Five Years Without Ink

Disney hadn’t made a hand-drawn animated film in five years. I grew up on them—Aladdin, The Lion King, that whole run of early-nineties releases where every opening weekend felt like a genuine event. Then the CGI wave hit and the old craft quietly disappeared. Nobody officially mourned it. You just noticed one day that the ink was gone.

The Princess and the Frog was the return. First traditionally animated Disney feature in half a decade, and notably the first with a Black princess in the lead—Tiana, set in New Orleans, all bayous and jazz and fireflies. That a studio making fairy tales since the 1930s took until 2008 to center a Black character says something about the industry, but I’ll take the late arrival over no arrival at all.

I was ready to see ink on screen again.