Cold on Frozen

Over at Castalia, Anthony expands a bit on this post by Justinian Wright on the fatal flaw in Frozen. Namely that Frozen is neither a Disney movie nor a fairy tale, and that the fundamental underlying story is broken. Excellent writeups, i strongly recommend you look at both.

That said, I have a quibble. The comments on “no love at first sight” may break the rules of a fairy tale but there are at least two ways the Hans story could have played out, even if not quite a fairy tale:

a) The doubters could have been proven wrong by Hans’ display of competence and character, Anna ends up with Hans

b) It’s played as a straight up love triangle and Anna ended up with Kristoff, with Hans still a good guy.

Personally, I’d prefer a)

As it is, they completely undercut Hans, out of nowhere. A character that was moderately charismatic, in the beginning shown being head over heels for Anna with no sly asides for the audience, is shown to be competent, capable, brave, and merciful… is just a greedy guy trying to take the throne.

I guess if you’re feminist enough to believe in toxic masculinity, it still makes sense.

Instead Hans is suddenly the bad guy, Kristoff the friendzone orbiter, Olaf willing to die just for a taste of warmth.

Frankly, I think Stefan has the right of it – it’s about victims of child abuse living out their delusions, even if I think he should take the magic more in context with the story (not sure he “gets” fairy tales).

I say this mostly on the strength of three things. The parents approach to dealing with their daughter’s powers, the (frankly) codependency of the sisters, and the arguably anthemic “Let it Go” sung by grrrl power types everywhere.

That last especially, bothered me, from the very first time I saw it, being visually presented as a crowning moment of freedom and self actualization even as she brought chaos and ruin to her kingdom.

She is the villain of the piece. She was never redeemed.