| RATING: | 80% |
| FORMAT: | DVD |
Judging by Appearances
Desperate to overcome its reputation as quintessentially White supremacist, Walt Disney Productions present a fairy tale with a Black heroine allied to a twist on what is supposed to happen when a White virgin kisses a frog.
Her White girlfriend is presented as a spoilt brat who believes in wishing on stars and frog princes, despite their skin pigmentation; a veritable parody of Vivien Leigh’s Oscar-winning Southern-belle roles in Gone with the Wind and Streetcar Named Desire.
Thematically, this states the obvious: People cannot be objectively judged solely by appearance, in its musical plot stolen from Blues Brothers. Moreover, the voodoo villain is straight out of Live and Let Die - and all the more effective for it.
Toe-tapping jazz (strongly reminiscent of the sixties’ Jungle Book), imaginative musical set-pieces and vivid characterization mark this out as a cut above the usual mediocrity of Disney’s more recent output - despite the lack of memorable song lyrics. An old-fashioned style animation (ie, without CGI) that reminds us of the glory days of a once great movie studio: A celebration of The Big Easy that makes the destruction of Hurricane Katrina (2005) diminish.
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