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Frozen. Dir. Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck. Disney, 2013. Currently in theaters. 108 mins.
Reviewed by: Elan Justice Pavlinich (justice7@mail.usf.edu)
Frozen has been
under revision since 1943. Proposed,
abandoned, revived, and defunded, for decades multiple teams at Disney have
struggled to render the dark tale by Hans Christian Andersen, The Snow Queen, relatable to audiences.1 Now,
after a tradition of frustration, writers Jennifer Lee, Chris Buck, and Shane
Morris have constructed a screenplay that frustrates tradition. Directed by Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck, with
powerful songs by Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Frozen came to fruition before audiences in November of 2013.
Following on the heels of Disney-Pixar’s recently released
period piece, Brave, Frozen is what Leila K. Norako has
described as “a fantasized medieval landscape, [that] is
ultimately intended to be a modern one.”2
Frozen engages familiar Disney conventions in order to convey a
modern moral that criticizes the traditional heteronormativity of the
canon. Although the medieval context is
superficial, Frozen anticipates many
of the roles codified by Andreas Capellanus in The Art of Courtly Love, along with features common to romances by
such poets as Chrétien de Troyes and Geoffrey Chaucer.
Frozen is a
courtly romance that manipulates the courtly romance structure. It exploits qualities of familiar Disney
animations to sacrifice the heteronormative “happily ever after” in favor of a
morality that is facilitated by fantasy and grounded in realism. While Frozen operates in the idealized fairy
tale realm, it complicates the structure audiences expect of Disney fantasy in
order to privilege practical morals. As
the narrative subverts heteronormative fairy tale expectations, the privileging
of practicality and familiarity reconstitutes the structure of the fairy tale
and, through a series of frustrations and doubling, integrates familiar
experience as essential to—rather than opposed to—the fantasy.
Critics, however, are outraged by the aesthetic direction of
Frozen. Sociologist Philip N. Cohen has found that
the princess’s eyes are bigger than their wrists, and Amanda Marcotte argues
that Frozen sends the message that “an inherent part of being female is to be as small and
diminutive as possible, and impossibly so.”3 Granted, the chronic doe-eyed expression of Frozen’s leading ladies does convey
vulnerability, but this aesthetic bolsters the strategy to upset the
heteronormativity the audience might assume customary to a Disney animation. These eyes are familiar. They resemble other Disney princesses such as
Belle of Beauty and the Beast and
Jasmine of Aladdin. Just like the Disney logo,
computer-animation, and the medieval setting, the dainty doe-eyed princess
informs audience expectations: As part of the Walt Disney Animated Classics
canon we can expect singing and dancing, love (at first sight), and a
heteronormative “happily ever after” that is sealed with a kiss. The standard Disney aesthetic establishes
expectations for this familiar structure.
Deviation from this structure, however, is more than mere plot
twists. Upsetting the standard moral
that goes hand in hand with a heteronormative “happily ever after,” Frozen seems to issue an apology for the
dangers of the Disney tradition, and by imposing realism onto the fantasy
narrative, Frozen renders the
realistic fantastic.
In fact, much of what is familiar about the courtly love
tradition is established and undone as the plot progresses. Audience reliance on standard Disney plot
structure is upset from the very opening.
To summarize, Elsa (Idina Menzel) and Anna (Kristen Bell) play in the
ballroom of their castle when Elsa accidentally strikes Anna in the head with
her cryokinesis. On account of this
accident, we learn from the trolls that it is easy to thaw the brain (erasing
Anna’s memory of Elsa’s powers) but the heart is far more difficult to fix,
establishing the familiar separation between matters of the mind, which are
governed by reason, and matters of the heart, which are persuaded by
passion. Following this, Elsa goes into isolation
to contain the secret of her powers, the King and Queen of Arendelle die at sea
leaving Elsa and Anna alone and all the more estranged from one another,
leading up to Elsa’s necessary emergence for her coronation and the first
public celebration at Arendelle in years.
From this point, Frozen
establishes a familiar courtly romance structure. It is Spring—the season of love—just before a
celebration that will unite royalty from other realms. Anna is fantasizing about love at first sight
before bumping into Hans (Santino Fontana), Prince of the Southern Isles. Anna and Hans share character traits such as
clumsiness, they finish each other’s sentences, and they sing the standard
Disney duet. But their plans for
marriage are upset by Elsa’s refusal to bless their union. A fight breaks out, revealing Elsa’s powers
to everyone at the coronation celebration and she is forced to flee her own
kingdom across the frozen fjord and into the mountains where her new isolation
permits her to use her powers freely and happily. She literally let’s her hair down and
fashions an intricate castle of ice.
Now, Frozen
complicates the Disney fairy tale structure by presenting familiar conventions,
doubling them, and reconstituting the narrative center and periphery. Typically, one might assume that our protagonist
is the elder sister, who has a rightful claim to the crown of Arendelle and who
possesses magical powers that are worthy of a Walt Disney Animated
Classic. But Elsa is an outcast who
enjoys her hermitage in the wilderness.
She is not the dainty princess who communicates with animals and
sacrifices her own well being for the happiness of others. For all of the familiarity established by the
film’s opening, the instability of a central character is a forewarning to the
audience that the standard Disney structure does not apply. The medieval kingdom in springtime customary
to the courtly love story is overtaken by the blizzard unleashed by Elsa. As the plot progresses, Elsa, the elder
sister with political and magical power, recedes, and Anna becomes the focus of
the narrative. Kristen Bell describes
Anna as “not a good fighter, she doesn't have good
posture, she's not very elegant, and she's constantly putting her foot in her
mouth. But she's a good person and she's
utterly determined.”4
Anna is the second sister, without inheritance or supernatural
powers, who becomes the main character.
Anna, who is traditionally decentered by her elder sister Elsa, becomes
the new center in defiance of the standard Disney structure.
Reconceiving the center in this way, however, incites
another anxiety. If Anna is the
protagonist princess in a Disney fairy tale, according to the tradition she
ought to be recuperated by the end of the trial through wedded bliss to the man
she fell in love with at first sight.
Then, what of Elsa? Frozen’s producer, Peter Del Vecho,
explains, “There are times
when Elsa does villainous things but because you understand where it comes
from, from this desire to defend herself, you can always relate to her.”5 But within the standard Disney structure, Elsa
is a queen who threatens her own people.
Either her actions render her antagonist, or identification with her
character complicates traditional categories within the narrative.
Frozen plays with
this uneasiness. Anna teams up with
Kristoff (Jonathan Groff) and his reindeer Sven to bring Elsa back to Arendelle
and save the people now trapped by the frozen fjord. Elsa casts them out by creating a giant snow
monster and again strikes Anna with her powers—this time in the heart. We learn from the trolls that the heart can
only be thawed by an act of true love, thus Anna is affirmed as the center of
the romance as they race to return her to Hans of the Southern Isles, because
she fell in love with at first sight, and so only his kiss can break the
spell.
Except, Hans is conning Anna. Hans plans to facilitate Anna’s death,
condemn Elsa as the culprit, and control Arendelle himself. He provides a bold new moral: Prince charming may not be trustworthy. Frozen
demonstrates that love does not happen at first sight; rather love flourishes
through experience, as trials reveal a person’s true character. For a Disney fantasy this is an oddly
practical moral.
Still, if Hans was a bust, what will save Anna and
Elsa? Thank goodness they kept a back-up
hunk just in case of an emergency.
Before Hans confesses his true intentions, his character actually
garners sympathy as Anna and Kristoff show signs of developing affection, and
once again it is made unclear whether it is more appropriate to identify Hans
or Kristoff as the Disney standard suitor whose efforts will recuperate the
damsel in distress to the heteronormative “happily ever after.” Kristoff does not come from royalty, he is
certainly not refined, and he is socially marginalized—just like Anna! They met circumstantially and seemed to be at
odds at first. Now, after enduring the aventure, they share an ineffable bond.6
It is Kristoff who can administer the kiss that will save Anna’s heart
from freezing. His love will recuperate
the doe-eyed princess to the fairy tale tradition; without him Anna is doomed
to become an ice sculpture emblem of failed love.
As the audience rolls their eyes anticipating the inevitable
kiss towards which the traditional Disney classic culminates, Anna turns away
from Kristoff and towards her sister.
She relinquishes herself to the ice in order to protect Elsa. Anna reaffirms the bond between them and
redefines ‘true love’ as a dialectical process conjured between kin, rather
than some inexplicable and ineffable occurrence between royal strangers. Anna’s action saves her sister, and because
it is an act of true love she also saves herself. The center of the traditional structure, the
heteronormative kiss, has been pushed to the periphery twice, frustrating the
standard Disney narrative, in favor of self-sacrifice and the bond between
siblings.
Audience expectations are continuously undermined,
privileging practical morals such as ‘don’t trust strangers despite their
charm,’ and ‘familial bonds constitute true love’ over and above the fantasy
romance that has dominated much of Disney Animated Classics. This privileging of realism at the expense of
idealism facilitates audience assumptions in order that these practical morals
emerge as the new ideal. That is, there
is no sense of having been manipulated by the cartoon fantasy to forego
practicality. Because the realism of the
narrative emerges from a structure of frustrated idealism, the practical morals
reconstitute the center of the narrative by which familiar experiences with
which the audience can identify are rendered fantastic.
Upsetting the Disney heteronormative tradition does not end
with the explicit and repeated derailment of the kiss. It is also subtly reaffirmed by Elsa’s rise
to power. We’ve seen Cinderella and
Ariel both blissfully wed to their princes, but rarely have we seen a Disney
queen rule (justly). Women in power is
not a simple notion that plays out within the fantasy, negligent of practical
concerns. The reality of Elsa’s rule is
made part of the fantasy through a real decision that does not lend itself
easily to “happily ever after.” Over the
course of the film masculine forces control commerce: the Duke of Weselton
seeks to infiltrate Arendelle to exploit their trade; Oaken, the mountain
shopkeeper, overcharges in the midst of a winter sale because he has no
competitors; and Hans plays the courtly love game because he is the youngest
brother and must marry into wealth. (Of
course Elsa and Anna, historically, would have been integrated into these
economic concerns as property.) Elsa’s
command of power, however, is not an idealized conclusion that does not involve
itself in the messiness of authority.
She places Hans into captivity to be returned to his people for
punishment and she ceases trade with Weselton.
This seems like a simple enough command, but it demonstrates practical
leadership decisions made by a woman that have potential consequences within
the Disney fantasy. Granted, Elsa’s
decisions are still quite tidy because she does not explicitly execute Hans,
and severing the bond with Weselton is based solely on personal moral offense
rather than the ambiguous commerce of her kingdom. This is, after all, a children’s
cartoon. The issuing of a command that
affects all of Arendelle from the doe-eyed Queen reorganizes the economy
corrupted by men and integrates realism into the idealism of Elsa’s rule.
In addition to frustrating heteronormativity, Frozen presents the natural realm along
a spectrum that ranges from realistic to fantastic. In accordance with common experience, Sven,
the reindeer, does not use words. This
upsets the anthropomorphism characteristic of Disney fables in favor of
familiarity. Conversations in which
Sven’s dialogue is supplied by Kristoff resonates with how some people talk for
their pets at home to enhance the pet’s participation in circumstances and to
translate and engage the pet perspective for their human companions. The integrity of the natural realm is
maintained because Sven depicts a range of emotive responses. He is equal to other characters in that his
actions and reactions mobilize the narrative, but he uses reindeer morphemes
rather than human words. Realism,
however, is not the governing principle behind Sven’s lack of
anthropomorphism. There are moments when
Sven’s lack of English contrasts starkly with the speaking roles of other
characters who are closely acquainted with the natural realm, such as the
musical number performed by Olaf the snowman and the trolls who live in the
forest disguised as boulders. Kristoff’s
voice imposed onto and in place of Sven’s inability to speak commands attention
for its departure from the Disney anthropomorphic standard and it assumes privilege
for its realism and familiarity.
Finally, concerning anachronism and medieval ceremonial
practices, ritual in Frozen has been
evacuated. A term borrowed from Stephen
Greenblatt’s Transreformational analysis of signification, ‘evacuated’ refers
to the properties of the medieval mass that are reappropriated for the stage in
accordance with Protestant criticism of the theatricality of traditional religion.7 Greenblatt’s terminology appropriately describes Elsa’s
coronation, which imitates medieval ritual but signifies Protestant
anxiety. Frozen stands between the ideal of an efficacious medieval priest,
and a post-Reformation anxiety over the trappings of traditional religion.8
The priest utters a phrase to pronounce her queen and, like the hoc est of the medieval mass, she is
rendered the ruler by the priest’s efficacy.
The orb and scepter, however, have been evacuated of their properties as
relics and their signification is replaced, by Elsa and the audience, with
anxiety because we know that anything she touches will visibly frost over. The ritual coronation begets social cohesion
in the moment of performance without identifying any specific religious
allegiance, but as Elsa’s political body is revealed to be corrupt and she is
accused of witchcraft the stability that she signifies unravels along with the
well being of her people. The coronation
ceremony and Elsa’s conformity to tradition do not unite Arendelle. Elsa’s powers, the cryokinesis perceived as
corruption, become the source for social cohesion amongst her people,
privileging the passion of self-expression rather than romantic feelings, as
the sociopolitical source for a new happily ever after.
Frozen presents
conventional Disney animation features integrated with common experience in
order to upset problematic fairy tale ideals and to present a practical
morality that privileges the process of emotional development and the freedom
of personal expression. By manipulating
traditional Disney narrative qualities Frozen
signifies the emergence of a fairy tale that presents the practical as inherent
to the fantastic.
Elan Justice Pavlinich
University of South Florida
1 Jim Hill,
“Countdown to Disney Frozen: How one
simple suggestion broke the ice on the Snow
Queen’s decades-long story problems,” Jim
Hill Media, October 18, 2013, accessed December 28, 2013, http://jimhillmedia.com/editor_in_chief1/b/jim_hill/archive/2013/10/18/countdown-to-disney-quot-frozen-quot-how-one-simple-suggestion-broke-the-ice-on-the-quot-snow-queen-quot-s-decades-long-story-problems.aspx.
2 Leila K.
Norako, “Andrews, Chapman, and
Purcell, dirs.: Brave,” Medievally Speaking, August 30, 2013,
accessed December 20, 2013,
http://medievallyspeaking.blogspot.com/2013/08/andrews-chapman-and-purcell-dirs-brave.html.
3 Amanda
Marcotte, “New Disney Heroine’s Eyes Are Bigger Than Her Wrists,” Slate, December 18, 2013, accessed
December 22, 2013, http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/12/18/anna_in_frozen_her_eyes_are_bigger_than_her_wrists.html.
4 Bryan
Alexander, “Frozen defrosts Kristen
Bell’s Disney dreams,” USA Today,
June 17, 2013, accessed December 28, 2013, http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2013/06/17/frozen-disney/2389171/.
5 Brendon
Connelly, “Inside The
Research, Design And Animation Of Walt Disney’s Frozen With Producer Peter Del
Vecho,” Bleeding Cool, September 25,
2013, accessed December 28, 2013, http://www.bleedingcool.com/2013/09/25/inside-the-research-design-and-animation-of-walt-disneys-frozen-with-producer-peter-del-vecho/.
6 Anne
Brannen, “What is an Aventure, and
why would I want one,” Anne Brannen Life
Coaching, 2014, accessed January 5, 2014. http://annebrannen.com/what-is-an-aventure-and-why-would-i-want-one/.
7 Stephen
Greenblatt, Shakespearean Negotiations:
The Circulation of Social Energy in Renaissance England, (Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press, 1989), 126.
8 Eamon Duffy,
The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional
Religion in England 1400-1580, (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005),
298 and 390.
