Telling Tiana that she needs to "dig a little deeper" and find love so that she could become a princess to break the spell herself is...ok. It merely alludes to the technicality loophole of the spell. Sure it's no improvement on the girl meets boy and two days later they're in LoooOOOove narrative. But it is what it is.

BUT it's when it is put in conflict/juxtaposition of Tiana's ambition to open a restaurant that it becomes problematic because it prioritizes the two. She has worked her entire life to open the restaurant and she's supposed to give up that dream for a frog that she's known for what...2 days? And it does indeed send the message that your life is not complete without the heteronormative relationship of a man.

Now they try to link this back to her father. "he worked hard but he had what he needed" Except, what he "needed" was a pre-existing family. He didn't abandon his dream, it just never happened and his family made the loss....less bearable...? They made his life sweeter. BUT in Tiana's case, the family and relationship was not pre-existing. So the message is to ABANDON her aspirations for a relationship or family that doesn't exist.

STILL by abandoning her dreams for another dream of a relationship the spell is ultimately broken and her earlier dream comes true. This makes the relationshp essentially a means to an end. Not only is that an unhealthy view but again, it sets a prioritization. That her relationship has to come first and that she could not have accomplished her dreams alone. That contradicts what her father said that she could do anything she set her mind to. NO, no she couldn't. Not alone anyway. And that is a negative message because the linchpin to her success was a man. That a single woman cannot be truly fulfilled by her career, much less successful.

in my opinion (what i understand) is Tiana to be more optimist and have more hope.

I always interpreted it as telling her she needs to cultivate interpersonal relationships with others (not necessarily romantic) because she can't go through life entirely alone.

To this day...I dunno. I think it was trying to get Tiana "to notice the people around her again"--- whereas Tiana was so narrowly focused on attaining her restaurant, that she was completely ignoring all human interactions, was not balancing her work-life with anything else...

What MaidofOrleans said. I think the message was that you need relationships in your life not just work. So, you can be in balance.

I think the message is that there is more to life than having her restaurant. Like, once she achieves her dream, she won't be completely happy because she'll still be missing something (love, family, friendships etc).

Same as MaidOfOrleans, I think it means that she shouldn’t avoid the fun things in life (relationships, friendships, hobbies other than cooking) all for a job. I think Mama Odie was trying to tell her no matter how hard she works, it wouldn’t be any fun without a team behind her to help every part of the way.

For her to realize she doesn't need everything to be happy. She doesn't need that restaurant to be happy and she doesn't need to be human. All you need to do is dig a little deeper into the life you have and you'll be plenty happy with love and all that jazz.

keep in mind that only some of mama odie's song is aimed at tiana. there's another part of it that's meant for naveen.

specifically, she's reminding tiana about why she wants the restaurant so badly - because it was something that connected her with her father. meaning the restaurant is pointless unless she has people in her life to share it with.

for naveen it's more straightforward: money isn't everything, blah blah blah

broadly, you could say that both parts back up mama odie's advice about getting what you need rather than what you want.

She had to look in her heart to see that the most important thing is love .. and that would also help them break the spell ..Happily they saw it at the end .. but late is better than never ..

that love, family, relations are equally important and owning and running a restaurant is what you think you want but not what you need in life.