My excitement came quickly. As I scrolled through Twitter, many popular accounts posted photos of the new Latina Disney princess, Elena. Finally, I thought as I looked at the illustrations of the new character. There's finally going to be a princess that is like me.
That elation was short-lived. With a mere google search of "Elena of Avalor" I found that I would not be taking a trip to my local cinema to see Elena in action. I wouldn't be seeing her at all, unless I had spare time to tune into Disney Junior, a station with a target audience of preschoolers.
At first, I was content with any Latino representation, but the more I thought about it, the more upset I became. Disney, which seems to strive for diverse, groundbreaking characters had decided to put effort into Frozen 2 instead of creating a new story that latino kids (and adults) could relate to.
As casting came out, my bitterness about the lack of effort put into the Latina princess diminished slightly. I was happy to see Aimee Carrero, from Freeform's "Young and Hungry," would be voicing the star, as well as more familiar names such as Tyler Posey from MTV's "Teen Wolf" and Jenny Ortega from The CW's "Jane the Virgin." I decided to look into the show once more, just to see what had come of it.
I was pleasantly surprised to see the how much effort the creators seemed to be putting into making "Elena of Avalor." They had not only hired consultants to help with the involvement of Latino culture into the show, but they had also published an entire info graph on how the diverse cultures from many countries had influenced many objects in the show. I was grateful that they were taking the time to create the show in a way that was considerate of the cultures it is based on. As it turns out, the more I looked into the show, the less bitter I felt.
I still couldn't shake my feeling that because "Elena of Avalor" wasn't a movie that it couldn't be good. I couldn't shake it, that is, until I thought about all the little girls who would see Elena to be like them. When I was younger, I didn't have a princess like Elena that I could relate to. As I thought about Elena I thought of the little girls who would be able to go to the store and see dolls of her and feel joy because she's like them. As I thought of this, I finally came to terms with how I felt about the show.
Sure, I would have loved to see Princess Elena saving her kingdom on a movie screen, but, for the time being, I will have to be content with how Disney's first Latina princess is coming about. And, hey, I might just find myself tuning into the premier of "Elena of Avalor" on July 22nd.
