Is Tiana's hair curly? Help us decide.
Does Tiana really have curly hair, or is it straightened with just a couple ringlets peeking out?
A writer for Time magazine says that Tiana, protaganist of the new Disney film “The Princess and the Frog,” is the first Disney princess with curly hair.
While we laud Disney for including its first African-American princess, we really wonder if she has curly hair. It looks straightened to us. We see a couple beautiful little coils peeping out, but is that “curly hair,” especially given the princess’s lineage? Wouldn’t it be nice if she was sporting her presumably natural, tight coils? Now, that would be some curly hair, and that would send such a wonderful message to little curly kids everywhere!
Several Disney princesses have waves, though we’ve yet to see a full-on curly.
Other Disney princesses have sported waves, but this is definitely the curliest Disney has taken it. But is it far enough?
This is a great step in the right direction, and maybe we should just take it as that. We’d love to hear your thoughts. Please complete our poll and add your comments below. We can’t wait to hear what you think!
This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 15th, 2009 at 8:33 am and is filed under Celebrity. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment.

December 15th, 2009 at 9:32 am
In the image above her hair doesn’t look very curly. But in some of the other images I’ve seen, her hair looks very curly. I don’t know if that’s how she’s actually shown in the movie though.
December 15th, 2009 at 11:52 am
Good point, wild~hair. Would love to know how her hair is throughout the movie. Anyone seen it?
December 15th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
I think that, like the article said, it would send a better message about curly hair if she had actual curls. Looks to me like she’s a 2b here. Would 3c really be that unprincess-like???
It’s not that people with African heritage can’t have 2b hair, it’s just that it does not represent the majority.
I’m glad Disney finally has a black princess, though. I can’t believe it took until 2009!!!!!
December 16th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
I don’t think it’s a question of whether or not she has curly hair. Note the NC mom replicating the bun on her daughter’s curly hair (http://beadsbraidsbeyond.blogspot.com/2009/12/princess-tiana-bun-tutorial.html).
It’s more of an issue that the majority of Disney princesses wear their hear out instead of up. So perhaps it’s a curls need to be hidden/contained issue? I haven’t seen the movie, so I don’t know if her hair ever comes out of the bun.
December 17th, 2009 at 12:26 am
umm… it’s an animated movie, and the hair has to be drawn. curly hair is hard to draw, and the fact is that thousands of images have to be drawn in order to make an animated movie. And if you think the hair is unrealistic, take into account that the movie is about talking frogs.
December 17th, 2009 at 7:02 am
I can’t tell by this picture, but I’ve heard that the biggest complaint about this film is that the princess spends most of the time as a frog. She’s only a human princess for about 10 minutes in the film.
December 20th, 2009 at 9:38 am
For most of the movie, Tiana is a frog. I wouldn’t say her hair is curly, but it’s definitely curlier than the other princesses.
December 21st, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Maybe the poll should have asked… What kind of kair does Tiana have?
Curly?
Wavy?
Straight?
None?
Being a frog most of the time, the answer should be None!
December 22nd, 2009 at 1:53 am
I liked the movie. It definitely put blacks in a positive perspective and that’s all I concerned about.
December 27th, 2009 at 7:54 am
Idk, if she does or not…because if you look at her bun in the picture above, she has like a swirl type of thing. if you sure “princess tiana” in google, there is a picture of a doll of her when she is little, and the doll has afro puffs. Maybe she does have curly hair.
December 28th, 2009 at 10:11 pm
as a former art major i have to say, curly hair is hard to draw! especially if you’re trying to do an animation. think about all the cartoons you’ve seen that featured brown skinned characters (ex: the boondocks) the only way you knew the kids had curly hair is because they were usually drawn with a ‘fro. but even then, it didnt really look curly, and you probably wouldnt have thought so if it wasn’t for it standing on top of their heads. tiana’s hair looks curly to me, i think the animaters did the best they could in making it curly, although it’s pulled back into a bun.
December 30th, 2009 at 3:48 am
Who cares if her hair is curly or straight. This is why it took Disney so long because there are so many divisions within the African American (AA) community on hair and skin tone. Can’t we just accept that every AA woman does not have curly hair. Instead of focusing on her external appearance let’s focus on the fact she is the first businesswoman/entrepreneur Disney princess. We are missing the most important message to pass on to our girls about working for yourself and not for someone else. I own several business (full time entrepreneur) and I am glad that Disney is reinforcing this strong message to our young girls. Hey, if you don’t like Tiana’s hair, start your own AA line of dolls. Be the solution not the problem.
January 2nd, 2010 at 8:05 pm
Well if Tiana is African decent then her ‘real’ hair is curly no matter how it may look on screen
If I use heat on my hair it gets straight but it grows out of my scalp curly.
January 9th, 2010 at 8:22 am
Drawing curly hair is really hard to do I don’t think I’ve seen a lot of characters period with curly hair because of it’s difficulty to draw but you think with all the experience Disney’s had with animation they could have come up with some sort of technique, that is if they really cared. This really shouldn’t be a debate there’s already enough complaints about the movie however I do agree we really need to have more curly hair models for kids.
November 23rd, 2010 at 6:41 am
*high five* to Trinigirl. T’was EXACTLY what I was thinking.
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