The newest
Disney sensation! An Oscar ® winner no less! Naturally I had to jump on the
bandwagon and get my mitts onto this one as soon as possible – not least because
of the complete and utter sensation it seemed to be causing all over the
internet. A modern adaptation of The Snow Queen (you know something, I
literally hadn’t thought of that until I saw it in the credits at the end)
Frozen shows us once again that Disney is doing its best to keep up with the
times. And to give them their dues, they haven’t done a too shabby job at it
either…
Elsa and
Anna are two sisters, two princesses to be precise, and heirs to a small
kingdom. There Elsa is the elder sister and heir to the throne one day but
there is a slight problem – a problem that must be kept a secret even from her
own sister Anna. Elsa has been born with the power to freeze practically
everything she touches; she can make it snow or freeze almost at will. Almost.
Because, truth be told, Elsa can barely control this power. That said, with the
support of her parents she can keep her power in hand (haha see what I did there? Oh never mind...), until an unfortunate
accident orphans her and her sister, forcing Elsa onto the throne. Elsa tries
to keep everything under wraps, however the stress of the coronation brings the
whole secret tumbling out and starts a chain of events that threatens the very existance of the kingdom… There is only one person who can stop it all – but can
Anna, an eternal optimist who has grown up in practical isolation in the palace
step up to the plate?
Frozen has
been hailed as progressive and a big change for Disney’s general rules all over
the internet and I will have to join my voice to the chorus up to a point. I
mean true, the basic tropes do not change – the whole prince- princess deal,
fairy tale endings and the fact that the structure of the story is so
predictable that you can predict which attempt will fail and which will succeed
with literally no prior knowledge of the script are all there. But let’s give
the film it’s due, it has tried to do some things differently. And it seems to
have succeeded.
One point
that I have seen made time and time again is that only one princess ends up
with a man. In fact she technically ends up with two at one point – making the
rather original point (for Disney) that love is not as clear cut as “you meet
someone, you fall in love and that’s it”. Not only that, but the handsome
prince turns out to be the complete villain in the end. It is the rather more
homely looking Kristoph who gets the girl when all is said and done – thus admonishing
the trope that all good guys are automatically good looking. I mean, naturally
both the princesses are stunning and Kristoph isn’t exactly a troll (even
though he was raised by them) but hey… It’s a step in the right direction.
And then of
course there is the matter of Elsa not having a beau. But then again, when you
think about it, it isn’t so surprising. Not because of the rather obvious
problems potentially caused by her uncontrolled powers either ; messages of
true love surpassing all physical obstacles have been given under conditions
that are more trying than these. It was
only when I was reading Disney’s “behind the scenes” snippets of the film when
I realised that I put two and two together. Elsa is in fact the result of years
of head scratching and wondering what to do with the actual Snow Queen in the
fairy tale. I mean sure, you could make her your archetypal villain queen but
Disney has an over-abundance of them and I mean look, it turns out they have
been trying to make this film since the ‘40s for God’s sake they’re not going
to wait 70 years just to do something they have done a million times over once
again. The result? A very clever compromise and a way of making the film about
sisterly love as opposed to romantic love. This too is part of a trend if you
think about it – I mean Brave wasn’t about romantic love either, it was about
mothers and daughters, I mean heck, romance didn’t even raise its head in
Brave. And I love the diversification of
topics by the way. True it’s a rather small and conservative step (we have
moved from spouses to family which isn’t exactly a gargantuan leap) but give it
it’s due, we have moved. Better than nothing. But hang on, back to the matter
of Elsa being single; you see where I’m coming from, right? I mean at the end
of the day, in her origins Elsa is the villain – even though she is innocent in
this version of the story – so we couldn’t really have her being rewarded just
for learning to be good, right? Being good is the first step. If she is good
for long enough, she will get a spouse. Anna has been good. She has been
trapped in the palace for most of her life (Rapunzel anyone?) and yet kept her
pure heart (and her sanity by the way. I mean excuse the spoiler but if I had
lived the life Anna lived, I would have been either a psychopath or a gibbering
idiot by 12. That said, her first social contact in decades and she is merely
slightly awkward… Oh Disney…) and she even overcomes obstacles and makes
sacrifices to save her sister. So she gets her reward.
Soo… Yeah.
This IS, in fact a typical Disney film in a lot of ways. I mean fair enough,
steps have been taken in all the right directions, but they are rather small
steps. Still, as I have said before in this same post, they are steps. We have
moved. And we can’t expect messages that are so entrenched and have proved such
successful sales tools to change overnight. Basically, if you like Disney, you’ll
like this. If you don’t, mark my words, you’ll still find the songs catchy. The
film got the Oscar® for Best Music for a reason J
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