cleaner now really made it seem like she had the keys. Yeah. So how could they take it away? And I think they're like, well, it's cleaner now, so it's more valuable. We can sell it for more money. That song that Tiana sings when she's cleaning stuff up, I mean, I hate that she has to be cleaning while she sings it, but that was a pretty good song, too. Yeah. Is that not the Almost There song? Yeah, that's Almost There.

That is Almost There. Okay, yes, that is Almost There. Yeah. And there's so many songs. There's too many songs. There's a lot of songs. There's a lot of songs. And I would say most of them are not good.

Yeah, Randy Newman really fumbled. Almost there slaps. Not a good villain song. Not a good, just mess, mess, mess. Yeah. Anyway, so Tiana learning that her bid has been outbid causes a big spill and she gets food all over her. So Charlotte loans her one of her fantasy dresses and Tiana is lamenting about losing her opportunity to own the restaurant. And suddenly there's a frog right there.

And that frog can talk because he's Prince Naveen. So we're like, wait a minute minute who's that guy who looks like prince dancing with charlotte downstairs what anyway so the frog is like hey tiana please kiss me and if you do i will give you money for the restaurant because he wants like this is fine and he wants her to kiss like seems like a fair offer a reasonable deal he wants her to kiss him. Seems like a fair offer, reasonable deal. He wants her to kiss him because she's dressed up in this fancy gown. He thinks that she's a princess. Which can break the spell.

A wild leap of logic. I mean, he of all people should know. Right. Not everyone he's ever met who's wearing a dress is related to him. Or is royalty. Right. That not everyone he's ever met who's wearing a dress is related to him. Or his royalty. Right. In the U.S., correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe there has ever been any royal family based. Like there are no monarchies in the U.S. at any time.

And that's a fact. Thank you so much. I just wanted to make sure. What if I was like, actually actually there is a king how did you we've got we've got uh i mean now that we've got megan maybe she's gonna it seems like she hates being royalty but maybe she'll bring it over here and be like hey for your consideration for monarchy it's about time yeah and at this point we're like yeah sure why not i mean our our presidency isn't really working out.

Why doesn't we all switch to a monarchy? Monarchy may be better than dictatorship. Don't know. Anyway, so the frog is like, hey, Tiana, let's kiss. And she's like, OK, fine. If you're going to help me get my restaurant, I'll do it. But when she kisses him, he stays a frog. And Tiana also turns into another frog

this is one of the well i have things to say about this later you're just like okay magic is supposed to work for disney princesses i hate this subversion too where they're like you know our first black princess we're gonna get get the magic to fuck her over you're like why i black princess, we're going to get the magic to fuck her over. You're like, why? I don't know. Magic's supposed to help. Okay, so now they're both frogs and everyone's like, eee, frogs. So they have to run away and escape this party.

And then they fly away with some balloons into the swamp. Then we find out that Lawrence, the valet or valet is who is occupying Naveen's body. And Naveen was turned into the frog. This was all done by Dr. Facilier, who I think just around this time is about to tell you why he's doing everything. Yeah, he for the first half of the movie you're just like chaos i guess it's just his outfit he has to be mean like the oh boy so i guess so he does he wants to be rich he wants to control the town i think so he needs to this is again like one of those i mean and this happens with disney villains a lot but like the things he's doing to accomplish his goals are so roundabout. Yeah.

You're just like, why would this be? Because he says like, I can't conjure anything for myself. So I guess he was waiting for this opportunity, even though it seems like he could have killed Papa at any point. Right. Right. Like, it seems like he always, I got got confused especially in like the back half of this movie there's so many like talismans and magic there's multiple magical items introduced

to like supplement plot that doesn't make sense to the point where i lost track of the items i was like oh there's the thing where you got to get the frog blood then there's like the the voodoo doll of john goodman and then there's like a necklace. And then you're like, there's too many things going on. And there's a whole conversation that we'll have about the portrayal of the use of voodoo. That's a whole thing. But yeah, I was losing track of all the different,

like the various magical items that they're like, oh, well this is happening because frog blood. And you're like, what? But what his plan was, he wants like money and control of New Orleans. And so he has to kill John Goodman.

Is that? Because he will inherit the money. He's doing like a 60-40 split with Lawrence, who will inherit the money from Charlotte once her father has died. That's so comforting. And passed along the money. Yeah, because women don't have any rights so he's like as soon as she gets married he's like well 1920 okay women can just vote now so i feel pretty comfortable like this will work out in my favor oh yikes and then also like also too it's weird because like

there's no like you said in his plan there there's no like afterthought like, OK, like after they kill him, like then what like what will they do with Charlotte? Yeah. Like I feel like it's assumed that turn her into a frog. Oh, yeah. I guess that they could do that. Yeah. I don't I don't know what like it is a very convoluted plan for sure. And to the point where he even like towards the end when the plan starts to fuck up, he's like singing about how the plan is convoluted.

He's like, well, this is a small part of a much larger plan. You're like, yeah, we know. There had to have been a more direct way. Right. But alas. So then we cut back to the frogs in the swamp and they find out that they can talk to all animals. But most of the animals want to eat them so they have to get away from all these like alligators and stuff but then they meet this

friendly trumpet playing alligator lewis and he tells them about mama odi who is a who does voodoo she's a plot witch one of her plot witches um and he's like well maybe she can turn you back into humans so they embark on this quest to find mama odie meanwhile uh lawrence is trying to marry charlotte so there's the whole like right lawrence as naveen is trying to right and then yeah did that have to be there like i feel like you can kind of do away with a part of that. If you take Lawrence out and then it's just like Prince Naveen is missing, I feel like you kind of accomplish the same thing with a way less convoluted villainous plot. But that's just, you know, who am I? Who are you to say?

I'm but a humble, stupid person. That's not true. Thank you. But they've hit a snag because the talisman that contains Naveen's blood is running out. So Dr. Facilier calls upon his friends from the other side, which are like these shadow demons, to go find Frog Naveen. So back in the swamp, they meet this Cajun fly named Ray who helps lead them to Mama Odie's. And they get there and Mama Odie is like, well, if Charlotte kisses Frog Naveen before midnight

because she's technically a princess before midnight because her father was voted king of mardi gras and they know that it's really complicated yeah like where who controls the magic that it would work that way i don't know i also like that her gumbo pot is like a crystal ball right you're just like wait could it always do that they're and then like for a second when they had the tobacco like when she puts the tabasco sauce in there i was like wait a minute but then i was like that's kind of accurate though okay but anyway so if all this manages to happen then both naveen and tiana as frogs will turn back into humans but meanwhile Naveen is to use an

expression that the kids are saying he's catching some feels for Tiana right and he's about to tell her that he loves her and then also propose to her question which is another thing that's very treated as like of course because the second that Charlotte meets Prince Naveen, who's actually the other guy, they dance once and she's just like, I'm ready to get married. Right. Which is like a weird movie trying to have it both ways where it's like they're subscribing to the Cinderella logic of like, we met, we're getting married. But it's also trying to be modern and it's like kind of failing at both yeah right but before frog navine can express his feelings to tiana he gets captured by the shadow creatures and they steal more of his blood so that lawrence can turn back into navine so that he can get married to charlotte during the mardi gras parade and then frog tiana sees them like about to get married and she thinks it's the real naveen

and she's like no that's my boyfriend because i guess she also loves him question mark right well do we know why well caitlin of course she loves him he negs her for most of the movie exactly and that's subscribing by the rules of the game she loves him yeah and then ray the firefly helps frog the veen and you're like right he escapes and they steal the magic talisman that's holding the blood and then ray gives it to frog tiana who smashes it and dr facilier is like no and then all the shadow demons kill him but not before he squishes ray the firefly and kills him and i guess we're supposed to be sad about that i was just like i don't care about this character um but they throw a whole funeral for him. But how wild is it that they commit to killing the Firefly?

I was so shocked. That's like if Flounder got shocked. You're like, that doesn't happen to the fun sidekick. Is there any precedent on which? Like in Disney princess movies? Besides Bambi's mom who wasn't that who didn't fill that role like parents die yeah but but or are already dead but yeah kicks don't die like i was i forgot about that and i was shocked i was like oh my god and

then i was like oh well something's gonna happen with the magic he's gonna come back to life but then they're like no he's a star now. He's a star. He actually died. And they throw a whole funeral for him. And you're like, first of all, I don't care about this character. Second of all, it's just I was so shocked that they. It's like if.

Yeah. If Sebastian had actually been like caught by the chef and eaten. Right. And they're like, he's happier now. Like, no, the fuck no he's not there's i mean he's now a shell on the island yeah oh my god and then also i mean this it's i know it's a cartoon but the when when when the bug dies and you're like oh no and then it starts raining and like realistically this bug's corpse would be like like i feel like the the corpse would not have survived to the funeral like bug when a when a dead bug is rained on it just turns to goop yeah also like like tiana just

like crushed his dreams before he died she was like it's star. It's not even a real thing. Right. That was the last conversation they had. But again, he's not really an important character. Arguably didn't need to be. Yeah. But like, who is Raymond? I didn't understand. Whatever. Shrug.

Shrug. He dies. So then Frog Naveen is like, OK, Charlotte, it's almost midnight. Please kiss me so that Tiana and I can turn back into humans. And you have to make sure you give Tiana the money for her restaurant, which arguably Charlotte should have done at the very beginning. But anyway, she kisses him, but it doesn't work. They don't turn back into humans. So then in the wildest plot twist of all tiana and naveen decide

to just stay frogs and then get married as they give up they give up gives up on her dreams so it's so it's so funny because she's so hard working throughout the whole movie that for her to be like yeah i think this is just how it's gonna be now the plot betrays her entirely they're like she's like this could work and then you're like oh no like what about oprah right oprah's like where's my daughter like oh but no one ever is no we never get to oprah to be like where's tiana where'd she go no one's asking where she is because tiana still lives at home yeah no she oprah is missing her like yeah but you know she works eight shifts of a job you know so she's probably like she's not working there oh my god like i just but like you know if this were like any lot like she would have

hopped on over to oprah and been like help right i think. I think so. Or something. Right. But that's how little the movie values their relationship. Also, her frog wedding, there's all these animals from the forest. And it's like, you don't know all these animals. Right. You've only been friends with like three animals. And one of them died after you yelled at it. Oh, boy. I still can't get over that they killed the bug.

They killed the bug. They get married as frogs. But here's the, okay, ready for another twist? It's like if they threw Miko off a cliff. It's just like, I'm just thinking of all the different ways you could murder Disney sidekicks. I can't handle it. Okay, so then they get married as frogs, which Mama Odie officiates the wedding. Yes. as frogs which mama od officiates the wedding yes but because they get married and because naveen is a prince that makes tiana a princess so when he kisses her at their wedding he's kissing

a princess which is the thing that needed to break the spell and it that's what turns them back into humans so now they're humans standing in the middle of a swamp kissing and it's a his wife based plot twist at the end too because they they also have to explain it to the audience because you're like what uh and like well uh you did kiss a princess because when i became your wife i became a princess so now i am a princess you kissed me and now we're hot again and everyone's just like yay and then where do they get the money is it from you see his parents for two seconds i'm like i guess maybe they're cool now and then she right but i don't think they get the money i think they have an alligator that intimidates the bankers being like you're

gonna take that you're gonna take that yeah she uses the money that she had earned through all of her serving jobs right so they just like but what about the person that outbid her i he's dead i don't know it was the firefly firefly up in them fortunately he was killed and so that was just just i mean so many threads are left she gives up at the end and then she's like now that i'm your wife i can achieve my dreams you're like cool message yeah that pissed me off so much well let's take a quick break uh and then we'll get really a deep dive into the discussion gritty Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was murdered there are crooks everywhere you look now the situation is desperate my name is Manuel Delia I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhearts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks.

Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts.

This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks. President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close

to being the victim of an assassin today. And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson. I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent, revolutionary

underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current. Available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 24 hours. BPM 110, 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it.

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Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. Where should we start? Lexixi where do you want to start where should we i mean there's so much well let's first talk about how in the opening they had the six-year-old feed like the entire yes she fed everybody on her block and she was like six years old oh yeah and that. And that was like, I mean, this movie is, I tried to do as thorough as I could of a context corner for this because it's like, I think it's a really bizarre, like because Disney is so determined to never make a meaningful comment on anything,

it is weird to me that they chose to set this movie in a very specific place and time. Like Jim Crow era South. Right, and just sanitize it to death. chose to set this movie in a very specific place and time like jim crow era jim south yeah right and just sanitize it to death it also like upset me that like it also was like a weird class thing like like it's supposed to be a fantasy like it's like it's a princess story like there shouldn't be like it felt like oh there's like everybody that was bad was like kind of like they were like mostly white except for the voodoo man and then there was like very classism where it was like rich white people and then poor black people and then we only had like navid who i don't know exactly he's from

maldonia yeah he's like ethnically ambiguous yeah yeah but it just i don't know it also bugged me this is where i had like the biggest crocs with the movie is like she works so hard and like everybody is always pooping on her working hard. Right. I mean, it's it's confusing because I feel like Tiana is so she lives in this non-existent New Orleans where Jim Crow laws never happened. Rich white people are just like whoops we forgot to like it like that i feel like that is like a very common thread in disney movies when they're trying to avoid discussing systemic racism in any way they're like oh well the rich white people are kind of goofy right they're like a little bit dumb but they're nice but they're but they're just kind of like they didn't they didn't think of it um it's just like it's such a bizarre decision to set this in the Jim

Gross South right because it's like first of all like Charlotte could not have legally married Prince Naveen like interracial marriage is not legal at this time there's a lot written on how like Tiana and Charlotte being able to be friends that share clothes like that would have been very unlikely and just the white people in this story wouldn't have been like oh we're goofy like they would have been enforcing systemic racism right but but in this like no one challenges the class system set up in this movie no one challenges the racial politics of this world. Everyone's kind of friends, but all the people who are poor just happen to be black. Like it's... The choices that were made to contextualize

like the setting and the time of this story are very bizarre. Like the fact that this is like the first black Disney princess is, that's important representation that means a lot to a lot of people yeah and the character at least at the beginning is like a good character like she has more agency than most disney princesses do right she has a dream that doesn't involve getting

married right like she she has more from the jump than a lot of disney princesses do but then it's just like sold out so thoroughly and then to take all that and then like yeah put it in this bizarro fantasy world does I think the first black Disney princess a huge disservice yes and then like you already said like she we don't even see her as a black woman for most of the movie yes which doesn't feel like a mistake yeah yeah they had, they had to, Disney, I was reading that they had to change it because originally they had it named

the Frog Princess. Uh-huh. And so there was, like, a lot of backlash of that. And then they also tried to name her Maddie, but it came too, it sounded too close to Mammy.

Yes. And then she also was a maid at some point, like, in the earlier versions. Yeah, they wrote her as a chambermaid, I think, too, like, Charlotte's family?

Yes. Yeah, that was, like, the originalid, I think to like Charlotte's family. Yes. Yeah, that was like the original plan. I mean, it will not surprise anyone that this movie was directed by white men. There is a credited black writer on the movie, along with two white writers. The music was somehow written by, like, it's a movie that takes place in new orleans and randy newman wrote the music can't figure it can't crack that one uh and it's just when you see the production team that was behind this movie it's very easy to understand of course they fucked it up it also is funny like as like a weird side note um the people that wrote this movie actually also wrote Aladdin. And it's interesting

because I feel like the Shadow Man, like his intro kind of sounded like the Genies a little bit. Ooh. And I feel like they were, did it feel like visually they were referencing the Genie song at the end of the Shadow Man song

where it's like, you know, at the end, like the Genie, like there's all these other characters popping up and then he's in the center and it just felt really similar. No, it definitely did did and also the other thing that kind of like was annoying as like is that like she kept having this dream and like even when she raised the money and it was like oh you finally raised the money for your dream her mom was like well what about a man

like it wasn't like oh yay okay let me break this down because I was like, what is this? So there's a recurring theme throughout the whole movie, basically saying like, all you need is love, to quote the famous song. So it starts with Tiana's mom, whose name we do learn, Eudora. She's like, your dad never, you know, lived out to see his dream to to have the restaurant but that didn't matter because he had love in his life so and that's and that's what I want for you Tiana to meet your prince charming and and dance off into your happily ever after and then Tiana's like well I don't have time for dancing and then Eudora's like but I want grandchildren so it's like this theme is established that like having hopes and dreams is kind of stupid, especially if they relate to your career and are not really necessary as long as you have love in your life. nuanced conversation if her mother is saying basically like these opportunities aren't afforded to women much less to to black women who are from a poor background like i feel like that

is more like there's an opportunity to make commentary but then she just comes off sounding sexist because this world the world of this movie is such a vacuum like sucking void of nothingness that she's just like you can't open a restaurant not because of all this oppression it's because i want a grandkid now and then this gets doubled down on a little later when the frogs reach mama od and she sings this whole song about like who cares about what you want it's it's about digging a little deeper and figuring out what you need and the implication here at least as far as i could tell was what you need is romantic love yeah also by the way when she kept saying dig deeper i was like is she shanti like am i supposed

to squat like from insanity it is like it is just like one of the first disney i'm trying to think of if prior to tiana like were there there Disney princesses that really had dreams outside of romantic love? Like it's like you look at Mulan, but like Mulan, like everyone else is like you're a badass. Like that's really cool. Like you're your kick butt. Whereas her everyone's like you're a killjoy, Tiana. Right. That scene with her friends at the beginning where they're like, are you going to come out dancing?

She's like, no, I work 17 jobs. And they're like, oh, Tiana right there got that scene with her friends at the beginning where they're like are you gonna come out dancing she's like no I work 17 jobs and they're like oh Tiana's so awful I can't believe how hard she works to open a business and like this is this doesn't happen this is like absurd I yeah you know it happens like literally all the time throughout the whole movie is people are like why are you working? Including Naveen. Yeah. I love that Naveen is like, well, you know, I'll take jobs so that you can get your restaurant. It's like, well, she's doing good raising the money on her own.

Yeah. She's like such an I mean, and it's not lost on us either that like she has to work 10 times harder than any Disney princess has ever had to for anything like I mean Cinderella technically had a job sort of I guess but like but you know like Tiana's under way more pressure right and she's made fun of for it you're just like this is you can't do both you can't do no one is like people should be admiring how hard she works go get it everyone's just like you fucking idiot with your dumb ass dreams i mean her having to work so hard to get access to anything is one of the only things that lines up with the world that they are putting you in but then everyone's reaction to it takes place in nowhere land yeah just like in the disney void it's so frustrating because it's it is i mean i am at least glad that you get to see that like determined side of Tiana at

the beginning no for sure I like I am glad that like I feel like I have a complicated relationship because I do like that she is a hard worker and she does have goals but I don't like that she was like goal shame throughout the whole movie yeah it's and the fact that like the movie ends with her opening up the restaurant after all. And she does it with money that she earned waiting tables and not that like Naveen was like, here are my riches to give to you. Like she worked hard for it and she earned what she got. And then it does seem like she's the breadwinner of their relationship because she's the one who's like running this restaurant. And Naveen's parents had cut him off.

But then they're also at the wedding and they're like, hi. And you're like, so money again? Right. Probably a wedding gift. Right. But before that, to kind of continue on this theme of like dreams are pretty silly and love is what you need. When Dr. Facilier is like showing Tiana what she could have and he could grant her this wish. And he says something or she's like, you know, my father never had what he wanted, but he had what he needed.

He had love. And it's like so another like doubling down on this theme. So basically, like Tiana learns the lesson that all you need is romantic love in your life. And then at the end, Nav is like well i have to marry charlotte it's the only way for you to get your dream tiana and she's like well my dream wouldn't be complete without you in it and it's like since when like you met him earlier today that's i mean then that's like the disney princess way right but it is like of all the places that disney tries to subvert in this movie that you're like, why would you do that? That's the one place that they don't subvert from.

Like we met and now we're in love. It's funny. Out of all the Disney princesses, I felt like this was like the most heavy handed about like money is bad. I love when Disney says money is bad. And you're like, uh-huh. Cool. I don't know.'m gonna go to star wars land what i mean the message of this movie is so convoluted because it's like i mean there's

been a lot a lot a lot written on the impact of this movie how it's aged even in the 10 years it's been released and it is like i mean there's more to be said about the production background of this movie where i mean john lassiter was at the the head of this production which that that fact doesn't age well um and and he hired a bunch of like legacy disney white guys to come in and write and craft this movie because New Orleans was his favorite city but you're just like there's no like it seems like very little research was done very little consideration was done because there was no one in the room to like they wouldn't allow anyone in the room who would say something yeah uh when this movie came out so 2009 the same year that Barack

Obama has taken office and there were a lot of movies that came out like shortly after Obama is elected that sort of are touting this like colorblind world. And that like this movie very much subscribes to that of like, well, now that we have a like our first nonwhite president, racism is fixed. And no one like the the legacy of racism doesn't affect this country any at all anymore. And also there was a lot of upset when this movie was announced as taking place in New Orleans, because while especially while it was in production and still in 2009, New Orleans itself had been so thoroughly affected by Hurricane Katrina that it like forced like hundreds of thousands of black residents out and there's like and now we're gonna we solved racism in the 1920s here it's just like right there's a lot of yeah every like almost everything about the production of this movie is a very bad look yeah for sure oh some of the sequences are pretty, though. Can we talk a little bit more about the love story component of it?

So we already kind of hinted at this, but this is another example of a love story that starts with a man negging and undermining a woman. He first says like, oh, I thought you were a princess, but you're just a waitress. Then he calls her a killjoy, a stick in the mud who doesn't know how to have fun. And then moments later, they are suddenly in love. Like, I don't know where this comes from. He's also like the slimiest dude, and I'm not talking about like the frog transformation. The mucus. The mucus plot point. I was like like are you serious we're at the end tiana's like actually it's mucus it's like what yeah yeah he's such he's such an

asshole for sure and it's interesting too like throughout the movie like in regards to him they keep talking about like women are gonna hold you down like when he said the the shadow man uh-huh the shadow man is like he's like oh if you get a wife you won't be able to live your life or something like that right it's it's frustrating because it's like his whole character indicates to young people watching the movie that you can have all the ambition in the world you can get 97 of the way there but you still need a man with resources negging you to achieve anything and then another thing is that when naveen mistakes tiana for being a princess she clears it up right away and she's like no i'm not a princess i'm a waitress if the genders had been swapped and it was the woman mistaking the

man for being a prince i feel like it almost certainly would have been a story about him lying to her for the whole movie and being like yes i am a prince who's also a frog um and i'm not saying that like all men are liars and I'm not saying that women never lie. But so many movies are about a man lying to a woman and not coming clean until the very end. So I guess I liked that, you know, Tiana was like, no, I'm not the person you think I am. Tiana is, she's the best. She's honest and she's nice and she works hard and also there's a joke where it's implied that frog naveen tries to have sex with frog tiana when they're like hiding in the stump yes yes from the alligators he's like well we could get cozy and then she's like get away from me and it's like you're trying to

fuck when you're a frog it just i feel like there's so many like you could do a drinking game about all the times he's mentioned women in the thing where he's like oh i've dated thousands of girls right and he's a fuck boy yeah he is a fuck boy i mean and a lot a lot of disney princess i mean at least he has he has more of a personality than many disney princes do but um his personality is bad so that's also not i also don't even know like it's interesting because i feel like in the past whatever 15 20 years disney princes have been imbued with personality more and more frequently which is good in one way but in another way you're like well what if we gave the the you know princess more personality and more things to

do instead of being like we have to know this man's interior life like right i don't i don't know i don't feel any particular way about it but it is interesting sure also there was like like you said like i don't understand why she fell in love with him like there was they didn't have he like jazz she seemed like okay about jazz like she didn't seem obsessed she wasn't like super into it yeah yeah and then she like taught him how to like mince a month's mushroom and then she was like now i love him it's it well it comes out of nowhere i feel like where they tried to set that up and it just doesn't work and it comes off a little like is at the beginning when she's serving charlotte Daddy, also Big Daddy, Jesus, where she says, like, the way to a man's heart is through his stomach.

So I feel like we're supposed to connect the dots of, like, when she cooks for him because woman, she realizes that she loves him. And you're like, that didn't track at all. I don't follow the logic there. Also, did you catch the part where when he's trying to propose to her I guess while they're still frogs he says you could not be more different. You're

practically one of the guys aka you're not like the other girls says it and she's like according to this movie that's true. She is not like the other girls because all the other girls hate her or are like lobotomized like they do to charlotte god everyone is just done no disservice

yeah um we got to take another quick break but we'll come right back definitely caruana galizia was a maltaltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhearts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free,

subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks. President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today. And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson. I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground.

Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current. Available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that.

I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. One session, 24 hours. BPM 110, 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not.

What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people.

There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Where shall we go from here? Oh, let me see. Well, should we talk about the representation of voodoo in the film? Yeah, yeah, let's do it.

So I did a little bit of research. I found a piece from the Huffington Post entitled... The perfect source. A great source. Entitled, What is Voodoo? Understanding a Misunderstood Religion by Samya Aryahas. I probably mispronounced most of that, but she is a writer and also a priestess of both Hinduism and voodoo, which the preferred spelling of voodoo is V-O-D-O-U for just anyone who's curious. The quotes that I will share from this piece only really scratch the surface of what there is to know about the voodoo religion. But I do have a few quotes that I found to be the most relevant to our discussion.

Starting with, quote, voodoo isn't accurately portrayed in most movies, TV shows, and books. Voodoo isn't a cult, black magic, or devil worship. People who practice voodoo are not witch doctors, sorcerers, or occultists. Voodoo isn't a practice intended to hurt or control others. Most voodoists have never seen a voodoo doll unless, like you, they saw it in a movie. Voodoo isn't morbid or violent, end quote. So the reason all this is relevant is because the character of Dr. Facilier is framed as being, I don't even know if he's like a voodoo, I don't know exactly,

but he participates in this Hollywood Disney version of voodoo. Yes. And interestingly, I feel like they try to contextualize their interpretation of voodoo. They also make it directly correlate to Christianity by indicating that there's something having to do with the devil and like demonic spirits, which is not even a part of this. But I feel like Disney almost makes the assumption like we're going to have to talk to people on a Christian level. So we have to connect these two things that are not related. Right. The way that voodoo is depicted in this movie and many others is that it's like this scary, culty, mystical, but in like a nefarious mysticism way. And that's not what it is. I've got another few quotes from this author, quote, racism clouds our view of voodoo. It is

rooted in slavery and intricately connected to this hemisphere's political and social evolution. Voodoo was first practiced in America and the Caribbean by slaves of African descent, whose culture was both feared and ridiculed. Slaves were not considered fully human. Their religion was dismissed as superstition. Their priests were denigrated as witch doctors. Their gods and spirits were denounced as evil, end quote, which explains a lot of why voodoo is depicted the way it is in media, and it has everything to do with racism, believe it or not. Go figure.

Yeah, I did a little research on this as well, and it basically does very clearly boils down to racism, specifically a very American kind of racism that's very specific to this region where louisiana voodoo is something that's very commonly cited and it's like there's been from what i can tell and if any listeners are out there that have seen a positive measured depiction of voodoo in popular culture it doesn't seem like it's happened and there's also been there was a whole season of american horror story i don't watch that show but there's a lot written on how there was an entire season that hinged on this very racist view of louisiana voodoo and what it

boils down to is i think we've had similar conversations about Disney villains in this regard where a lot of Disney villains are coded women in STEM with women with power. And this is kind of an analog for black people with power and making it as villainous and threatening as possible. So it's not only like a very specific type of racism that has never really been challenged in popular media yet, but it also like fits right into it. Just based on Disney's history, it makes a lot of sense that they would go for this because that's how they treat like some of their white villains of just like, can we make power that isn't big daddy like the big daddies of the world right how can we make it threatening and evil and villainous and yeah that's a very interesting point because like even on the flip side like you have mama od and she's still like very cartoonish we don't actually see like none of her magic actually helps it's kind of just like yeah it's just like good luck kids. Dig deep.

That was the closest I could get to be. I mean, I'm like, well, I guess that there is an example of a black character with magic who is using it for good. It's still completely misunderstands everything, but at least it isn't painting the,

but then it's like, yeah, you're right. She doesn't do, she doesn't really, her magic doesn't work. Yeah. And also like not like she's kind of senile yeah they make her out does not seem super like competent right i guess or not particularly i mean clearly not particularly good at what she does because what she does doesn't really affect the plot right until the end where it suddenly does she's just like uh just fucking fall in love

and then you'll get everything you want she's like my magic is the magic of heterola you're just like that's not a thing yeah so so it is complete misunderstanding it could have been her song could have been like shared do you believe in love oh it's it's. It's so frustrating. And I mean, like Disney has never set something in the American South and had it gone well ever. True. Like there's also a lot written about this movie. Comparing it, I mean, with less egregiousness, but still with some of the same themes that people are very critical of in Song of the South,

which is like the only Disney movie that's ever been truly buried. And there's actually past guests of the show, Karina Longworth did a great, I think like five or six part series on like the history and the legacy of that movie on her podcast. You must remember this. It's really good. But basically, because most of us like haven't really seen that movie. Right. And with good reason, that takes place in the American South and has the similar vibe that we have with tiana's family and charlotte's family where it's like yes the white people are very much in control the black people in the story are mostly working for them but there's no problem here everything's fine and so a lot of writers at the time of this movie's release interpreted this, I think, pretty correctly as an updated version of this world that never had, like, it's like the most Disney approach to racism.

And they're like, but it didn't really happen. Like, because like that relationship, especially between Tiana and Charlotte, that dynamic is so bizarre because they seem to be pretty good friends yes but like charlotte seems to be completely blissfully ignorant of any of tiana's struggles and then she also seems to treat tiana as like someone who works for her and serves her rather than like a friend and an equal like tiana wasn't even invited to the ball as a guest. No, she was there as an employee. Also, can we just quickly, sorry, side note. Can we just talk about the scene when she gives Tiana the dress and she fixes her girls and like puts them up.

And I was like, Disney usually never acknowledges like they might have, but never like she was just. Every Disney princess has like a uniboob. They're like, this is just a feminine area. That is true. like they might have but never like she was just every disney princess has like a uniboob they're like this is just a feminine area that is true their their friendship is i mean outside of the historical context we've already discussed it's a bummer because it's like they seem to be very close friends but really yeah like tiana is very attentive to charlotte's needs charlotte does things for tiana but really only when it serves herself. Yeah. And I also think that Charlotte's character is kind of very like

mired in tropes as well, where it's like kind of this failed attempt for Disney to comment on itself. I think by doubling down on like pretty misogynist tropes of like, all she wants is marriage. Look at how stupid she is this is all she cares about and like it that doesn't help anything either right also wasn't it so gross in the end when charlotte is like i didn't know prince navid had a brother and it's this six-year-old and she goes she goes well i waited you know for one prince i could wait or for i don't not quoting it directly but she's like i can't wait for you to be legal so i can have sex with you like this kid's in the first grade they're all like that was i was getting some real uh jacob from twilight vibes

that was the only thing in the movie that i mean well that's not true a lot of things in this movie that you're like no but like the only thing that i was that I mean, well, that's not true. A lot of things in this movie that you're like, no, but like the only thing that I was like, this is just this is bald face like madness. Other than killing the killing the bug and sending the bug to star heaven. I don't really have much to say about Charlotte outside of like, it seemed like they were trying to make a commentary on the criticisms of past Disney princesses of like, why do they want to be in love so bad? Why don't they have any dreams outside of this? And instead they just doubled down on it and made a mockery of it. And what purpose did that serve? It didn't serve any narrative purpose. Like they just were like, women are dumb.

Especially because it's like her goal that she's framed as having is like she just wants to marry a rich prince. She's already rich. She just wants, I guess, the status of being a princess. But like boiled down, it's like she just wants to be married. And that's seen as something that's like, what a fucking idiot for just wanting that. But then on the other side of things, they're like, well, Tiana, your dreams, I mean, good for you for having them, I guess,

but really all you need is love. So by the logic of this movie, all women are stupid. Yeah, it's a lose-lose situation. Also how fast that Charlotte agreed to marry, as soon as he proposed, she was like, I gotta go make plans. Right. And I mean, Tiana seems to be living in a more modern version of the world of like, you just met him.

And Charlotte's living in another version of the world where she's like, yeah, so we're getting married. And you're just like, what is it? I don't know. Also, her and her dad have like, it seemed like they had no concept of money like they just were handing out hundred dollar bills to people being like this will cover it right because he does it to the newspaper boy and then she does it to tiana for the beignets and i was like tiana why didn't you get on these beignets earlier it seems like you could have

you could have just like why didn't charlotte give tiana a business loan? Because they're friends. I don't understand. And I feel like that just plays more into the, like, they weren't racist. They were just these bumbling doofuses of, like, yeah, John Goodman trips and a million dollars falls out. It's not that he was withholding money from anyone. It's that he just didn't see them. He just, also Charlotte was like mean to like some random boy, like in the, the, the,

the, the thing she just said to him, she said, if I say later, that means never a loser. Right. I, I don't,

I don't, I like, I do understand why they're doing it, but it just makes you even more upset. So I think that Charlotte is, I mean, she's's she's not just none of the female characters are well no the characters are well yeah which brings me to the animal friends um i think that there's a big section of this movie that nothing happens in oh yeah uh basically the second that tiana becomes a frog nothing happens for a very long time right uh they're just kind of hopping around the bio it's like it's beautiful the animation is great but i i would argue that most of the

animal friends that they meet in this long stretch of nothingness are mired in tropes that are either of like poor people or black people and then it just it just gets like why are we doing this right i think that raymond the firefly who was killed yes is is the worst example of this where the way that he's animated the way that he's stylized he's given like a cajun accent right right and then his teeth are all fucked up like i feel like there's a lot of stereotypes as particularly of like poor people in the south we also see humans who are supposed to be poor in the south like yeah like don't but like they're like oh when you don't have money you just are falling all the time like but also the rich people are falling and you're like who does anything here they're tiana she's the one holding down the only person who can do a fucking thing in this town.

It's ridiculous. But it's like, I think that this is another through line in Disney movies of even because like, I love animation so much. And it's people telling themselves so easily in animation where like the people you're supposed to care about are drawn to be, you know, Western beauty standard hot people. And the people who you are not supposed to, who are a joke are drawn to be you know western beauty standard hot people and the people who you are not supposed to who are a joke are drawn very differently and that applies to other i mean that the way that people are like bell looks very different than everyone in the french town and

they're drawn like cartoons they're like they're they are not drawn to be sexy princesses and the way that they drew like people who didn't have as much money the way that they drew the animal friends who were supposed to be stand-ins for other tropes it's just ridiculous yeah it also also to add to the firefly thing i thought it was really interesting that the reason he loves evangeline the the star is because she's so bright like it's not britain beautiful she doesn't talk and he's like she's shy but I love her and it's like oh I didn't even think of that oh that was like the first thing I picked up on I was like I was like she you don't know what her personality is because she's a star and yet you love her oh my word like feminist icon

Evangeline what I kind of like they're feminist. I mean, we don't know her story. Another woman robbed of a coherent plot. And then also when when Ray dies and becomes a star next to her, like what if she didn't want that? Yeah. She never got to speak. Yeah. She didn't consent to Ray the star.

Also, let's be honest. It was just another star. The bug died. The bug died. Like the bug full dead. No, he's be honest. It was just another star. The bug died. The bug died. Full dead. No, he's a star. What if I died on this show? No, he's a star. Rose dies at the end of Titanic.

Ray is a star. No, she is not. Rose falls asleep and has a dream at the end of Titanic. She does not die is what I meant to say. She dies, but you know who else dies? Ray. And he doesn't come back as anything. He just dies. He's stepped who else dies ray and he doesn't come back as anything he just dies he's stepped on by the villain and he dies and why did they do that it also was yeah it just yeah it was it was unnecessary death also okay but i do like what you said about flander dying

it's just like if you got harpooned in the third act of the movie and they're like, oh, no, Ursula harpooned Flounder. And then Flounder, they're like, oh, but look, he's up. He's the son now. No, he's not. He got harpooned. Also, did you notice how like we were touching on the like animation a little bit and like the design. When they're frogs, I feel like they're still designing frog Tiana as like Western beauty standard frog because she's like visibly much thinner than Naveen frog. So it's like, what are you saying? They found a way to make the frog femme. Right. And they do that thing that there's like all those great Anita Sarkeesian videos about where they like basically gave her the like Ms. Pac-Man treatment where it's like she's a slender, curvy frog with long eyelashes. And you're like, it's a frog.

But it's a fucking frog. Yeah, they just really find ways to do tiana in every female character dirty in every way we sort of discussed this already but the way that her relationship with her mother is treated is like just again takes place in this void where the mother is allowed to live but all she does is neg her daughter or talk about the father like there's no the father is still the driving influence in tiana's life it was it was like she didn't have a dream of her own it was like her dad's dream and then she gave her dad's dream up so she could have this dream with navid right i give up i'm a frog now dad's vision it's so i mean i like terrence howard is the dad and the dad that is

like such a lovely character but but but yeah she's just carrying out her father's vision. And then, yeah. I mean, yeah, like I agree with you. Like the dad does say like some great things where he's like, don't just wish, like actually be in action. He wants her to be somebody who does something in the town. Which isn't nothing for, there's a lot of Disney dads that are like, you don't, you can't do anything. So that, again,

it's like a little subversion but then also another character suffers as the result of that subversion. Mm-hmm. I still love, I love Tiana.

I just, it's so, I feel like, okay, correct me if I'm wrong, I feel like the general vibe around Tiana is that we all love her

and we all want it better for her. Yes, 100%. Like, I did not want her to marry a mediocre man, and that's what she did in the end. Right. I mean, I'm glad that she got her beautiful restaurant. I don't know. I mean, this fucking movie ignores the fact that women just got the right to vote maybe depending on when in the 1920s it is. Right.

Like, you're just you're just like uh because if this was like set current day you know because like navid he like explains like when they're in the when she's helping him mince the thing he's like oh i lived with all these servants i don't know how to w4 right it's uh there there's also i mean if you go beyond just the actual movie itself it's really frustrating that you know anytime that there is especially in a company like disney anytime that there is a protagonist that isn't like a thin white someone, there's so much more riding on the production's success than if there's a so-so Disney princess movie that's like, you know, whatever, a French white girl, and it does okay. People are like,

whatever, we'll make another. It's fine. But there was so much pressure put on this movie that was in some ways i mean it was successful it like made its money back and then some but it wasn't the gigantic smash hit that they wanted which is a great excuse for people who don't want black leads in movies to not make movies anymore when the problem was that they wrote an incoherent movie that like right like it's so it's like you wrote a bad movie that's why it didn't make as much money as you wanted you also released it the week but like at the same time as avatar that's another reason that it didn't do and the marketing around this movie i mean there's some isolated examples

of like some pretty like racist marketing of of this movie and the way it was marketed to young girls i mean it was sexist and racist it was just everything because men be marketing shit right uh and it's just and and even as recently as two years ago it's 2020 um when ralph breaks the internet came out oh yeah there's that scene where all the princesses show up and they're like blah blah blah meta commentary and you're like fucking whatever but in the original trailer they had like lightened tiana's skin yes and changed her facial structure and her hair yeah and and then people were like um excuse me and then they're like oh sorry we thought we could get away with

it sorry right and then they changed her to look the way she looks that's crazy i remember that they did that i can't remember which actress but they did that on like a magazine cover where they like lightened and like a real life person. I can't remember who it was. It's fucking ridiculous. And there are also stories from 2009 when, you know, it's always this big deal when princesses added to official canon because that is like a thing. And this is very granular. But Disney princess merch sells like fucking hotcakes. It's backpacks, it's lunchboxes, it's t-shirts, it's everything.

But just because you're a Disney Princess doesn't mean that you're on the merch. Right. Right. So Mulan is often not on the merch. Pocahontas is almost never on the merch. And so Tiana, they were basically like, guess what? Tiana's going to be on the merch, which is like, woo. She should be on the merch.

So they said to put her on the merch. But then there were all these things that have happened to multiple Disney princesses. But it was especially egregious with Tiana where they changed the color of her skin by a little bit. They changed the structure of her face just to make it, quote unquote, fit in with the merch. And just, I mean, this happens every time. Like, yeah, it's just ridiculous. The merch.

It's just, it's just such a bummer that the, this could have been such a, I mean, it is a monumental movie. The fact that it's, it's features the first black Disney animated princess. The movie barely makes sense the plot is either not much is happening or what's happening is too convoluted like i want to like it so much more than i do well it's just like it's a behind the scenes problem 100 for sure they didn't hire the people who needed to be hired for this movie to be coherent or good. Exactly.

No, it definitely. Like the one good thing is we all love Tiana. We love Tiana. But other than that, other than that, yikes. Yes. Yikes, yikes, yikes. There's a part of me that just just wants Tiana to get a redo. I'm like, can we just do something for her?

Can we do something for Tiana? She didn't deserve to have to be in this movie. Right, I know. Also worth mentioning the queer coding of the villain, Dr. Facilier. It happens in... Well well there weren't enough tropes associated with that character already so right as well yeah we talk a lot about this concept on various other disney movies so you know check out those episodes for more but it's

definitely present here love the part where uh big daddy labuff uh shoves a beignet into his daughter's mouth to shut her up oh yes you know you know like dads do the edit and that's oh i meant to say that earlier that's like another trope on top of a trope on top of a trope for Charlotte of like dumb woman obsessed with daddy that I'm like listen I'm smart and I'm obsessed with my dad we exist we're out there to me the only really moment I could identify as the movie acknowledging race at all and this isn't even an example of a time that it does it directly but i feel like it's implied where the white real estate agents tell tiana when she gets outbid for the restaurant property they say a woman of your background you're better off where you're at and yeah that's the only time that i noticed that this movie acknowledges her race or her background at all.

But it's, again, just that one tiny moment. It's not explicit, so you don't necessarily know exactly what they're implying. Yeah, it's just... It's like you didn't even take step one. There were some. And it's like, I mean, I'm not going to use too much time getting super into it. There's a writer named Sarita McCoy Gregory who wrote about this movie in depth and found some references to the racial politics of this specific area at this specific time. But they're so small that it's like no one would have known.

I'll just read a quick quote. So it has to do with the masquerade ball and who's allowed to wear masks and who isn't, I guess was a law at this time. Quote, most of the attendees are costumed and masked with noted exceptions of Charlotte and Eli and the black attendees. The band performers and Tiana are not masked, reflecting local law that prohibited blacks from covering their faces. At the end of the scene, we realize that Dr. Facilier has broken with custom and law, hiding behind a white Janice-faced mask.

So apparently they referenced this very specific, but it's like, that also, I also am like, that could have been an accident. But yeah, I don't know the any attempt to express. I mean, Disney's never going to try to express realism. But if they're that committed to not expressing realism, why put it here? Right. Like, it's just yeah, really bizarre. I mean, I do want to shout out to Rob Edwards, the black screenwriter of the three.

The other two being Ron Clements and John Musker, who are also the directors. So because there's like at least one black person involved in the production of this movie, even though it doesn't seem like a lot of stuff got through. But he also, I didn't realize this, wrote one of my what i think is a very underrated disney movie which is treasure planet oh he wrote treasure planet i liked treasure planet no one else liked treasure planet it was a problem i missed it i've never seen it oh it's okay first of all for someone who hates steampunk i like all steampunk things uh so it's like steampunk treasure island and And like Jim, what's his name, has like a buzz cut and bangs. I remember the trailers. And he can fly.

It's good. But anyways, shout out to Rob Edwards. And I wish he could have like written this movie by himself. Yeah. Instead of, you know, dead weight. Have a black woman write this movie. Have a black woman direct this movie by himself instead of, you know, dead weight. Have a black woman write this movie. Have a black woman direct this movie. That's, I mean, and it's still like women, much less black women,

are still like not given access to animation in particular. And it's just. I read that Oprah, in addition to being cast as the voice of the mother, was also brought on as like a technical consultant but only after they'd already received criticism for the movie being racist right so they pulled a hail oprah yeah and which again is just like it's just so dis fucking disingenuous of like yeah we'll hire a black woman on this story about a black woman but only after we've been yelled at right it's like wouldn't it just serve the production

of whatever animation there's not a lot of women just in general sure like it's it's very uh yeah because you worked in yeah i used to i used to work i used to work in animation like not in the drawing aspect i used to work more in like dealing with the day-to-day logistics of like voiceover people oh wow okay so it actually is funny i've worked with several of the actors in the drawing aspect i used to work more in like dealing with the day-to-day logistics of like voiceover people oh wow okay so it actually is funny i've worked with several of the actors in the movie that are very nice and very sweet but yeah you don't see you have like a few women who are like up at like the the decision making level but not so many you know so hopefully as i exited animation there was like more people coming on top. So hopefully that will continue. Yeah, I hope so.

I mean, it's still like the two women that I'm aware of that have directed Disney animated productions. They're both white women. One's Jennifer Lee, who I think has gotten promoted pretty high up in Disney animation, which is good. She co-directed Frozen because you gotta have a boy with you uh and then uh brenda chapman who uh directed uh who well that got complicated didn't it yeah listen to our brave episode yeah she did direct it but she is again credited as a co-director with a man because people get nervous when women have too much power doing anything. They're like, oh, we got to get someone named Mark in here.

I believe, don't quote me on this. I believe, though, that Pixar does have like one person of color that's a director that did like a short film. Oh, was it the one? Oh, fuck. What's it called? I think it had something to do with food. Yes. Yeah, I think that's it.

Oh, I don't know that one. Does this movie pass the Bechdel test? Yes. Yes. I had it passing a few times. Definitely between Tiana and her mom, Eudora, talk about opening up the restaurant and all that stuff. Grandchildren. Grandchildren. It barely passed. Right but then they got it that's followed by uh them talking about Tiana's dad and then a hypothetical Prince Charming. Right. Um do any conversations between

Charlotte and Tiana pass because I feel like a lot of them are about men and princes and. I got a few two-line exchanges but it doesn't pass by the margin you would want it to right and then I was like does her talking to Evangeline count Evangeline shimmers back yes so that is her communication I hope that was in the script Evangeline shimmers in response yeah um I mean the the women in this movie are very much outnumbered by male characters um yeah which is again very oh and then mama odi yes i don't know if any of those i feel like most those conversations are still about like it's like in my the love interest exactly right like i feel like almost everything mama odi says is the subtext of like, hetero love will change your life. Or maybe the

Tabasco sauce thing that my cat and I would be. Again, it's like all the passes are quick. They're very, very quick. And it's again so not unusual in a princess movie for the female characters

to be vastly outnumbered. All the animals we meet are male identified animals they're let's rate it on our nipple scale um zero to five nipples based on its representation of women um i know this is such an important movie to like young black girls and other the world the world but it really subscribes to a lot of weird tropes and stereotypes between uh you know weird racial stereotypes this movie doesn't like fat people this movie doesn't like poor people it's also this movie doesn't like anybody dreams or uh this movie really mishandles what the religion of voodoo is.

You know, it's got a lot of problems, but it is important representation. As we always talk about, like, representation and inclusion and progress in general is a slow process that has to start somewhere. And usually the place that it starts is not necessarily very good or very nuanced. But it's a stepping stone for other more nuanced, more inclusive and progressive things to be made from there. Usually when the first thing that's not very nuanced proves to be financially successful, which this movie was. But yes, we've had better representation, not necessarily of like black women royalty in much cinema. But the fact that this is like the first black Disney princess is not nothing. The fact that it was made almost exclusively by white men is not the choice that should have been made as we've talked about.

So there's all these factors. I don't know what nipple rating to give it. Is it like a two and a half? Is it kind of right down the middle? I'm giving it, I'm between a one and a half and a two okay i think that like the behind the scenes representation in this movie is so piss poor yes and tiana like tiana is the win right tiana is the win tiana is everything that is good about this movie is tiana in the

first half hour right uh right and not yeah because she's a fucking frog it's not enough it's not enough to the movie i'll give it i'll give it one and a half nipples okay one for tiana and a half because it was the first black but other than that that's that's it everything i'm like you really there's no other character with redeeming progressive anything okay i'll follow your lead lexi and do one and a half we're all doing one and a half. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Well, uh, do better worlds. Well, I love Tiana. These directors,

these directors did, uh, direct Moana, you know, a few years later. So not that that's who should have directed Moana, but that is a more progressive text. Well,

the world is a confusing place. Um, Lexi, thank you so much for being here. Oh, thank you guys for having me. Where can we, where can we find you online? Where can we follow you? Um, at. Lexi, thank you so much for being here. Thank you guys for having me. Where can we find you online? At SmileLexi on everything.

But Lexi is spelled L-E-X-I-E. Wonderful. And then go see Lexi live. She's the best. Yes. Yeah, thank you. You can follow us on social media at BechtelCast, Twitter, and Instagram primarily. You can subscribe to our Patreon, a.k.a. Matreon.

It's $5 a month. It gets you two bonus episodes, and that's at patreon.com slash Bechtelcast. Something's telling me Portman July might be coming back for March. Wow. True Matreon fans will think that sentence makes sense. You can also get our merch on tpublic.com check out our website

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There's a princess in the front. Yeah. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearths the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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