The Princess and the Frog/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


These things about The Princess and the Frog are subjective - not everyone will agree with all of them.

  • Accidental Aesop: Some people prefer being single, and that's bad.
  • Acceptable Targets: The hillbilly frog hunters are presented as villainous versions of The Three Stooges. Laugh at their stupidity.
    • The Cajun fireflies are stereotyped with missing teeth and being "simple". Ray's subplot makes him look like a Cloudcuckoolander, though the whole thing is about him being a firefly and has nothing to do with his ethnic group. And of course, that worked out for him in the end.
    • Averted with most of the white characters. They're noticeably wealthier and more privileged than Tiana and her family, but they're not depicted as arrogant.
  • Alas, Poor Villain: Not that he doesn't deserve it, but it's easy to feel bad for Facilier when his "Friends" turn on him, if only because of how incredibly scared and pathetic he is.
  • And the Fandom Rejoiced: Besides the return of traditional animation to Disney, the casting of Keith David as the movie's villain sold a lot of people on seeing the movie. There were also plenty of teenagers and vicenarians that were easily elated at the announcement of that movie as a return to Disney's magical roots after lamenting about the tween-oriented direction the company seemed to have taken over the past several years, claiming it to be irreverent toward Walt Disney 's standards on how he wanted to run the company in the first place.
  • Artistic License Religion: Actually a rare invoked example - Disney didn't want to use any actual symbols for fear of offending real life practitioners of Voudou (or summon any evil spirits.) They essentially give a bit of this since Dr. Facilier and Mama Odie appear to practice magic and call it "Voodoo", however give Facilier a little bit of credit - he says "I got voodoo, I got hoodoo, I got stuff I haven't even tried", implying he (and the writers) are well aware that "Voodoo" isn't just a catch-all-term for folk magic.
    • That and there's a bit of Genius Bonus - Facilier appears to be using easily-bribed spirits, not so much caring for actual voodoo rituals so much as aligning with what will give him more power.
  • Non Sequitur Scene: The poachers. Sure, their existence is foreshadowed, but they still feel disconnected from the rest of the story and contribute little to nothing to the overall plot. All it boils down to is a few minutes of gratuitous slapstick.
  • Cargo Ship: Ray the firefly and Evangeline the evening star until Ray dies and becomes a star next to Evangeline.
  • Complete Monster: Dr. Facilier, or the Shadow Man, is a "very charismatic" conman and voodoo sorcerer who employs his demonic "Friends on the Other Side" for his own ambitious ends. Facilier tricks Prince Naveen into giving him his blood, cursing the prince into the form of a frog, while roping his greedy valet Lawrence into posing as the prince to marry into the inheritance of New Orleans's wealthiest sugar baron Eli "Big Daddy" LeBouff, ensuring Facilier can murder LeBouff and Naveen after to secure the fortune for his own. Plunged deep into debt to his "Friends" with his soul at stake, Facilier sinks to his lowest when he offers up the souls of New Orleans's citizens to his demonic "Friends" to glut themselves on, and even cold-bloodedly kills Ray the firefly when he poses an obstacle to his plans. Defined by his thirst for power, even Facilier's elastic, unmistakable charm can't disguise the monster he truly is underneath his conman facade.
  • Crossover Shipping: Charlotte/Dmitri have been paired together.
  • Crowning Music of Awesome: It's hard to pick one with such a good soundtrack, but "Friends On the Other Side", "When We're Human", and both versions of "Down in New Orleans" get particular mention.
    • Don't forget "Dig A Little Deeper"! Mama Odie's voice actress was even backed up by a real church chorus.
      • Add "Ma Belle Evangeline". The song is so heartwarming and sweet!
      • Also from Ray: "Gonna Take You There". It was short but very catchy.
      • Especially when linked with good memories; this song was played daily from the Mark Twain Riverboat at Disneyland, at least during November '09, making it a permanent reminder of Disneyland.
  • Draco in Leather Pants: Dr. Facilier. "He was very charismatic!"
  • Evil Is Cool: Dr. Facilier.
  • Fan Community Nicknames: Zealous followers of this movie are called "Froggers". After the movie is released and their IMDB board is overrun with wankers, there are plans to migrate to the Rapunzel board and become "Tanglers".
  • Genius Bonus: When Facilier shows Naveen his future and changes around the image on his cards, three roman numerals appear at the top, IV when it shows Naveen as a royal, XVI shows Naveen in front of a tower, and IX showns Naveen with a bride and her father with treasure around them. In the Tarot, IV is The Emperor, representing power, control, etc. XVI is The Tower, representing a sudden crisis or disaster, and realizations of falsehoods. IX could be The Hermit, representing solitude and contemplation, or given the image could be taken as the Nine of Coins, referring to someone who has achieved fortune through hard work. Lawrence's card meanwhile shows a X, representing the Wheel of a Fortune, a sudden change of luck and fate.
  • Girls Need Role Models: It's been stressed that Tiana doesn't need a prince and works to achieve her dreams. Anika Noni Rose pointed out how this is a stark contrast to any of the other Disney I Want Songs, in that she knows what she wants, she's "Almost There", and she's done it on her own. Her character is best summed up with her line:

I know exactly where I'm going
And gettin' closer and closer everyday!

  • Girl Show Ghetto: The movie did okay at the box office for Disney, but not nearly as good as their previous animated films. Disney determined that this trope was the reason and was rumored to completely shut down adapting fairy tales into movies. For Tangled‍'‍s marketing, they completely downplayed the fairy tale-ness of the movie, put the male hero character front and center, and marketed like a Dreamworks comedy film. The advertising brought a whole lot of backlash, but in the end it paid off as Tangled is so far a success.
    • It's funny when you realize that arguably, The Princess and the Frog is among the least-girliest Princess movies, alongside Mulan and Pocahontas - it features a very menacing villain, a roadtrip, slapstick, strong leads that aren't romantically interested in each other at all at first. In comparison, Tangled is a girlier movie, with less peril, less Nightmare Fuel and more "princess"-stuff.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: In a previous Disney animated feature, The Lion King, Timon once said that the stars in the sky were 'fireflies that were trapped in that big blue-ish, black thing.' Ray, a firefly in this movie, was killed by Dr. Facilier and turned into a star in the sky.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: A while ago, some guy named Terry Pratchett wrote a novel called Witches Abroad, whose third act was set in a fusion of Disney's Magic Kingdom and New Orleans, the plot of which involves voodoo and a prince who's really a frog.
  • Like You Would Really Do It Yeah, like Disney is going to kill off the lovable animal sideki--wait, what? What?!
  • Love to Hate: Dr. Facilier.
  • Moe: The film's prologue can be seen as pure unfiltered Disney moe.
  • Moral Event Horizon: When Facilier crossed the line is uncertain, but the two biggest offenders are probably when he offers the souls of all New Orleans to his "Friends" in exchange for their cooperation and when he steps on Ray the firefly.
  • MST3K Mantra: Naveen tells a newly transformed Tiana not to think too hard about the fact that she can suddenly understand animals talking.
  • Narm Charm: It's almost too easy, to the point of cliché, that Ray ends up as a star alongside Evangeline. And yet... it's sweet, and it's fitting, and it works.
    • During the Ma Belle Evangeline dance, when Ray sings "Look how she lights up the sky", and Naveen looks to Tiana and sees a very cartoony sparkle in her eyes. And yet, it's just too adorable a moment to feel awkward.
  • Nightmare Fetishist: Not only is Naveen easily duped into following Facilier and believing his, "That's an echo, gentlemen. Just a little something we have here in Louisiana, a little parlor trick. Don't worry," line, but THEN, once he's inside the Voodoo Emporium, witnessing some magic that goes well beyond the scope of a normal tarot reading — including the ostensibly decorative masks starting to sing with Facilier — he seems to really get into it and really enjoy being around the strange, magical things. In fact, he doesn't show any signs of fear until he's bound up in the chair, being turned into a frog.
  • Nightmare Fuel: Dr. Facilier and his Friends on the Other Side.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Oh, come on, Lawrence would have been a much more interesting character if he had received more development. When Facilier shows him his tarot readings, he has a pretty decent Freudian Excuse (he was pushed around by everyone including his family and the prince). And then in one scene after that he actually offers to give his amulet back to Facilier and not go through with his plan. But none of that comes up again after those scenes, after which he does nothing except passively go along with Facilier.
    • Dr. Facilier's issues with his Friends on the Other Side would have made a perfectly good story on its own. Dr. Facilier is basically Disney's version of Dr. Faustus. He had unimaginable demonic power at his fingertips, and all he could think to do was scam a butler and get some money. When his debt is finally called in, he begs for "just a little more time."
      • Indeed, one of the movie's most prominent criticisms is that the villain was underplayed.
  • Ugly Cute: Ray, oh so much.
  • Wall Banger: Long enough for a page of its own.
  • Win Back the Crowd: This movie was intended to prove traditional animation wasn't dead and re-establish Disney's prominence in the animation industry. While critical and audience response was positive, the jury's still out when you look at the box office take. It opened wide the week before Avatar arrived and steamrolled it; then Sherlock Holmes and Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel came along. Financially it's closer to The Emperor's New Groove or Meet the Robinsons than the company's early '90s hits. But since Tiana was long intended as the next official Disney Princess, there's plenty of Tiana and Naveen merchandise already, which will mean plenty more money long after box office sums are counted, not to mention the inevitable DVD sales and rentals.
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