The Princess and the Frog opens nationwide on Friday. In advance of the movie, many worried about how Disney would represent Tiana as an African-American princess in 1920s New Orleans. (Here's DoubleX on Tiana's accent and her friends and mom.) After seeing the movie, as a cultural anthropologist, I understand those critics who argue that Tiana and her fellow African-Americans are not black enough in terms of skin color or hair texture. But aside from those physical shortcomings, I find only find positive messages about Tiana. She is a waitress working hard to achieve her deceased father’s dream of owning a family restaurant, “Tiana’s Place.” She is kind, beautiful, loving, brave, and humble. Her one fault in the movie is that she is too driven; she doesn’t take enough time for love or for fun (certainly not the African-American media stereotype).

Not surprisingly, the positive portrayal is also the case with all of Disney’s recent princesses: Ariel, Jasmine, Belle, Pocahontas, and Mulan. What sets Tiana apart, unfortunately, is that she spends most of the movie as a frog. This doesn’t necessarily send a bad message to children, but it is a shame that they miss out on the opportunity to see this strength of her character fully realized in an African-American body. Perhaps if parents decide to buy their kids a Tiana doll for the holidays, they can make sure to buy the human version.

In another way, Tiana stands apart form some other Disney girls and women. She is not overly sexualized, as Ariel, Pocahontas, and Jasmine have been. She doesn’t use her body or her looks to get what she wants. However, there is one moment in the film that I would want to process with both my 6-year-old daughter and my 4-year-old son. When Prince Naveen, as a frog, is trying to persuade Tiana to kiss him, she is repulsed by the idea. Since she was a child, she had declared that she would never kiss a frog, even to become a princess. But then Prince Naveen mentions that his family is rich and that he could reward her with a lot of money. Upon hearing this and thinking of finally getting the restaurant she wants, she is coerced into kissing him. What is especially problematic here is that the frog promises money as a reward for what is essentially a sexual act, and Tiana gives in. Were I watching this movie with my children, I might ask them whether it seems right to kiss someone for money. And I might begin a discussion of why two people might want to kiss each other.

Another jumping off point for examination: Is Tiana represented as similar or different to others in her ethnic group? Jasmine, for example, from Aladdin, is kind and caring while others in her land of Agraba are presented as barbaric and cruel. In addition, she has lighter skin and, unlike the others, speaks in standard American English. The contrast may give some children the impression that typical Middle Easterners are bad. How can parents counter these messages, especially when they may not even know much about Middle Eastern cultures? Sit down at the computer and do an Internet search on Middle Eastern histories and cultures. Parents and children learning together like this will not only counter the stereotypes, but will also teach children to be curious and to not believe everything they see on the big screen.

Considering other characters in The Princess and the Frog, the white folks stand out as ridiculous. The La Bouff family is greedy and selfish while the frog hunters are buffoonish, beating on one another as they try to kill the frogs. Before you applaud the poetic justice in this turnaround, notice that only the very rich and the very poor are ridiculed here. Pointing this out to children can prompt a discussion about money and social class differences. Overall, a pretty good set of lessons for parents to initiate from a movie.

Still from The Princess and the Frog © Disney Enterprises

Tags: Princess Tiana, the princess and the frog

I just returned from my first trip to China, the region that makes most of our clothes, to the news that the Rodarte for Target line hits stores on the 20th. The endeavor is, I think, an unfortunate misstep for Rodarte. Not that the nine looks are crummy, mind you. I rather like the leopard dress (No. 1; $49.99) and the see-through blue tulle blouse (No. 6; $24.99). But if you turn off your acquisitiveness for a sec and consider what Rodarte represents, their Target collection is a truly depressing move.

Rodarte is the handcrafted, mega-expensive clothing line designed by two sisters from Pasadena, Calif. Out of nowhere, Kate and Laura Mulleavy presented a half-dozen dresses in 2005. Their design vocabulary developed into distinctive, cobweb knits and lace, wavy fabric, degraded materials, and taut little bows. The self-taught designers (who still live at home with their parents in Pasadena) quickly became the darlings of New York's Fashion Week.

Rodarte is synonymous with craft, which means $3,000 to $12,000 price tags, but nobody calls the Mulleavy's elitist or out-of-touch. In the land that invented ready-to-wear and assembly-line efficiency, authenticity and happy workers seemed to be the whole meaning of Rodarte. So I can't comprehend what the sisters who are, as style.com reviews chant, "obsessed with how clothes are made—stitch by stitch, bead by bead" and "passionate—even obsessive—about the construction of their clothes..." are doing partnering with a mega-chain that manufactures in faraway factories. Obsessed with how clothes are made? Really? Then why is the promotional video set on a Dakota farmstead and not in Shenzhen?

The Rodarte for Target clothes are commodities, the products of grueling and boring shift work, not the playful craft of two curious sisters in cahoots with a team of dressmakers in California. It's unfortunate: This fall they unveiled their most transcendent collection yet. I usually don't fall for the silly narratives and inspirations offered up by designers, but narrative is a Rodarte speciality. The garments practically howled with the sadness of environmental degradation, while at the same time inspired a poetic but equally practical mend-and-make-do approach to self-fashioning.

Of all the designers who could have broken rank and worked off the subject of fashion itself—I don't mean recycling silhouettes and nodding to fashions of yore, I mean the taboos of fashion: the waste, the banality of the work—it was the Mulleavy sisters.

Tags: cheap chic, Mulleavy sisters, Rodarte, Target

Emily, I'm with Hanna: I don’t think we were set up by the Glee finale. I think the feeling of having the rug pulled out, of discovering weird values accidentally sprinkled through otherwise well-meaning material like so much mouse poop in your Frosted Flakes, of having camp go right and also so, so wrong, is the price of doing business with Glee’s creator, Ryan Murphy. The man who made Nip/Tuck and Popular has a surprising, hilarious, big-hearted, yet scathing, go-there sensibility that is as entertaining as it is inconsistent. No one misses the mark quite like Murphy, but then that’s because most writers wouldn’t try to hit a mark that involved a show choir of deaf kids or a cheerleader with Down syndrome if it was on their foreheads.

In this particular instance, I think the storyline was a little bit lazy but dictated by the necessities of plot. McKinley had to win so they could go on to regionals; Sue has to be angrier than ever to drive the second half of the season; most importantly, the glee club had to perform songs we had never seen them perform before. There was probably a better solution, but this is the sort of outlandish and unnecessary misstep Murphy makes all of the time.

Also, based on your discussion of why you like the show—“A sweet gay character with a great coming-out to his dad, a nice and three-dimensional kid in a wheelchair, a JAP who is actually funny, the fabulously diabolical and mannish Sue Sylvester, and the general multi-culti vibe—on Fox?”—I fear you may have more disappointment in store for you: I think the Glee universe is fundamentally politically incorrect. It has well-developed characters of all colors, but cruelty and a dedication to flouting political correctness (as demonstrated in Sue’s Down syndrome storyline) will always play as much a part as the singing. The show is clear-eyed enough to show us the greatness, sweetness, and humor lurking in the most overachieving, out-of-place, weird, and normal high-schoolers, but that same clear-eyed approach is the same one that won’t shy away from portraying a group of deaf kids and underprivileged black girls as cheaters. Who says they can’t be?

Tags: Glee

Emily, I love when you get conspiratorial. Here are my couple of problems with your theory. If Fox did screw us in the end, they also turned the joke on themselves. The judges making the decision were parodies of Fox types—a slick, dumb anchorman and an even dumber beauty queen. Also, the ultimate end was no confirmation of heartwarming Fox family values. Neither of the two marriages is saved. Will looks into his wife's eyes and sees ... nothing, and then runs into the arms of Emma. I love watching Glee, but I recognize that most of the time it's completely incoherent, and I think that's true of its politics too. So no conspiracy here, I'd say.

Tags: Glee and Fox, Glee finale, Glee racist

Did anyone else find the Glee finale faintly disturbing last night? I've been wondering all season what Fox is up to with this show. A sweet gay character with a great coming-out to his dad, a nice and three-dimensional kid in a wheelchair, a JAP who is actually funny, the fabulously diabolical and mannish Sue Sylvester, and the general multi-culti vibe—on Fox? But maybe this was all a set up to lure us to the finale, in which our heroes, the still mostly white, middle-class McKinley High Glee club triumphs over teams of deaf kids and poor black girls ... who cheated and who get their comeuppance. Meanwhile, gay Kurt is sidelined and even Sue seemed merely mean instead of hilarious. Am I being too sensitive, or were we set up?

Tags: Glee

There's a funny lady-on-funny lady interview in the December/January issue of Bust magazine. Rachel Dratch interviews longtime friend and former SNL cohort Amy Poehler on the enviable attitude of tween girls ("Girls between the ages of 9 and 13 keep reminding me of how fun it is not to care about what other people think"), Poehler's love of her son Archie, and their fantasy yupster vacation to Pinot Grigio Island. Unsurprisingly, neither of them are too fond of the term-du-jour "cougar."

Amy Poehler: Can I ask you how you feel about this term cougar? I hate that fucking word.

Rachel Dratch: Me, too! Since the dawn of moving-making, there have been so many scenarios where an older guy is with a younger woman and we don’t bat an eye. But if it’s reversed and a 40-year-old woman is with a 35-year-old guy, she’s called a “cougar.”

So Poehler and Dratch do one better than complaining and even the playing field by coining a term for the male equivalent of a cougar—"Gray Balls." Incidentally, this use of "Gray Balls" is not related to the peg-footed, scurvy-sick ship's captain of your imagination whom you've always fondly referred to as Captain Gray Balls or, when you're feeling frisky, Captain Gravy Balls. (Maybe this is just my thing?) Anyway:

Poehler: I know ... there are these derogatory boxes that people have invented that they have to put themselves in. And why isn’t there a word for the inappropriate older guy with the younger girl? What is the exact word for that?

Dratch: I don’t know ... Gray Balls?

Poehler: Old Gray Balls! Oh he’s a real Gray Balls! (laugh) Maybe we should make it Clark Gray-Balls. There is just something about a 20-year-old calling someone a cougar that makes me want to punch them in the mouth.

Tags: amy poehler, bust magazine, cougars, rachel dratch

Yesterday, I oh-so-casually asked my 3-year-old what Santa was going to bring him for Christmas. "A [Nintendo] DS," he chirped without hesitation. "I already thought it! Like Sam's. That's what he's going to bring me." Actually, that's not what Santa had planned at all.

Santa just read Rafe Esquith's Lighting Their Fires: Raising Extraordinary Kids in a Mixed-Up, Muddled-Up, Shook-Up World—a book that definitively does not endorse hand-held gaming systems for 3-year-olds. Santa also just got an e-mail from a friend casually referring to her kids' "weekly hour" of TV time, which Santa had to respond to during the third hour of a weekend Scooby-Doo marathon. All of this has made Santa feel a little like, well, a bad Santa—and certainly not like a Santa inclined to present even the best 3-year-old in the world, one who probably wouldn't abuse it, would take care of it, readily accepts limits on playing time and is something of a video-game savant, with a DS of his own.

Santa was thinking of something more like, say, a toy truck. I offered a hesitant comment to that effect. "I don't think Santa can make a DS, though, do you?"

"Of course he can! He just needs some wood, and some colors. He can do it!"

Clearly some form of shop class would be more appropriate than a video game. The point is, he's convinced, and although Mom has never had any trouble saying no, Santa is struggling. Most of Santa is outraged. No 3-year-old needs even a used, eBay version of a $100 video game. But a small part of Santa—who has not yet done the shopping—is tempted, for various reasons.

What do you do, when your kid asks Santa for something that you can't, won't, or didn't buy? In past years, I've run out at the last minute for a "bucketful of markers," but that's been the limit of our Santa drama thus far. I'm actually pretty sure that Santa (who's always brought things like marble games and wooden trains and a toy kitchen for everyone to share) won't actually bring a DS for Wyatt, and he'll just have to deal. But a little extra element of possible disappointment has been introduced into the usual expectation of Christmas morning magic, and I'm grieving the years when it was the easiest thing in the world to grant everyone's wish.