Tiana

**Tiana** is the protagonist of Disney's 2009 animated feature film, *The Princess and the Frog*. She is a gifted cook living in New Orleans during the Jazz Age, with dreams of opening a restaurant of her own. In a desperate attempt to achieve her goal, Tiana shares a kiss with a prince that had been magically transformed into a frog by a voodoo witch doctor. In doing so, however, Tiana also falls victim to the curse, setting off an adventure in the bayou to find a cure.

Tiana is loosely based on the unnamed princess from the Brothers Grimm fairy tale *The Frog Prince*. She is the ninth official Disney Princess and the most recent to originate from a traditionally-animated film.

## Background

### Official Description

*Tiana dreams of opening her own restaurant. She works hard to try to make that dream come true. In a twist of fate, she kisses a frog and goes on an adventure through the New Orleans bayou.*
### Development

Tiana made history as the first African-American princess in the *Disney Princess* franchise. Early in development, Tiana was originally called Maddy and worked as a chambermaid in the La Bouff household. However, public criticism eventually caused her character's name to be changed to Tiana and her job, a waitress. Disney spokeswoman Heidi Trotta later stated, "Princess Tiana will be a heroine in the great tradition of Disney's rich animated fairy tale legacy, and all other characters and aspects of the story will be treated with the greatest respect and sensitivity." This reworking of the story itself was greatly inspired by the life story of New Orleans chef Leah Chase, and she, in turn, would contribute to the "Tiana's Cookbook" that was published when the film came out.

Mark Henn served as the supervising animator for Tiana. Henn was hired by John Lasseter because he had animated nearly every Disney Princess since *The Little Mermaid*'s Ariel. Describing Tiana, Henn said that she is following "a new trend in our princesses," likening her to Ariel from *The Little Mermaid*. "When animating Tiana, Henn was inspired by voice actress Anika Noni Rose, borrowing from her dimples and left-handedness. Henn was also inspired by studio employee Jaimie Milner, a film intern who was working in post-production." The fact that Tiana is African American was "never a big issue" for Henn when it came to animating her, but drawing her as both a human and a frog proved difficult." Tiana appears in the movie in different forms - she's a little girl, she's an adult human, and then she's a frog."

### Voice

Ron Clements and John Musker, who once worked as animators on *The Fox and the Hound*, and known for their works like *The Great Mouse Detective*, *The Little Mermaid*, *Aladdin*, and *Hercules*, decided not to hire "big stars" to voice the film's main characters because "it can help with the identification of that animated character with the voice if you don't get an instant mental picture of the real actor." Several well-known African American actresses and singers had expressed an interest in voicing Tiana, among them, recording artists Beyoncé Knowles, Jennifer Hudson, and Alicia Keys, as well as actress and fashion model Tyra Banks. After enduring three auditions, the role ultimately went to American actress and singer Anika Noni Rose, with whom Hudson and Knowles co-starred in the musical film *Dreamgirls*.

A long-time fan of Walt Disney Animation Studios, Rose had always wanted to voice a Disney animated character. When the film was brought to her attention, she was drawn to it more by its "story of the young woman" than by the fact that she would be voicing Disney's first African American princess. Rose told *The Root* that the film "wasn't really pitched to me that way... I don't think the cultural significance hit me until later". Rose was also fairly confident in the role. "To be perfectly honest, I thought it was for me from the moment I got the audition."

Rose described the recording process as "very solitary work" that required her to do much research. To prepare herself for the role, Rose "called people in New Orleans...listened to their voices to hear what they sounded like...did a lot of reading up on the city, and listened to a lot of music in the jazz era." Rose only met with her co-star Bruno Campos twice to record a few scenes together. At her first session, Rose recorded all her dialogue "from top to bottom" in a session that lasted eight hours.

### Personality

“*She's a strong woman who doesn't need anyone to do things for her. She wants to do things for herself.*”
―Anika Noni Rose
Tiana is an intelligent, resourceful, and highly talented young woman. However, at the start of the film, and mostly throughout, she can be overly uptight and far too absorbed in work ethics to focus on relaxing, family, and friends. Though she notices this and appears to have some regret over her busy schedule, her obsession with bringing her dream of opening her own restaurant into fruition overshadows it all. She also, for the most part, has appeared to accept that over the years, as seen when she and Eudora visited the old sugar mill in the preparation of its purchase.

With a strong sense of honor and integrity, Tiana firmly believes nothing deserves to be obtained in the world unless it's done through hard work, a view she's brought up when dealing with her excessively dreamy and immature best friend, Charlotte La Bouff, as well as the party-loving Naveen. This fact also makes her somewhat inflexible, as she could have asked Big Daddy La Bouff for seed money for her restaurant instead of working extremely hard to slowly gain the capital necessary.

Aside from her workaholic nature, Tiana has another side to her; one that's passionate, imaginative, and ambitious. She enjoys humor, music, quality time with loved ones, and dancing (though not at first). She becomes excitable whenever mentioning her restaurant, lighting up when she does, as Naveen puts it, and although she initially had very little knowledge over romance, she values it highly once she starts to fall for Naveen, to the point where her restaurant was no longer the most important part of her life.

Tiana is also heroic and is shown to be quite capable of dangerous situations and moments of physical conflict. Throughout the course of the film, she continuously rescued Naveen from life-threatening situations, fending off predators within the bayou, and even Dr. Facilier and his hoard of sinister shadow demons. Her heroism is ultimately put into the forefront during the film's climax, where the city of New Orleans is hurdled into a high state of peril, with the only hopes of its survival being Tiana's own will-power and the aforementioned sense of honor.

She's also incredibly strong-willed and doesn't take lightly to being undermined or insulted by anyone. Despite her poor background, she sees something far greater in herself and jumps at every opportunity available to prove so, whether it be to the sleazy Fenner Brothers or the originally arrogant Prince Naveen, who initially looked down upon the woman because of her occupation as a waitress and uptight attitude, only to be proven there's far more to her than meets the eye.

Despite refusing his offer, Tiana is absolutely horrified watching Facilier get dragged to the voodoo world, even putting her hand over her heart in sympathy when spotting his gravestone.

### Physical appearance

Tiana is a 19-year-old African-American woman. She is tall and slender with a sculpted figure. She has brown skin, medium-length, wavy, black hair usually tied in a low ponytail, light brown eyes with pink eye shadow, a bright smile, and dimples. For most of the movie, Tiana is transformed into a frog. Compared to Naveen, she's a lighter green, skinnier, a diamond-shaped pattern on her back, and the only physical human features she retains are her voice and brown eyes (with eyeliner).

Throughout the movie, Tiana undergoes various outfit changes. The first of which is her work outfits. When working her shifts at Cal's Diner, Tiana wears a blue outfit, and brown shoes, as well as a headband style maid's hat. When working her shifts at Duke's Café, Tiana wears a yellow dress over a white shirt, a white apron, and brown shoes. She also owns a dark green coat with a matching hat, which she wears on her way to the Café. With this outfit, Tiana wears her hair in a low ponytail wrapped up in a green band.

Originally, at Charlotte's masquerade ball, Tiana wore a Renaissance costume with honey yellow and a light green/brown as its primary colors. Later that same night after her Renaissance costume was ruined when she accidentally crashed into her food table, she dons her iconic blue princess gown loaned to her by Charlotte. The dress also came with a matching tiara as well as a necklace complete with a blue diamond and light blue opera gloves. During her confrontation with Dr. Facilier, Tiana was put in a white sleeveless gown with sparkling golden shoulder straps, diamond earrings, a golden necklace, and a white feather resembling the classic 1920s swinger outfits. Along with this came a beige fur shawl.

for the council meeting tiana is seen wearing the blue princess gown loaned to her by Charlotte. The dress also came with a matching tiara as well as a necklace complete with a blue diamond and light blue opera gloves. During her confrontation with Dr. Facilier, Tiana was put in a white sleeveless gown with sparkling golden shoulder straps, diamond earrings, a golden necklace, and a white feather resembling the classic 1920s swinger outfits. Along with this came a beige fur shawl.