tiana

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rootbeergoddess:

As many of you know, I’m a long-suffering Tiana fan. When I say ‘suffering’ I mean to say that I suffer because Tiana has barely any merchandise. Finding anything with her on it is rare. Right now, the only stuff I can find is on the BoxLunch website. There’s a shirt, a figure and two bags you can buy. She also has two Funko Pops and a shirt on Tee-Turtle but that’s it.

This is the same issue I see with Finn. Finn has some merchandise that is aimed towards kids but if you’re an adult and want a Finn T-shirt, you are shit outta luck. Why? Like finding a shirt with just him on it seems impossible and whether people want to admit him, he’s one of the main leads. Kylo is not the male lead of Star Wars, Finn is. And people adore John Boyega. He gives people heart eyes so why not make merchandise with him on it?

And before people come in here to say, “Disney/LF will only make merchandise for popular characters” the Porgs have an abundance of merch and I haven’t met a single person who was clamoring for porg merchandise. You’re also talking about Disney that released two films this year that have reached the highest grossing movie list. There is no excuse to push aside two black characters and ignore them.

When I was at Disneyland Paris I kept a look out for Tiana, because she was high up on the list of characters I wanted to meet. The princesses who don’t show up anywhere else (Jasmine shows up in Agrabah, for example) you can meet at the Princess Pavilion, but I checked back there all the time and she was never there. It was all Snow White, Cinderella and Rapunzel. It’s so maddening how they downplay her.

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enveniya:

“You know how long it took me to save that money?”
“Exactly! Which is why a little woman of your background would have had her hands full, trying to run a big business like that.

No, you’re better off where you’re at.”

What Tiana has taught me, quite sadly (and probably what Disney didn’t really intend) was that hard work wasn’t good enough to overcome systemic racism. Tiana got a feel good ending, but I feel like her story has been told many times in real life without a happy ending. There are people who work extremely hard, but never being able to catch up due to the color of their skin.

So here is Tiana, muscles tense with labor, tired and contemplative, and struggling against the system that prevents her success.

This is probably the most symbolic of all the Disney paintings I’ve done so far – the verticality of the walls, the position of her shadow looming over the segregation signs, Tiana sitting right between the divide, and the nearly imperceptible lean of her body to the right.

Tiana is the ninth in my Disney Woman Series.

Buy a print here.