The Walt Disney Company is defending its newest princess following a backlash over her Hispanic-influenced ethnicity.
A new character named Sofía will star in the TV
movie "Sofía the First: Once Upon a Princess" airing Nov. 18 on the
Disney Channel and Disney Junior. Hispanic advocacy groups have
questioned whether the fair-skinned, blue-eyed young princess is an
accurate representation of the Hispanic population and wondered why
Disney isn't doing more to promote its first princess with
Hispanic-inspired roots.
"They seem to be backpedaling," said Lisa
Navarrete, spokeswoman for the National Council of La Raza. "They've
done such a good job in the past when they've introduced Native
American, African-American and Asian princesses. They made a big deal
out of it, and there was a lot of fanfare, but now they're sort of
scrambling. It's unusual because Disney has been very good about Latino diversity."
Craig Gerber, co-executive producer of "Sofía
the First," clarified in a Facebook post on Friday that Sofía is "a
mixed-heritage princess in a fairytale world." He said her mother and
birth father respectively hail from kingdoms inspired by Spain and
Scandinavia, though Sofía was born and raised in Enchancia, a
"make-believe 'melting pot' kingdom" patterned after the British Isles.
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