‘Elena of Avalor’ puts a Latina princess in the spotlight.
‘Elena of Avalor’ ushers in the arrival of a strong, contemporary Latina princess who rules a diverse community
Met with high expectations, excitement and a dose of skepticism, Disney’s first Latina princess, Elena of Avalor, is delighting millions of viewers with strong, feminine leadership and a melting-pot kingdom.
“I love that Disney finally introduced a Latin princess,” says Yvonne Guidry, a Houston mother and author of the blog “Spoiled Latina.”
Disney reported that the premiere of the show “Elena of Avalor” ranked as 2016’s No. 1 series telecast among all kidtargeted TV networks.
“I am really pleased and relieved that it’s going so well,” says series’ creator Craig Gerber.
Gerber, who is also the show’s producer, was delighted that the corporation is “giving this Latina a royal welcome, like Cinderella, and showing that Disney sees Elena as a princess, with capital letters.”
The show is expanding roles for Latinos in TV: About 75 percent of the actors and key crew members are Hispanics. On last Friday’s episode, for instance, guest star Hector Elizondo played a wicked wizard named Fiero.
High expectations
Creating Elena, says Gerber, brought “a lot of pressure, a lot of expectations and no shortage of opinions on how a first Latina princess should be.”
Elena and her kingdom are a melting pot of Latin American and Spanish cultures. As with the Latino population in the U.S., the accent is on Mexico.
When the series was announced last year, some critics worried that Elena’s lack of specificity meant that she probably wouldn’t seem Latina at all.
Others, like Guidry, welcomed Elena with a combination of anticipation mixed with the feeling that a Latina princess was long overdue. “I felt as if I had been waiting for this moment all my life,” says Guidry.
Most of Disney’s dozen princesses are of Anglo-Saxon origin; but there are also Arabic, Asian, Native American and African-American princesses.
“Research shows that girls want to see positive characters like themselves,” says University of Houston professor Beth Olson, who specializes in media consumption. “If they don’t, they are left feeling invisible.”
Stacey McBride-Irby is a doll designer for Houston-based TonnerOne World, which produces the multicultural Prettie Girls! Dolls. For her, Elena brought back memories.
“I can still remember the excitement of my (African-American) community when Disney first introduced Princess Tiana,” she says. “My daughter was able to see, feel, experience a Disney princess that looked like her!”
A modern princess
Elena’s creators, Gerber says, aimed “to create a very positive role model, so that a kid who is watching the show sees this Latina woman who is in charge, ruling her kingdom.”
Instead of being an old-fashioned, fragile princess waiting for the prince who will give meaning to her life, Elena is driven to become a good queen for Avalor.
“I love her!” says Houston mother and IT firm manager Valerie Carmona.
In particular, Carmona loves the wide variety of Elena’s Latin music. The show mixes Latin American dance genres, such as salsa, vallenato, merengue and reggaeton, with rock, pop, and folk. That soundtrack is more than background music: Elena is the first Disney princess to play guitar.
Carmona also was impressed when Elena offered tamales as a special treat for King Toshi, a monarch from the Japan-inspired Kingdom of Satu.
Gerber is proud of an upcoming Day of the Dead episode: Elena will learn that she can see her ancestors’ spirits and will resolve a conflict in her kingdom through the power of two classic recipes from her abuela: a Spanish paella and a Mexican pozole.
She’ll also sing “The Festival of Love,” a joyful merengue song that explains the meaning of Día de los Muertos.
“You just hope that (the viewers) see the heart and the passion that goes into the show,” Gerber says. “Hopefully, that shines through.”
olivia.tallet@chron.com twitter.com/oliviaptallet