Black people in 18th century France? Seriously?

Racist killjoy detected.

Uhhhhh....it also has magic and talking clocks and lamps and teapots. If you're looking for accuracy, look elsewhere.

Well.....you can look at this from several angles.

Historically, there were a few black people in 18th century France, due to colonialism and increased contact with other countries, but they were extremely rare. You would have had to have known the person's name, and sought them out. That's how rare they were.

From a fairy-tale perspective, they can sort of get away with it, because there's nothing in the rules that says that people in fairy tales have to be exclusively white. However, I do think they went overboard by having not one, but TWO inter-racial couples in the film. One is enough. I was fine with Lumiere having a beautiful black Plumette as his lady love. The opera singer and the pianist? Too much. (Though I will admit I loved the opera singer's ballgowns).

It's just kind of shocking when you see a black person in these stories pop up where they weren't originally shown before. Now Disney did do a color-blind casting of "Roger's and Hammerstein's Cinderella" with Brandy and Whitney Houston starring, so then seeing black people in that wasn't as jarring. And we saw various black people sprinkled into the 2015 "Cinderella" film.

However, I don't think they really did it tactfully in this film. It almost feels as if they deliberately shoe-horned in black people to fake making the story look "diverse."

Of course, there were black people in France and throughout Europe in the 1700s.

There were a few famous people like Alexandre Dumas, the writer of "The Three Musketeers" who was born in France. His father, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie lived there for many years and was a general during the French Revolution.

Chevalier de Saint-Georges was a famous musician and Queen Marie Antoinette's music director. He was a colonel during the French Revolution.

Abram Petrovich Gannibal, the great-grandfather of Pushkin (Russia's greatest writer), studied in France and was a friend of Voltaire. He became a military engineer in the Russian army.

Julien Raimond founded the Black Legions and defended Paris against attack by foreigners.

Joseph "Hercule" Damingue and his "Battalion of Black Pioneers" fought with Napoleon. Blacks fought for France in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napolieonic Wars.

In the 1700s, a large black population was feared and the Police Des Noirs was passed in 1777, but was largely ignored.

BTW, the original purpose for the Statue of Liberty had nothing to do with immigration. Édouard René de Laboulaye was an abolitionist who commissioned its creation after his hero President Lincoln was assassinated. He wanted to celebrate the end of American slavery and American Independence as well as send a pro-democracy message to fellow Frenchmen during political turmoil in France. He founded two abolition groups in France and would raise money to free American slaves.

This happened in the 1800s, but for some reason, Americans purposely hide the statute's connection with slavery which upsets me so I am mentioning it.

Ever heard of the French author Alexandre Dumas? Look into his family history some time.

Of course there were blacks then, you halfwit, because of slavery.