"Let It Go" Already! Frozen and "False Feminism"

*knock knock knock*

♫ Do you wanna build a snowman? ♬

Yes, if you’re like me, one of the millions of college students who is reliving their childhood vicariously through animated movies, then you’ve been humming that tune to yourself on the way to class for the past six months (in 70 degree weather, no less. #californiaproblems)

Frozen was a box-office smash and critics called it everything from “the best animated musical to come out of Disney since the tragic death of lyricist Howard Ashman, whose work on The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast helped build the studio’s modern animated division into what it is today” to “…this is the rare example of a Walt Disney Animation Studios effort that reaches as deep as a Pixar film.” It was widely championed for its “formula-defying” storyline and its emphasis on female empowerment in its two princesses.

As the hype has risen to a fever pitch, however, others have asked Frozen’s disciples to take a step back and really examine whether the film is truly the pièce de résistance of modern feminism in children’s entertainment. In an article written for Medium, writer Dani Colman claims that Frozen left her cold.

“I have made absolutely no secret of how much I disliked Disney’s Frozen. I hated it. I spent most of the movie alternately facepalming, groaning, and checking my watch, and when people asked me how I liked it, I made this face:

Colman notes that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but lays out a point-by-point takedown of the feminist issues the film supposedly tackles, and how, in her mind, when you really look at it, Frozen isn’t that revolutionary at all.

She debunks the “Frozen doesn’t end with a marriage!” argument, highlighting that while there is indeed no wedding at the end of the movie (spoiler alert), it follows to the familiar Disney trope of the “heterosexual happily ever after.” She backs it up with the research that only seven of the forty-three Disney animated features actually have a wedding at the end, but that twenty-five have a “happily ever after,” thereby squashing the claim that Frozen is any different from the others.

What was most interesting to me was her take on the main female characters and the praise that they are strong role models for young girls. According to Colman, Anna is really no different than any other Disney princess (“beautiful, in a gives-Barbie-body-dysmorphia kind of way”), and that her “charming flaw” of clumsiness “seems to be the de facto flaw for heroines who aren’t fully developed enough to have a real flaw – and yes, this would be the point where I compare Frozen to Twilight.”

For Elsa, Colman claims that she may be even worse than her sister. “Her sister spends the better part of ten years trying to reach out to her (admittedly misguidedly), and Elsa shuts herself away so steadfastly a psychiatrist might call it pathological. She’s an absolute mess of a characterological self-blame and avoidance, and she deals with her issues by speed-skating away from them.” She draws comparisons to The Lion King’s Simba, and how Simba eventually takes responsibility and goes back to his kingdom, while Elsa is practically dragged to hers against her will. Colman declares that Elsa is overemotional (as she nearly kills her sister with her own snowman creation) and haughty, and yet oversimplified in an attempt to make her relatable and not the film’s true villain.

I found this article through one of my friend’s Facebook wall, and thought overall it was a refreshing take on the film’s so-called radical storytelling. Colman makes the excellent point that because we have been deprived of excellent female characters in children’s movies for so long, we are quick to laud any step in the right direction and gloss over any deeper issues the film may have.

However, as I am someone who looks less at political ramifications the story highlights and more at the story itself, I think Colman ignores the cards the characters were dealt, and the natural instincts the characters would have in those situations.

Yes, Elsa is someone who runs away from her problems, but she has been taught her whole life to be terrified of her own power. It doesn’t seem like much of stretch to think that, in her mind, going back to her kingdom which is entirely against her would only make things worse. As far as almost killing her sister (I think Colman makes a judgment leap with this, for the record. Was the scary snowman meant to be threatening? Yes, but I think it was to forcibly remove her sister from the situation, not kill her) and being overemotional, the girl has been holding back her entire freaking life and when someone is only beginning to comprehend how powerful they are after being emotionally and physically repressed, it’s generally not a good idea to provoke them.

No, Elsa’s not going to be as complex and morally ambiguous as someone like Elphaba in Wicked, of which this character draws deep parallels (“Defying Gravity” and “Let It Go” are essentially the same song, okay?). Elsa also doesn’t have the luxury of a three hour musical or a 300 page novel. At the end of the day, it is a kid’s movie and there’s only so much deep, enriching character development you can pack into an hour and half movie.

Still, this is not an unimportant conversation to have, and the culture normative is ingrained into kids at a young age. We want them to admire the princesses we watch on the screen, and we better make sure that those princesses aren’t teaching them lessons we don’t want them to learn.