Black Disney Princess used to sell Watermelon candy

Posted: 03.06.2012 at 5:29 PM

/ Courtesy: Socioligical Images

The licensing of Disney characters and merchandise brings in big bucks...so you'll find Mickey's cartoon cousins on just about everything from bed sheets, to lunch boxes and candy.

In most cases, that license is very specific and planned out to carefully protect the "brand". But one recent use may have slipped through the cracks.

Disney Princess "Dig 'n Dips" clearly shows their first black princess character, Princess Tiana from 2009's The Princess and the Frog, on the cover of the watermelon flavored version of the candy.

On the opposite side of the same package...Princess Aurora (Sleeping Beauty) hocks the vanilla flavored version.

It could, however, be pure coincidence...as Disney's "Fairies Dig-n-Dips Candy Packs" a Caucasian fairy sells the watermelon candy while the one black fairy sells the exotic "Tropical Fruit" flavor.

Sociological Images, who first broke the story, wrote, "In light of [the] history, as well as the ongoing racism, the product below — a Valentine’s Day candy that pairs two Disney princesses — is rather, let’s say, insensitive. The White Cinderella character decorates the vanilla flavored side; the Black Tiana character decorates the watermelon flavored side. Just… wow."

Clutch magazine has called this packaging "sloppy," saying, "As usual, it’s hard to believe that anyone would intentionally make this kind of insensitive mistake, but pairing the white girl with vanilla and the black girl with watermelon should have set off an alarm in someone’s mind."

What do you think of the choice of Princesses? Is it racist? Inadvertent? Or just plain sloppy?