I was going to originally write a review of the film “Frozen” but when I did, it was just the sentence “Frozen is the best thing ever!!!” and while this captures my feeling perfectly, I thought I should probably write slightly more than one grammatically incorrect sentence. So instead I wanted to write about why I like “Frozen” so much.
I’m going to start with a slightly serious point, when I watched Frozen for the first time, I thought the character Elsa was symbolic for depression and I related to her on that bases. Both situations involve the fear of hurting people you love, both involve self-isolation and unfortunately both involve a level of self-imposed and undeserved shame. it was only much later when I read articles written by people with disabilities or people who have struggled with their sexuality who also stated that they relate to her that I realised I have been rather egocentric and had been projecting onto her and in fact she has the potential to represent many people who struggle for different reason. Many people have compared Frozen to the musical “Wicked”, I think this comparison is quite obvious and largely because they both feature Idina Menzel staring as a misunderstood witch. I think a far more fitting musical to compare it to is “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”. The reason being because both attract people from various walks of life that for some reason are unconventional. It’s no secret that Rocky Horror thoroughly embraces the unconventional and as a result has developed a cult following, but I believe “Frozen” offers a similar experience is through the character Elsa.
What you need to know about Elsa is that she was born with the power to control ice and told to conceal herself away and keep it a secret, she is told that people will hate her if they find out, and that the only way to li ve is to be “the good girl” everyone expects her to be. On a fundamental level Elsa’s character (and the plot of Frozen) represents the internal conflict many people face at some point in their life between conforming to what is expected of them, or accepting their oddities and embracing who they truly are. This is why so many people relate to the struggles of Elsa. In addition to this, unlike Rocky Horror, Frozen presents this conflict and balances it out by including the character Anna. Anna is, in my opinion, the embodiment of unconditional love. Something that people constantly need to be reminded exist, especially people who are in a situation that forces them to identify with Elsa. This creates a situation where the audience is simultaneously presented hardships they may relate to but also constantly reinforced with the idea that unconditional love exist and consoled.
Giving Anna the majority of screen time strengthens this as the audience is never allowed to dwell on the possibility of Elsa being a villain, nor the possibility of maybe she should hide who she is. The effectiveness of Anna as a main character is that whenever any minor character brings up the possibility of Elsa being wrong she instantly shoots them down. At the end of the day Anna’s opinion is largely forced upon the viewer, usually I don’t like when films do this, but because Anna’s views are morally correct and is simply that people should be honest with who they are, I think it’s for the best. This combined with the films focus on the much more stable and grounded family love opposed to the more idealised and turbulent romantic love is why I think Frozen is so effective, especially for people who may be struggling to accept themselves. It provides people who are struggling a character to relate to and take solace in, and not only provides them with a happy ending to take solace in, but throughout the film consoles them and forcefully reminds them that they will still be loved regardless.
keeptalkingaboutit 