NOTE: I liked Frozen. I lost a bet with Ethan and had to write this essay because I'm making him write one that proves the opposite. (Also: Maureen might have helped a little.)
Classic
Disney stories are told from the perspective of weak women in need of
freedom. The only way for these women to obtain their desired freedom
usually comes from the love and power of a man. We can see this in
Cinderella and her futile attempts at getting away from her
step-mother. The prince is needed in taking her out of her poverty
and pain. The Little Mermaid wants so much to be a human, just so she
can live a life with a mortal man. And Sleeping Beauty! The crème
de la crème of the Disney princesses, a woman in a sleeping
trance in need of a man's kiss to wake her up. Opposed to running
contrary to this trope—like some supporters tend to spout—Frozen
buys into the formula and we're
stuck with another installment in a string of movies that fight
against the strong and independent woman, thus furthering the
unwanted oppression.
Take,
for example, how these women consistently fall in love immediately.
Sleeping Beauty meets cute with her prince over a date-rapey dance
number, for crying out loud. Their “love” is all based on
physical appearances. Cinderella is basically helpless until she is
rescued, but is she pursued for what she can offer on an
intellectual or emotional level? Of course not. She's hot, and
therefore worthy of man's salvation. Ariel sacrifices her body,
family, voice, and independence in order to conform to a stranger's
(but she loves him!) assumed physical ideal.
At
its outset, Frozen
appears to be bucking the cripplingly patriarchal ideals classic
Disney touted. When the sheltered Anna
wants to marry the first man she sees and it is based completely on
the outward appearance, she gets called out on it, first by her
sister Elsa and then by Kristoff. The prince is handsome and
charming, therefore he belongs with a beautiful princess. (And make
no mistake, though Anna hits all the classic dorky-girl movie
moments: bed head! Burp jokes! Clumsiness! she is in every way
clearly a man's representation of female physical perfection.) This
action plants Anna directly into the original princesses' mindsets.
Both
Elsa and Kristoff call bullshit on the whole sentiment. “You can't
marry a man you just met,” Elsa cautions, and she has a point. And
when Hans' laughably overwrought treachery is finally revealed, it
validates her point. However, it should be noted that Anna only comes
to this realization after a long and arduous journey through the
snow-bound tundra to find her sister. A journey she embarks on
wearing...a ballgown. A journey that would have almost certainly
ended in death by exposure had she not been rescued by...a man. (By
the way, for a movie ostensibly about the validation of independent
women, it sure doesn't feature a lot of them. Two female characters,
Disney. Solid.) And this man, who
semi-for-the-sake-of-the-narrative-begrudgingly befriends her, ends
up being the real romantic interest. So ladies, get it straight:
marrying the first man you meet? Silly! Tromping off into the
unfamiliar wilderness alone with the second? Perfectly fine, provided
you're cute and he has an anthropomorphic reindeer.
You
could also say that this situation shouldn't count against the movie
considering the relationship forged with Kristoff wasn't based on
physicality, but rather an emotional bond they built throughout those
two days, but to that I say you will always have a strong connection
to someone who helps you through an emotionally strenuous situation.
That's not love, that's Stockholm Syndrome. (Looking at you, Belle.)
However, there is a much bigger issue the movie took in all this love
business.
Essentially,
Disney is trying to use Prince Hans as a way to call attention to the
outdated trope, and then prove how clever and self-aware they are by
side-stepping it. The problem is they still side-step into the very
trope they attempt to avoid by bringing a romantic relationship into
the movie at the end. Sure, it wasn't the kiss that broke the spell,
but all that moment of sisterly love did was reveal that they still
loved one another even after years of solitude. Which, honestly,
isn't a super healthy attitude to begin with. There is as much
potential emotional damage to be done by leaping into a relationship
with an estranged family member as there is with a romantic partner.
And ultimately, it is made clear that the Anna's future happiness is
going to stem from her relationship with Kristoff. It's a cop-out on
Disney's part: they made a statement about independence,
self-actualization, and the cathartic power of fixing a fractured
relationship, and then slapped a sparkly question mark at the end of
it. Frozen had to end
with Anna and Kristoff, because at the end of the day, a single
princess just weirds everyone the fuck out, and Disney couldn't risk
it.
In
addition, by bringing the trope to the viewer's forefront with making
such a big deal out of how clever and witty the writers were, it is
breaking the fourth wall. When you break the fourth wall you wan to
rely heavily on a social commentary (usually, though not necessarily,
about how the populace ingests entertainment). Frozen does
not have this commentary, so in breaking the fourth wall they are
merely self-congratulating themselves from something they never
actually accomplished. This makes the masturbatory exercise even more
embarrassing from an outside perspective.
Don't
try to be clever because that boat has sailed. Pixar has already
elevated the quality of storytelling at Disney, so make a good movie
instead of taking huge steps backwards in trying to salvage an
outdated formula.
