I think the maid thing is sliding by me because, it being a Disney fairy tale, I'm automatically assuming it'll be set in the past. (And it may also be significant that my two favorite Disney heroines-Mulan and Meg-weren't princesses.)
I misspoke about her being a princess (or a daughter in a wealthy family, like I'd thought), according to the wikipedia article, she isn't. Regardless, I think it would have been problematic for Disney's first and only black heroine to be a maid whether it was set in the past or not.
It's set in the 1920s. And even with historical settings, there were educated, professional, middle-to-upper class free blacks in the U.S. long before the end of the Civil War, and if Disney wanted to go for that accessible New Orleans setting, gens de couleur libre were a big part of Louisiana society. So there's quite a range of social classes and professions they could have used that would have been a lot less skeevy than the initial "chambermaid working for a white family" version.
They should do a movie about Marian Anderson! It's not entirely fair to say "talk about your fairy tales," because she worked so hard for her successes, and had a lot of love and support from her family and the black community--but wow, talk about your fairy tales. And the incredibly dramatic moments are already built into the story!
Glancing at their tv shows they have American Dragon: Jake Long, The Proud Family, Lilo and Stitch, and The Emperor's New School? Granted I don't watch those shows so I don't know if they're sketchy in their racial implications or not.
American Dragon, in what I've seen, makes some genuine-though not necessarily successful-attempts at treating the lead as a biracial kid who comes from two very different heritages, and has to make them work. One of his best friends is also a rather stereotypical (if quite cool) "sassy black BFF." I love a lot of love for Emperor's New School, but it really doesn't even try to not be a modern high school comedy/fantasy dropped in an ancient culture.
Lilo and Stitch has a mixed record. I'm a homesick kama'aina and first saw the original movie with a friend who's also from the islands, and we loved how much attention had gone into making the film look and sound right -- the physical setting, the variety of ethnic features, the accents and dialects used by the characters, it all really looked and felt like home. There were Hawaiian musicians on the soundtrack and even before the credits rolled, it was obvious that they'd had someone who knew their stuff helping them make sure the hula looked authentic. But some native Hawaiian activists have criticized the theme song, He Mele No Lilo, being a mashup of two traditional mele inoa for beloved monarchs Kalakaua and Liliuokalani, and one of the direct-to-video sequels came under fire for its misrepresentation of a legend from the Pele and Hi'iaka cycle
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Disney has yet to do a cartoon centered around a character of color that wasn't pretty sketchy in its racial implications.
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