Frog Music

[bloodyrosemccoy]

God dammit, I can’t get The Princess And The Frog’s soundtrack out of my head.

I think it’s Tiana’s voice. I can take or leave Naveen, but Tiana—Anika Noni Rose—has a fantastic voice. And more to the point, she has one of those rare voices that my synesthesia has decided is multicolored, and it’s fascinating. Every time she sings I see purple—but it’s bordered. On the top is a big blue stripe, and on the bottom is a big red stripe, and between each of those stripes and the purple is a small strip of brown.

It’s hard not to be totally intrigued by this.

Anyway, as long as I’m on the subject, I’ve been talking with some people about how Facilier is not a very memorable villain, and I’ve been trying to figure out why, besides the fact that his song kinda peters out in the middle. chibicharibdys made a good point—he’s a bit all over the place, and doesn’t have a clearly stated goal until much later. I realized she’s right—all the really interesting Disney villains gave you a simple plan to root against. Hell, even Gaston, whose goal is not so much “I will rule the world” as “I will rule Carl Belle to feed my ego, destroying anything that gets in my way,” was pretty straightforward, and thus memorable.*

Facilier, however, seemed not to have thought his plan out very well, and so it wound up looking like:

1. Voodoo
2. ????
3. PROFIT!

Which is a little disappointing, because he was such a cool design. He coulda been a lot of fun.**

At least I got those shadows. That will make me happy forever.


*And also, I realized, rather alarmingly realistic.

**And for those of you worried that he was particularly scary for little kids, might I remind you that the first Disney movie I ever saw in theaters was the one with the giant too-forward octopus woman turning merfolk into barnacles, trying to take over the ocean and then getting STABBED BY A BOAT. After which she has death throes in which she TEARS HERSELF APART, and bits and pieces of her rain down upon the magical undersea kingdom while the merfolk celebrate their newfound non-barnacle status. Also, I hid from the Pink Elephants. Disney scaring small children is nothing new.

Comments

[sanachan1.livejournal.com]

Saw the Princess and the Frog last night and LOVED it. My whole family loved it, and that's saying something. Facilier was definitely a little vague, but since he was voiced by Kieth David I was pretty happy with him. Mama Odi though, she was SO DAMN AWESOME. And Tiana's voice is just supremely gorgeous. I loved it so much I was able to ignore a couple of historical impossibilities.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I find it's easier to ignore historical impossibilities when it's a GOOD story. If it sucks, you're in a lot more trouble.

[vogtalicious.livejournal.com]

Facilier wasn't the best of villians, I agree--though his death was awesome. Also, his masks definately took me back to when I was a little kid and freaked the eff out in the Field Museum with all their freaky-assed masks from the south Pacific.

And Tiana has the prettiest dresses out of any Disney princess, especially her transformation dress at the end. End. Of. Story.

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

Ursula's death scene terrorized me when I was in high school. (Admittedly, I may have been an exceptionally timid teenager.) Disney movies: brightly-colored trauma for kids!

[dark-phoenix54.livejournal.com]

My aunt, in her teens at the time, was terrified of Malificent when she saw that movie. Disney has been having dire effects on kids for even longer than the movie you cite!

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Actuall, the Pink Elephants I cite are even earlier!

[biomekanic.livejournal.com]

My dad told me about how Pinnochio scared the crap out of him when he was a kid, he was good for about a month after seeing it.

[jill-calico.livejournal.com]

I remember reading about the wicked witch/queen from Snow White made children soil themselves in theatres. So, that's pretty awesome.

The film could've probably done more to explain voodoo and what exactly it is Facilier does. I wasn't particularly impressed by his "death" because it honestly didn't mean a whole lot to me. The shadows made it worth it, but a little insight would have been rad.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

From what I could tell, he did more hoodoo--I think he was making a deal with some bad spirits, promising them souls in exchange for magic, and he couldn't repay the debt, so they took HIS soul. I don't know enough about hoodoo to know much more than that, or if that much is accurate.

[jill-calico.livejournal.com]

I guess I'm interested in the mechanics of what he does and what he's dealing with, so as to better understand the severity of his situation? I don't know how much they could have done that without the movie being misconstrued as Disney's Guide to the Black Magicks for Kidz, though. Like, I get Ursula. She's a witch. I grew up with a kind of vague understanding of what witches do. Accurate or not, they featured in most of the stories I grew up with. Voodoo/Hoodoo is almost entirely foreign to me, so, you know.

To the library!

[igntethestars.livejournal.com]

I meant to reply witht his to your comment, but I'll just do it here :D

Her voice is gorgeous; I really went in not expecting to like the music, and . . . well, I've had "Almost There" stuck in my head for days.

I agree with him not being a very memorable villain. On my Disney playlist, the villain songs are some of the ones that are the most played (Be Prepared stands as my favorite. Period.), and this one didn't even make an impression on me. I do think, like you and your friend mentioned, that he doesn't really have a goal. You know he's trying to get money, and that he's trying to kinda . . rule New Orleans, but you don't find out WHY until five seconds before he's killed.

As for him being too scary (because I know I mentioned this xD) It wasn't HIM so much I was worried about. Like you said, Disney is used to scaring children shitless with stuff - there is a reason I'm still terrified Headless Horseman (thank you, first grade teacher for FORCING ME TO WATCH THAT), but I think it was the subject matter. We're used to magic, and to things, but Voodoo? Even to my friends I know that do practice the magic art, that's usually something they stay away from. I don't know, maybe mine are just strange xD Either way, I was left going "WTF?" half the time.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Hee. I've been pontiificating about this all over, so I figured I'd do it here, too!

Others mentioned him being too scary in a more general way, too--and I did hear some whimpering in the theater at a couple of the shadow points. But while I don't know much about voodoo and hoodoo, I do know they aren't inherently bad. Like other magic systems, hoodoo can be used for bad, and like other religions, voodoo has its dark side, but from my very limited understanding it doesn't mean it's all evil.