Disney Prince Review: Naveen, Princess and the Frog

"Ashidanza"

Princess and the Frog is in a lot of ways a love letter to the Disney hand drawn animation era and everything people loved about it. It draws heavily on some of the best and most memorable moments and characters such as Louis feeling like a spiritual successor to Baloo or Lawrence looking like a tribute to Mr. Smee. The movie does go the extra mile with it's characters who not only are call backs to other characters but also builds on them in a much bigger way and it is clear that everyone put a lot of heart into it. There aren't many characters who are just types and I think this is best shown with the characters of Naveen, Tiana, Shadowman, and Charlotte, they have layers to who they are and what they do and Naveen may be the best one here after Tiana.

"Life is short when your done your done, were on this Earth to have some fun, and that's way things are."

Naveen starts off as a rather spoiled character. His parents have cut him off financially so he must either get married to someone with money or get a job and support himself. Naveen is someone who I think we've been waiting for in the Disney Prince lineup: an actual spoiled prince. Naveen shows that he expects a certain level of comfort but is also rather easygoing. I think it is a bit easy to expect him to be spoiled in a way that makes him a bad person all around, he's just rather flaky and irresponsible but he doesn't get upset when people either don't like him or don't respond to him, as shown when he and Tiana first met and she brushed him off and he just goes about his day. He comes off as someone more unaware of how hard people work in their own lives, best shown in his interactions with Lawrence who is clearly stressed out and fed up but Naveen doesn't seem to notice or rather he thinks all Lawrence needs to do is relax. There is a bubble around Naveen that makes him think that everything can and will work out on their own, and I'd wager the only reason it does for him is because of people like Lawrence cleaning up his messes and everyone wanting to help him. Like a lot of princes in Disney he does get along well with people and I won't to point out that of all the actual princes we see, I don't we've seen anyone who just radiates this much energy. He believes that life it too short to just work and not have fun. He's very Baloo in his lifestyle.

"It was a charmed life until my parents cut me off and suddenly I realized, I don't know how to do anything."

After he is turned and gets Tiana herself turned into a frog we do see a bit more of Naveen as a character. We see him refuse to accept responsibility for what he has done, talking of how charismatic the Shadow Man is and deflects to other things. He again doesn't expect to do much other than playing a ukulele to pass the time as other people work but we do see that he has an understanding of most people. This is shown as he manipulates Louis to take them the Mama Odie and again as he saves Tiana from frog catchers. The big moment for Naveen comes when Tiana makes him mince the mushroom and we see him unable to and he confesses that he feels he doesn't know how to do anything in terms of taking care of himself. He also mentions how his mother's servants would read him stories at night, a parallel to Tiana's mother who read her stories. which implies that his parents didn't have much time for him. Despite his claims of not knowing how to do anything, he knows a lot of other things, like how to speak different languages, can dance, play instruments, and knows how to talk to people. When he talks to Mama Odie, she reminds him that money didn't really make him happy and it won't if he marries Charlotte. It is in that moment that he realizes that what he needs is Tiana.

"You have had quite an influence on me."

The focal point of the movie is the relationship between Tiana and Naveen. Where Tiana realizes that her father wanted her to do more than just get the restaurant they wanted and get more out of life, Naveen's is about caring about something more than himself and in a lot of ways growing up. Tiana does something that it doesn't seem anyone else has done for Navee: teach him something and listen to him and he does the same for her. This is ultimately what makes the two of them work as they confide in each other secrets about themselves with Tiana not knowing how to dance and Naveen not knowing how to cook. Naveen honestly becomes more entranced with her as the movie goes on, noting how different she is from other girls and admiring her for how hard she works and how honest she is with him. I think for Naveen, Tiana's honesty, the fact fact that she demands better of him in the film and helps him helps. I think it comes down to the sincerity from Tiana, she doesn't coddle him, tell him what he wants to hear but what he NEEDS to hear which goes back to what Mama Odie says. Naveen goes so far as to agree to marry Charlotte if it means she can get her restaurant despite him actually being in love with her and even without it says that he is willing to work multiple jobs for her dream. Where he came into this film wanting to marry for money so he could pretend he was happy, he now marries someone so someone else can be happy. He, like Tiana has resolved to trade away the material for the immaterial.

Honestly, Naveen and the movie are what I think is a love letter to what we loved about the Disney Renaissance in it's characters where the animation and music are a letter to all of Disney's animation up to this point. Naveen echoes Eric and Phillip while at the same time channeling the likes of Gaston, Aladdin, even Beast and Simba of all things. He is someone who doesn't wear his issues on his sleeve and you feel that his growth is necessary to not just his own well being but the protagonist. I think he takes up a bit too much of the growth but it may also be because there may not have been a way to discuss Tiana's issues without overplaying it. If we are honest with ourselves, the Disney Prince as an idea, really died out in 92 with Aladdin and the lineup itself died, Princess and the Frog and Naveen feel like the first step in revamping it in both name and style at least as an archetype.

With a new perspective comes growth

There were a lot characters I felt could have been counterparts to Naveen: Archer, Gaston, Edvard from The Prince and Me, or even Prince Wu from Legend of Korra (should I talk about that series at some point?) but I think Kuzco is the better choice. Kuzco is a lot like Naveen and not just because the two of them were turned into animals but rather what happens as a result. Kuzco is very much someone who is in love with himself and doesn't really care about anything other than that. Like Naveen, Kuzco has no one to really tell him anything he needs to hear about his behavior and when they do it helps them grow as people, with Naveen it is Tiana and Mama Odie where Kuzco has Pacha and even Yzma. Even more so is the idea that the two of them love to party but are smarter than people give them credit for. Kuzco does seem to be more serious about being an actual emperor as he took issue with Yzma doing it and the same could argued about Naveen. At the core though I think Naveen is the side of Kuzco that should have either been in the Emperor's New Groove or the sequel as opposed to Kronk getting a girl which to this day still confuses me of course the nightmare that was Kuzco's Academy..

Next time, we'll be meeting a man whose greatest enemies are his past, his cynicism, a horse, and a frying pan.