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‘Soul,’ Pixar’s First Film With A Black Lead, Has Some Fans Concerned

“Is this going to be a ‘Princess and the Frog’ situation?”

It’s been 11 years since a major Disney animated film has had a Black lead, and fans are both excited and concerned for the release.

Soul, which stars Jamie Foxx as a middle school music teacher whose soul is separated from his body following an accident, is helmed by Pixar mainstay Pete Docter (Inside Out, Up) and is slated for release later this year. But while fans are eagerly anticipating the film, a look at the trailer has some concerned:

Some are pointing out that Soul falls in the same trap as other major Disney animated films featuring leads of color: namely, that the leads are often morphed into animals or other creatures early in the film, thereby taking away their real-world identity. It happened in The Princess and the Frog, when Tiana (voiced by Anika Noni Rose) spent much of the film as a frog, and even in a Coco, when its Mexican lead Miguel was a skeleton in the afterlife for most of the film.

Do you agree that Pixar’s latest has problematic elements?

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