disney's cajun firefly: shedding light on disney and americanization

Disney’s Cajun Firefly: Shedding Light on Disneyand Americanization

MARIA HEBERT-LE ITER

WHEN DISNEY RELEASED THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG IN 2009, PEOPLE FLOCKED TO

theaters to watch the first African-American princess finally marry herprince. They also received a dose of humor and a bit of wisdom from the

wholesome, brave Raymond, a Cajun firefly who paves the way to Tiana’s happy conclu-sion. In its attempt to create a small world in which difference no longer divides, Disneyreinforces the national assumptions that led to Cajuns becoming American. Set in theearly twentieth century, The Princess and the Frog emphasizes the Cajun as other to eraseracial difference and claim a place for Tiana in the mainstream national imagination. Bydoing so, Disney simplifies Louisiana’s complicated ethnicity and reproduces problematicstereotypes.

In the last five years, Louisiana culture has exploded onto the big and small screennot only with the 2009 release of Disney’s The Princess and the Frog but also with suchcable television shows as True Blood (HBO), Treme (HBO), and reality favorites SwampPeople (History Channel) and Cajun Pawn Stars (History Channel). Ragin’ Cajun House-wives has even captured an online audience with its South Louisiana take on the popularBravo franchise that merits a separate discussion of cultural caricature. While the 2005levee breaks following the landfall of Hurricane Katrina ushered in a flood of nationalattention, New Orleans has long been a city of fascination with its motto “The City thatCare Forgot” and its annual Carnival extravaganza that refused to quit after flood watersravaged the city. Thus, the interest in Post-Katrina life in such shows as Treme comes asno surprise. The recent reality obsession with Cajuns, though, indicates interest in morethan this post-Katrina New Orleans revival. These celluloid images introduce a nationalaudience to the Cajun descendants of the French Acadians, who migrated to Louisianaover two hundred years ago.1 In doing so, they target American notions of entertain-ment, exaggerating difference even in the twenty-first century. Disney’s The Princess andthe Frog is no exception, exploiting Cajun difference to teach its main characters aboutlove. The film does so by promoting an incomplete understanding of the Cajun peoplebecause Disney erases a history of discrimination and survival that significantly affectedthe Cajuns in the early twentieth century. Points of pride among contemporary Cajunsbecome the cultural indicators Disney utilizes: the story of Louisiana migration, lan-guage and music. By including American versions of these cultural reminders, The Prin-cess and the Frog indicates how Cajuns have been Americanized for popular consumption.

At first glance, Disney’s 2009 addition to its princess collection appears to be aprogressive step forward, capturing the multicultural and geographical beauty of south

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Louisiana. The streetcar gliding along the streets of Uptown New Orleans, home to theblond-haired, blue-eyed Charlotte LaBouff and her wealthy father, and the spirit of com-munity surrounding the Creole shotgun houses that dot the less wealthy neighborhoodsenfold the audience in the ethnic variety of the city. Scenes framed by the iron balconiesof the French Quarter and the dripping moss of the swamp flicker with colorful lightsand flavor the film. Furthermore, Disney rejects stereotypical representations of theswamp by including reminders of the dangers that lie within while also depicting therich beauty of the geographical space.2 The film reminds the viewer of possible dangerswhen trappers terrorize Tiana and Naveen in scenes that recall Southern Comfort (1981)and the nine Louisiana National Guardsmen hunted by Cajuns in retaliation for stealinga pirogue. But, it reverses Southern Comfort’s negative stereotype of violent Cajuns whenRay saves the day. And though films often depict the swamp as isolating, with its inhab-itants remaining ignorant, as in Adam Sandler’s The Waterboy (1998), Disney flips thisnotion when the frogs choose to return and even marry each other there.

This cultural and geographical variety is marred, however, because the film’s happilyever after conclusion relies on false premises. While created for an early twenty-first cen-tury audience, the film takes place in New Orleans during the Jazz Age, a time in Loui-siana during which the 1894 antimiscegenation statute still held,3 making it illegal forNaveen to marry Tiana.4 To transcend this history, Disney turns the main charactersinto frogs and has them escape into the swamp. The most noted way in which Disneyadvances its multicultural profile seems to be in its choice of heroine, but only by turn-ing her and Naveen green and providing another character, the Cajun Ray, againstwhich to emphasize this sameness. Thus, Ray becomes the means by which the maincharacters and the audience ignore the racial gap and its legal implications.

Through Tiana, Disney confirms that women can be strong in their own right andthat princesses come in many colors: white, black or even green. In her review of thefilm for People, Leah Rozen writes, “Tiana is—about time!—Disney’s first black prin-cess,” while Allison Samuels adds that it “couldn’t come at a better time, what with thetwo little African-American princesses who live in the white House” (56). Sara Libbyeven recalls the 40th anniversary re-release of the now infamous Song of the South toargue how far Disney has come in terms of racial representation. Not all reviews havebeen positive, though. Neal A. Lester records negative reactions in “Disney’s The Princessand the Frog: The Pride, the Pressure, and the Politics of Being a First.” For example,Naveen’s white identification became a point of contention because, as Cheryl Lynnargues, “it was insulting to every black person watching that movie that Disney did nothave the courage to place a real black man in this regal position” (304). Lynn alsoresents Charlotte’s role in the film because she views Charlotte as the obligatory “whitegirl character” to which white girls can relate (305). Even Sara Libby admits that “Dis-ney doesn’t emphasize Tiana’s race,” instead highlighting the use of light and shadow todistinguish between good and evil, not white or black, to advance a more significantpoint.

While not satisfying all of the critics, the film explodes the seemingly impenetrableassumption that a princess must be white and encourages wishing upon stars, regardlessof the dreamer’s racial identity. To accomplish this goal, Disney reinforces other assump-tions since Tiana fits an American norm only when another ethnicity takes her place asother. In her review of the film’s progress on race, Libby points out that Disney has

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sealed Song of the South in a tight vault “because it has become a cultural flash point—with most people agreeing that its characterization of blacks in the post-Civil WarSouth is racist.” This lockdown does not, however, preclude the corporation from repeat-ing similar mistakes, this time through its portrayal of Cajuns. Ironically, Disney alludesto areas of Cajun culture most affected by Americanization to a white, middle-classnorm, and it exploits these cultural differences to maintain its African-American prin-cess’s closer proximity to this norm. After all, the audience more easily identifies Tianaas mainstream American, even with her webbed feet, than it does Ray.

Attacking Disney for its stereotypical cultural representations is nothing new. DanielGoldmark and Utz McKnight, in “Locating America: Revisiting Disney’s Lady and theTramp,” offer a critique of the dog-centered film based on its assumptions of mainstream,middle-class white America, complete with Siamese cats recast with an American versionof an exotic dialect and the curious erasure of everything African-American. They openthe article with a discussion of music in Disney films and theme parks, with It’s a SmallWorld, created for the 1964 New York World’s Fair, taking center stage. According toGoldmark and McKnight, instead of a celebration of complex differences, the ridebecame simplistic in its world vision, resulting in a song that “only engages with thevarious races and ethnicities on the most superficial level, as crude stereotypical represen-tations” (104). The ride and the song, however, offer a glimpse at a multiculturalismnot popularly realized when It’s a Small World was first revealed, or so Douglas Brode, aproud Disney defender, argues in Multiculturalism and the Mouse: Race and Sex in DisneyEntertainment (2). These two versions of the same historical event indicate how controver-sial Disney has become as debates continue regarding the corporation’s intentions eitherto encourage multiculturalism or force conformity to a white mainstream ideal. Eitherway, the central problem arises from the corporation’s habit of overly simplifying cul-tural difference.

Ray is an example of such simplification. His ethnic traditions constantly remind theaudience of how alike Tiana and Naveen are while simultaneously setting the stage forthe love story to unfold. Introducing them to his Evangeline, the brightest star in thesky, Ray sings “Ma Belle Evangeline,” an original song written for the film by RandyNewman. While the frogs waltz, the song’s line about love finding a way informs us ofthe film’s main theme (The Princess and the Frog). Evangeline alludes to Henry Wads-worth Longfellow’s Evangeline, a poem that recalls the Acadian migration to Louisianathat led to Americanization and conformity to a white mainstream ideal. This gradualmigration also led to the formation of Cajun ethnicity. Interestingly, the term Cajun isactually a non-Cajun corruption of ‘Cadian, which the Acadian descendants called them-selves. By the 1870s, Cajun signified “white trash” when used by Anglo Americans(Brasseaux, Acadian to Cajun 104). Thus, the popular label for this ethnic group marksoutside influences and discrimination.

Longfellow’s poem relates the Acadian tragedy through the story of two loversdivided during the 1755 dispersal of the Acadians from Acadia, the geographical areanow known as Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. No longer satis-fied with the oath of neutrality the Catholic French colonists took in 1728,5 soldiers, ledby British governor Charles Lawrence, forced the Acadians from their homes and on toships to be deported, an historical event known in Acadian history as the Grand

970 Maria Hebert-Leiter

D�erangement. In the poem, Evangeline and Gabriel reunite years later in Philadelphia,where Gabriel lies on his deathbed.

Over the years, Longfellow’s version superseded actual Acadian folktales, becomingthe mythical memory of survival for contemporary Cajuns. In the Editor’s Notes toWarren A. Perrin’s Acadian Redemption: From Beausoleil Broussard to the Queen’s Royal Proc-lamation, Chris Segura discusses the lack of Acadian folklore about this dispersal amongthe Acadians who settled in Louisiana, a lack he explains as a “reluctance to remember”(vii). Meanwhile, the “continuing evolution of the Evangeline myth,. . ., indicates thelegend’s continuing vitality, even in the face of numerous, recent scholarly publicationscontradicting Longfellow’s account,” according to Cajun historian Carl A. Brasseaux whohas published such a contradiction, In Search of Evangeline (51). This “reluctance toremember” in the Louisiana Acadian communities, coupled with the forced Americaniza-tion in the early twentieth century, created the perfect situation in which Longfellow’snational tale offered hope to Cajuns, as Brasseaux argues when he writes, “these peoplesaw Longfellow’s heroine as a positive role model, the only Acadian revered by theotherwise ethnically intolerant English-speaking world into which they were seekingacceptance” (In Search 51). Thus, the story of Evangeline, both within the poem and itslife beyond the written page, speaks directly to the Americanization of the Cajuns. Theprocess by which the poem was written and retold mimics the process by which Cajunsbecame part of the nation’s popular imagination and eventually characters in a Disneyfilm. It also recalls how national representation of their culture has affected them.

The Evangeline legend as written by Longfellow began as a folktale told to the popu-lar American author at the time by H. L. Conolly, a Maine clergyman who thoughtNathaniel Hawthorne could use it as the basis of a story (Brasseaux, In Search 9). Long-fellow altered the names and added the Acadian migration to Louisiana to create aunique story of American survival. Today, the tale lives on through its inclusion in theSt. Martinville, Louisiana, tourist industry, with the Evangeline statue presiding overthe grave of Emmeline Labiche, an Acadian assumed to be the inspiration for Evangelinein Felix Voorhies’s version of the tale, Acadian Reminiscences: The True Story of Evangeline(1907). The statue sits next to the St. Martin de Tours Church. Visitors who walk tothe bank of the nearby Bayou Teche will find the Evangeline oak under which, accordingto Voorhies, the lovers reunited. Also testifying to the continuing influence of Longfel-low’s tale, George Rodrigue, famous for his blue dog paintings, created a sculpture thatnow stands in Lafayette, capturing the likeness of Longfellow and images of the fictionalEvangeline and Gabriel (Rodrigue 86).

Longfellow’s revision of Connolly’s folk story fit his contemporary American audi-ence. So, too, does The Princess and the Frog, erasing the Acadian dispersal to make Evan-geline’s story suitable for a twenty-first century American audience. Also while theDisney fireflies maintain the basic premise of this American version of the Acadian trag-edy, they do so with a twist. It is Evangeline who has died, becoming the brightest starin the sky and leaving Ray to wait patiently for a reunion. Ray and Evangeline are thusseparated by death, not the dispersal. Ray’s story emphasizes the value of loyalty to teachTiana and Naveen about the nature of true love, but it loses its vital connection to actualAcadian history by the time the story of the Acadian lovers emerges in Disney fashion.

This American version of Acadian history familiarizes the general audience withCajun Louisiana without conflicting with already established and widely popular notions


of this ethnic group in a simplistic way that maintains children’s interest. After all, chil-dren make up the majority of Disney’s intended audience, and the anthropomorphismfor which Disney is famous allows children to relate. But reducing the argument tothis basic level erases the consequences of Cajun Americanization and allows the audi-ence to project their assumptions onto this history and the people themselves. This pro-jection may prove dangerous, as the history of Cajuns and how they became Americandemonstrates.

One of the clearest indicators of Ray’s Cajun identity in the film happens to be thecultural marker perhaps most targeted in the early twentieth century during the pushfor Americanization: Cajun French. While Ray does not speak French except for a com-mon phrase or two in the song “Ma Belle Evangeline,” he speaks with a thick accentmeant to mimic the English spoken by Cajuns, on which Prince Naveen immediatelycomments, “Your accent, it’s funny, no?” (The Princess and the Frog). Ray replies, “Ooh,I’m a Cajun bruh. Born and bred in the bayou” (The Princess and the Frog). The film basi-cally ignores the French linguistic tradition to serve the needs of the English-speakingaudience and reinforces the nation’s perception of Cajun accents as not only different butalso inferior.

Furthermore, Ray’s line about “born and bred in the bayou” has additional implica-tions. The Cajun firefly ironically recalls another Disney character, Br’er Rabbit. Thistrickster figure, recorded in Joel Chandler Harris’s collection of African-American folk-tales, repeatedly escapes danger by outwitting his opponents. Ray’s response to Naveendirectly repeats Br’er Rabbit’s line at the end of the Tar Baby story in Song of the South:“Yes, sir, Br’er Fox, I was born and bred in the briar patch” (“Br’er Rabbit: The TarTrap [Part 2]”). Moreover, Ray survives the swamp as Br’er Rabbit survives the briarpatch because it is his home. A more generous trickster figure than Br’er Rabbit, Rayemploys his swamp wit to rescue Tiana and Naveen. When the Cajun firefly first appearson screen, he assists the frogs in untangling their tongues. Ray saves them in a laterscene by flying up the nose of an ignorant swamp trapper intending to add the frogs tohis sauce piquant (a spicy, tomato-based dish popular in Louisiana). He guides them toMama Odie, a voodooienne with the power to release them from their curse, and finallysacrifices himself when he battles Dr. Facilier who crushes Ray under his shoe.

Although Ray’s actions are noble, his quick wit links him to a character from theAfrican American, specifically slave, past. Whether intentional or not, the result is thesame: Ray’s language and his ability to outwit the enemy make him the minority repre-sentative. His role shifts the color line because it precludes only Ray, and not theAfrican-American Tiana, from being part of the norm, indicating to the audience thatTiana is similar to them regardless of race while replacing racial and ethnic implicationsonto the Cajun character.

These inferior implications have further consequences. As the twentieth century pro-gressed, Cajuns were forced more and more to speak English, thus leading to the mix ofthe two languages. Ray’s use of “for sure” and “che,” a common abbreviation of cherieamong Cajuns, alludes to this Cajun linguistic history. Cajun Vernacular English, orCVE,6 arose from the intersection of Cajun French and English and includes such charac-teristics as a lack of the “th” sound, making it a “t” or “d” instead. This dialectical clueis demonstrated when Ray points to the star in the sky and says, “Dere she is” (ThePrincess and the Frog).


While Cajuns retain distinct accents, these accents signify the French history of thepeople, serving as markers for cultural pride and the celebration of difference instead ofsigns of inferiority. The Council for the Development of French in Louisiana (CODO-FIL), created in 1968, combats the loss of French usage in the state, a direct result ofdiscrimination and Americanization. The philosophy of the council, as stated on itsWeb site, reads, “We treasure our past to enrich our future by affirming our Francho-phone identity through education (Goal I), community outreach (Goal II) and interna-tional exchanges (Goal III)” (“What is CODOFIL”). Originally, CODOFIL supportedinstruction in standard French in Louisiana schools, a decision opposed because of itsinsult to Cajun French. Theoretically, Cajun French was a spoken, not written, language.The publication of Rev. Jules O. Daigle’s A Dictionary of the Cajun Language and CajunSelf-Taught, along with the Cajun French writing of Zachary Richard, Jean Arceneaux (apseudonym for Barry Jean Ancelet), and Antoine Bourque (a pseudonym for Carl A.Brasseaux) proved otherwise (Bernard, The Cajuns 128, 131). Today, the official state-ment of the council includes the mission “to explore, understand and support Cajun,Creole and Francophone heritage in Louisiana” (“What is CODOFIL”), indicating theextension of the council’s mission to include the three main varieties of French spokenin the state.

During the 1920s, Cajuns faced forced Americanization, perhaps best represented bythe English-only laws, which made it difficult for the French-speaking communities ofLouisiana to treasure their past by “affirming. . . Francophone identity.” In The PeopleCalled Cajuns: An Introduction to an Ethnohistory, James H. Dormon studies the educationsystem’s role in Americanization since the state constitution of 1921 made it illegal forpublic schools to offer “instruction in French as well as English” and required studentsto speak English on school grounds (70). Speaking French became illegal not only onpublic school grounds but also “in all public, legal and commercial transactions” (70).With children learning that speaking Cajun French was “bad” and their parents forcedto speak English outside the home (71), the inevitable occurred: a loss of the languageamong the people, necessitating the future formation of such organizations as CODO-FIL.

Not only does Naveen speak directly to the different, thus funny, sound of Ray’saccent but he also demonstrates the point through his own accent, also influenced by hisnative French language. In contrast to Ray’s thick, folksy speech, Naveen’s is more pol-ished, standard French-influenced English that Allison Samuels describes as “dreamy” inher review of the film (56). This sharp contrast and Naveen’s comment indicate linguis-tic superiority. Since the majority of the film’s audience probably agrees with Samuels’sassessment of the Prince’s accent, Ray’s speech creates a clear divider between the normand the firefly’s Cajun identity.

While Ray constantly encourages Tiana and Naveen to believe in love, even Tianaassumes his ignorance because he claims the brightest star in the sky is Evangeline, afirefly who has passed away. By doing so, Tiana echoes Naveen’s earlier comment, con-firming Ray’s difference and subsequent inferiority for the audience. Although his Cajunwisdom shines through in the end, it does so only after the two main characters haveestablished the popular misconceptions of Cajuns that mirror the actual false assump-tions that have targeted this ethnic group in the past. Moreover, Ray must die for Tianaand Naveen to realize they are not as different from each other as they think. When he


becomes another bright star in the sky, he removes the last vestige of difference by shed-ding light on the lovers’ sameness. His death opens the way for their happily ever after,finally destroying all barriers, including the racial divide.

Before this reunion with Evangeline occurs, Ray introduces the audience to otherCajun cultural markers. English-only laws affected more than the linguistic practices ofthe Cajun communities. They even altered musical traditions and the performance ofsuch. The Princess and the Frog refers directly to Louisiana jazz and zydeco and hints atCajun music with the lilting waltz rhythm of “Ma Belle Evangeline.” Unfortunately, thefilm assumes Cajun and zydeco traditions are the same, allowing for one to speak to thecultural history of the other. As in the example of Br’er Rabbit, The Princess and the Frogmakes Cajun and African-American traditions seemingly interchangeable.

When Naveen and Tiana ask for directions to Mama Odie, Ray calls upon hisextended family of aunts, uncles and numerous cousins, one of which is named Boudreau(a popular Cajun surname), to help him light the way through the swamp. As heexplains, “me and my relationals will help show y’all the way” (The Princess and the Frog).They do just that while singing “Gonna Take You There,” a zydeco song according toRay. Soon Naveen and Tiana are surrounded by dancing fireflies brightening the night’ssky. While entertaining, this scene and its addition to the film’s soundtrack are prob-lematic, collapsing the division between zydeco and Cajun music. Although both areFrench-based, include fiddles as a main instrument, and have interconnected histories,they represent the stories of different ethnic groups living in close proximity.

Like much of Cajun culture, Cajun music is more or less a gumbo: French folk songsmixed with black Creole rhythms and the sound of the Austrian-invented diatonic accor-dion, among other ingredients (Ancelet, Edwards, and Pitre 149).7 In fact, the use of thediatonic accordion is one way in which Cajun and zydeco diverge since zydeco musiciansusually favor the piano accordion. When jazz filled the streets of New Orleans, suchCajun musicians as Joseph and Cl�eoma Falcon recorded and released “Lafayette” in 1928(150). The first recording of “Jolie Blonde,” called “Ma blonde est partie,” was releasedin the same year. (150). The waltz rhythm and high-pitched singing represented in thisrecording of “Jolie Blonde” is what makes Cajun music “smoother and more lilting thanzydeco,” which relies more heavily on percussion and syncopation (Ancelet, Introductionxi).

The point is not that the two music genres are completely separate, but that Disneyerases cultural distinctions by collapsing them and ignoring vital ethnic performancesamong either Cajuns or black Creoles, the Louisiana ethnic group composed of people ofAfrican and European descent who spoke French. Maintaining the separate, if inter-twined, histories of the ethnic groups that produced both musical forms remains signifi-cant since each is “the pride and joy of its cultural parents,” according to Barry JeanAncelet (Introduction xi). Charles J. Stivale, in his study of Cajun identity and authen-ticity, discusses the influence of zydeco on Cajun music, but also explores the purposefor maintaining the division between the two. With the revival of Cajun music in the1950s and 1960s following the forced process of Americanization, Cajun culture experi-enced a renaissance based on the notion of “self-representation of Cajun identity throughits very construction ‘in our own terms’” (26). Around the same time, Clifton Chenierpushed what has now become well-known as zydeco into new avenues with a morerhythm and blues sound, dividing it further from Cajun music (89).


Cajun music continued to change throughout the twentieth century, influenced bypopular American sounds of Hank Williams and pop music (Ancelet, Edwards, and Pi-tre 159). By the 1960s and the folklore revival movement in the United States, Cajunmusicians such as Dewey Balfa encouraged a return to tradition (161). To assume thatthe music Cajuns play is zydeco is to deny them their own musical history and to disre-gard Balfa’s message that traditional Cajun music is valid in its own right. It also effec-tively misguides the audience about notions of Cajun cultural performance and history.

This simplification of Louisiana’s musical history again replaces a more complexunderstanding of Cajuns and their story of survival with an American assumption, revis-ing Cajun history from the outside perspective. Furthermore, the erasure of differencebetween the Cajun and black Creole traditions basically makes Ray representative ofboth cultures, both non-mainstream American others, as well. When he claims zydeco aspart of his family’s traditions, with one uncle strumming his own belly like a washboardwhile Ray squeezes a bug as if it is an accordion, he claims a black Creole history.

Whether Disney intended to ignore the ethnic implications of Louisiana musical tra-ditions or chose to replace Cajun music with zydeco rhythms to produce a more diversesoundtrack, this decision reminds us of past insecurities stemming from similar popularassumptions. If Dewey Balfa “half expected to be laughed off the stage” since “Even inLouisiana, Cajun music was considered ‘nothing but chanky-chank’” in the 1960s (Anc-elet, Edwards, and Pitre 161), then what does it say for Cajun music that it has to bereplaced by zydeco, at least in Disney’s estimation, forty years later? While Disney isnot necessarily claiming that Cajun music is still “chanky-chank” or inferior, it seems toclaim that zydeco is more appealing to a national audience or that it represents the Loui-siana folk music tradition in general. Regardless of its intention, this cultural alterationallows the mainstream American audience to recognize Tiana as naturally included in itsfold by making Ray and his family the bearers of cultural difference. Thus, the story ofDisney’s first African-American princess does not erase race as much as it replaces theimplications of being different onto Ray, the Cajun other.

The process by which Cajuns were either forced or chose to become more Americanand identify themselves as such includes significant moments of erasure and change.Cajun historian Shane K. Bernard claims that it “ranks as one of the most importantevents in the entire Cajun experience, along with the expulsion of their ancestors fromNova Scotia, and south Louisiana’s devastation during the Civil War” (Epilogue 127).To replace this history with a more American, thus popular, version of the cultural pastis to ignore the core of the Cajun survival story. In its attempt to erase race, The Princessand the Frog ignores this past and distorts this story.

Some may wonder if it matters that Disney replaces Acadian dispersal lore with ageneric love story and makes the common mistake of assuming Cajun and zydeco musicare one in the same. After all, Ray is a firefly; the trumpet-playing reminder of NewOrleans Jazz heritage is an alligator; and The Princess and the Frog has a powerful messagefor all children, regardless of race and ethnicity. While true that Disney’s success extendsfrom its childlike vision of the world, complete with talking animals and good shiningits light to ward off evil, this simplicity comes at a cost to those groups whose historyand culture are exploited for the sake of entertainment. Audiences may want to remem-ber that the story of Americanization and its consequences still reverberate among theCajun people, even if Disney forgets. Some critics argue Tiana is not progressive enough,


while others celebrate Disney’s diversity. In the end, they should consider Ray in lightof Mama Odie’s advice and dig deeper by questioning how much has really changed(The Princess and the Frog).

Notes

1. While the Acadian descendants living in South Louisiana today can be considered Cajuns, some Cajuns are

not Acadian descendants but those who have lived in close proximity to Cajuns or who have married into

the ethnic group and thus become Cajun. Refer to Shane K. Bernard’s The Cajuns: Americanization of a Peo-ple, for more on the process of Americanization and its consequences.

2. For more on swamp imagery, see Anthony Wilson’s Shadow and Shelter: The Swamp in Southern Culture.

3. For more on this statute and on other laws that attempted to control miscegenation in Louisiana, refer to

chapter 3, “The Properties of Blood,” in Virginia Dom�ınguez’s White By Definition.4. In October 2009, the same year The Princess and the Frog was released in theaters, Keith Bardwell, a Justice

of the Peace in Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana, refused to grant an interracial couple a marriage license

(“Interracial Couple”). This decision, while illegal, reminds us of the racist past even as Disney ignores this

past to create the perfect ingredients for a happily ever-after ending.

5. The Treaty of Utrecht (1713) marked the transfer of Acadia from France to Great Britain that greatly

affected the Acadian people, but it was not until 1728 that the colonists agreed to an oath and only under

the condition that they could remain neutral in future conflicts between the two empires.

6. For more information on CVE, refer to Cajun Vernacular English: Informal English in French Louisiana, a col-

lection of essays edited by Ann Martin Scott.

7. In Cajun Music: Its Origins and Development, Barry Jean Ancelet argues that such influences and changes are

part of Cajun musical expression: “Today the blending and fusion at the heart of the development of Cajun

culture continue to be essential to its music” (51).

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Segura, Chris. Editor’s Notes. Acadian Redemption: From Beausoleil Broussard to theQueen’s Royal Proclamation. By Warren A. Perrin. 2004. Opelousas, LA: An-drepont, 2005. vii–x. Print.

Stivale, Charles. Disenchanting Les Bons Temps: Identity and Authenticity in CajunMusic and Dance. Durham: Duke UP, 2003. Print.

“What is CODOFIL.” CODOFIL.org. Council for the Development of French inLouisiana, n.d. Web. 18 Jan. 2012.

Wilson, Anthony. Shadow and Shelter: The Swamp in Southern Culture. Jackson:UP of Mississippi, 2006. Print.

A Louisiana native, Maria Hebert-Leiter currently teaches at Lycoming College in Wil-liamsport, PA. Her work includes Becoming Cajun, Becoming American: The Acadian inAmerican Literature from Longfellow to James Lee Burke (LSU, 2009). She has written addi-tional articles on Louisiana literature and culture that have been published in MississippiQuarterly and MELUS.


disney's cajun firefly: shedding light on disney and americanization

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