How Disney failed at teaching an important lesson.
When I choose to do my passion blog about how strange Disney movies were, I knew my first post was going to be about my favorite childhood movie; Frozen. Frozen tells the story of two sisters Anna and Elsa and how they react and grow from their death of their parents. With the added layer of Elsa having ice powers, everything quickly turns south.
Elsa from a very young age was told to keep her powers hidden, to “Conceal, not feel” and to “Put on a show.” Her parents believed she was a danger to others and Disney convinced viewers she was too. Disney throughout the movie is trying to teach the lesson of not judging a book by its cover but what it
really leaves viewers with is a sense that people different from us are strange or evil even.
Elsa, now all grownup is about to take on the weight of being queen of Arendelle (The country her parents once ruled) as she still holds her parents lessons on her shoulders. Disney pushes the idea that Elsa can not control herself, by having her wear gloves or have to calm herself down in moments of high stress. That couldn’t be further from the truth as Elsa has held an inconceivable amount of strength after her parents death, not lashing out, and isolating her self from everyone else including her sister even though she wants nothing more to be there for her.
As the movie progresses Elsa is faced with the harsh judgement of the town as her powers are revealed when Anna tells her she is getting married with or without her permission. Immediately people call a monster, evil, and Elsa runs. When I used to watch the movie when I was younger I didn’t understand why her own people would be so mean to her. And even now re-watching the movie for the hundredth time I can see where Disney went wrong.
(The a u d a c i t y)
The moment Hans leads the charge against Elsa and seemingly takes over her role as the leader of Arendelle is where Disney lets a man villainize a female character and take control of her story. Now, personally to me, Elsa is always going to be powerful and independent, but to all those little kids watching Frozen they aren’t going to analyze the movie the way I am now.
Hopefully, with time those kids will grow up and view Frozen just the way I do. The story of a women who is struggling to figure out who she is and gets ridiculed for it, overcomes what people think about her and becomes stronger for it. All with her sister by her side who never gave up or doubted her.
This was a very interesting post to be completely honest when I saw frozen for the first time I did not think much about it but looking back on it I completely see what you mean. Many disney movies are similarly flawed as well and I am glad you alluded to that. I look forward to reading more posts about this topic as I find it very interesting. The verb I chose to highlight was isolating when talking about Elsa because she did isolate herself and that is a very interesting subject for a kids movie.
You made such a good point about the over-dramatization of the town’s reaction to Elsa’s ice powers. I totally agree that it does not make sense that the whole town would immediately call her evil. While the movie does show the importance of family, you’re right that it might subconsciously teach kids to react negatively to people who are different from them. Though Frozen is attempting to mimic reality in which many people do react negatively due to biases, children might not know the world to be this way yet, so they might pick up this behavior from watching the movie. It is important to think and talk about how that does not have to be the case. Maybe children’s shows should focus less on reflecting reality and more on showing how reality could be.
Frozen is the only Disney princess movie I have voluntarily watched, so I think I can legitimately understand what you broke down here. I hadn’t considered it from your perspective when I originally watched it years ago, but you did a great job going through the movie discussing Disney’s negative actions. Elsa was controlled by others for too long and rarely given a chance to be herself.
I liked your use of “leads the charge” when you mentioned Hans taking over her story; it created a strong mental image and was another piece of evidence that Elsa needed more independence from others trying to control her.