[Disclaimer: This blog post is brought to you by both intern Seline and second-job Seline. Intern-Seline wrote most of it, which is why you can still hear the lively fun in her tone. How I wish she can bring some of that back.]
The writer: Me, a fairytale hoe and an extremely bored intern who has not been assigned enough work.
The audience: You, people of the greater World Wide Web, who most likely have too much time on your hands as well or are desperately endeavoring to Not Think About An Unfinished Task. [I sympathize with both cases entirely.]
PERHAPS you have watched the 2009 animated Disney film “The Princess and The Frog”. Or, perhaps you began watching it, then promptly fell asleep – because the lack of appreciation towards this film makes it feel like everyone slept through the whole damn thing.
The film is remarkable because it takes a mildewy old German tale and injects vibrancy into it by setting it in 1920s Louisiana. I’m quite certain the Grimm Brothers, with their penchant for the gothic and the weird, would have had their socks knocked off by the voodoo and Mardi Gras elements in “The Princess and The Frog”. Unless they were racist, which would suck.
In addition to the new setting, Disney changed the whole story, which is probably why it is more fun than the original. [See below where I retell the story and raise many questions, as a kindergartener would.] The premise: A normal girl kissing a frog, only to get turned into a frog because she wasn’t a princess. [Because only princesses have the power to transform frogs back into princes. Don’t worry, the film points out the scarcity of princesses in the world.]
A Short And Violently Commentated On Retelling of The Frog Prince
“The Princess and The Frog” is based on the Grimm Brothers’ fairytale “The Frog Prince” (although it is sometimes called “Iron Henry” in other variants). The story is about a spoiled young princess who drops her favorite toy, a golden ball [God, how boring was royal life? Wasn’t there a beheading to watch? A plague to combat? A war to fight in? God. A golden ball.] into a well.
Said well is the home of a talking frog, who is supposedly a prince cursed by a witch for being arrogant or something. [If there was MAGIC in Ye Olde Fairytale Land, why the hell is this princess playing with a boring gold ball?] The frog offers to fetch the ball for the princess. [How an amphibian with webbed hands and feet thinks it can manage to carry a heavy, golden ball to the surface of a deep well is beyond me.]
However, in exchange for its services, the frog makes the princess promise to allow him into her home, to let him eat from her plate, and to let him share her bed. The princess accepts this, even after trying to bargain other golden objects with the frog. Obviously, she ditches him right away once she gets what she wants. [To quote The Nanny, “I can tell this story was written by a man.”]
To her surprise, the frog knocks at the castle door [Again, can webbed appendages do that? Someone please help me understand this. I have a fear of frogs and I skipped dissecting one in high school.] that evening, just in time for supper. The king, upon hearing about how his daughter did this frog a dirty, forces her to fulfill her promises. When bedtime came, the frog tries to get the princess to kiss him good night. [Even in frog form, this guy is still trying to get some.]
Lastly, “The Princess and The Frog” is one of the very last of its kind – a hand-drawn, musical Disney film. I appreciate this stylistic choice. I don’t think the 3D-Pixar style thing would have worked with such a colorful, fantastical concept. The music is also greatly underappreciated. Every song could be described as something jazzy and old-timey, which means it’s a bop, Your Honor.
MAYHAPS you have also seen another animated film, entitled “Howl’s Moving Castle”. It’s one of the more popular works of Japanese production company Studio Ghibli (headed by the lovely, talented old Hayao Miyazaki). It’s about a hatter girl (who can enchant objects to life by talking to them, btw) who gets cursed into being an old lady. She goes to find the wizard Howl who lives in a floating castle run by a fire demon, hoping to have him reverse the curse on her but mostly hoping he needs a housemaid. She craves for adventure, and he needs a heart.
The film is based on Dianne Wynne Jones’ novel of the same name, but book and movie have a different approach towards the ending. I enjoyed both, however!
ANYWAYS, even if you’ve done all of the above, you might have not connected one to the other. OR even if you have, you might not have the time to put pen to paper as I have. Because again, I am VERY bored and I have a compulsive need to be productive in order to feel accomplished. I present an argument for why “The Princess and The Frog” and “Howl’s Moving Castle” are the same story in different forms.
- The Characters
I’m going to focus on the two main characters here: the male and female protagonists. Sophie and Tiana are both hardworking, level-headed individuals who are content to do their best for their families. Howl and Naveen are both incredibly vain people, who prefer to idle their lives away. The pairings make for a very compelling growth in both the individuals and the relationship.
- The Plot
I’m not gonna dwell too much on the plot, because the films and the book go in different directions. What I am going to focus on is the “forgotten first meeting” element consistent in all stories. There is a scene in “The Princess And The Frog” where Naveen lowkey hits on Tiana, who ignores him and he brushes it off.
In both versions of Howl, the protagonists meet when Howl decides to accompany the frightened Sophie to the bakery her sister works at. It’s given more time in the film (they fly together, for goodness’ sake), but it was a bit more casual in the book since Sophie was unaware that Howl was anything more than a fancily-dressed man. Although Howl kept his first impression of Sophie in mind and brought it up at the end of the book, which I found really sweet.
- The Transformation
The transformation of both Sophie and Tiana were necessary for them to grow out of their comfort zones, and in a sense, let loose a little. Sophie was boxed in the mindset that she was supposed to be the proper eldest sibling, living a boring life at a hat shop. When she becomes an old woman, she has way more agency in her life and decides to become an adventure-seeking, smart-mouthed, badass grandma. On the other hand, Tiana did not much enjoy her life as a frog as Sophie did – to be fair, Sophie did remain human. However, she was able to reclaim some joy in her life and face her own worth, which was good on her character development.
Overall, these stories are pretty empowering for women – sometimes, it might not seem like we are in the power to make decisions, but we always have a choice if we think about it clearly. As for the men, well they just really need to grow-up. And that’s okay. I hope they do it quickly.
writing space for now 