They say that the best children's entertainment is that which works on two levels. There's the basic storytelling level that kids react to, full of action, adventure, and magic, and then there's the way that the same tales can affect us as adults, who bring along with them a lifetime of experience, not to mention just as much time spent learning the language of storytelling. And that's why I was almost completely unprepared for how good and borderline-subversive it is. It's not just another princess-overcomes-adversity tale, and I'm hoping that by writing this I can figure out exactly what it is that made it all click for me. Because click it did.
The best part of Frozen for adults, I think, is the way it actively upends so many fairy tale tropes that we've been exposed to all our lives. It's deliciously subversive in the way it does this, in a way I'd never really expect from Disney. These are the folks who created the Disney Princess line of products, for crying out loud, which to me is the apotheosis of soul-sucking corporate marketing.
Let me quickly get this off my chest before I continue... There are two lines of toys and products that my wife and I actively steer our daughter away from: Barbie and Disney Princesses. Barbie is one that's managed to weather the backlash that's been directed at it from all corners, mostly concerning the way it portrays unrealistic female body image and promotes materialism. I understand, dolls need dream homes to live in and veterinary clinics to run, but it's all just too much, and is more valuable as nostalgia than a forward-thinking 21st-century toy. We much prefer Lalaloopsy, where the dolls are all different skin tones, have distinct individual characteristics, and don't send mixed body image signals because they're modeled after ragdolls.
Disney Princesses, though, seem like a different animal altogether. The product line began when a Disney executive saw little girls showing up for Disney on Ice shows in homemade character costumes, and wondered why the company wasn't selling them itself. The sight of these mashed-up crossovers still kind of creeps me out. Princesses from all eras, just standing around prettily on a pink background, refusing to look at each other? Eegh. (My problem with "princesses" in general is something for a different post... wanting to be treated as special because of nothing based on merit or character, but because of who your parents are? Don't think so.)
I had heard that Frozen was something kind of different, and I was heartened by already having seen Brave, Wreck-It Ralph and Tangled, which came before it. In them I saw twists on conventions, a glimmer that Disney is realizing that the way to stay relevant is to toy with the established story structures of which they were the architects. And I sat down in the theater with my family with all these expectations running through my head.
What I got to see was an apparently deliberate upending of the whole accepted, Disneyfied princess myth. All you really need to be aware of (and spoilers follow, so fairly warned be ye, says I) is that there are two heroines in this one, sisters who are also princesses. The older one, Elsa, has become queen after the untimely death of her parents, and she harbors a secret (and apparently uncontrollable) magical command of ice and snow. Her sister Anna, who has been kept away from her almost their whole lives because of these dangerous powers, doesn't understand what brought on their estrangement. At least, not until an emotional confrontation between them leads to their kingdom being plunged into a deep winter.
The story really hinges on two prophecies, the first being that Anna, being slowly frozen solid by an accidental blast of her sister's powers, can only be saved by "an act of true love". The second is one that Elsa learns regarding her powers, being told that "fear will be your enemy". She takes this to mean that she must hide her powers from those who would judge her, at least until she can learn to control them.
This is where the convention-breaking starts. As for the first prophecy, the storytellers play it like a straight romance subplot, leading those of us with countless fairy tales under our belts to assume that what Anna really needs is to find her true love. But what saves her ultimately isn't a kiss from her "prince charming", but is her own self-sacrifice, throwing herself in front of an assassin's sword meant to cut down her sister.
The second prophecy has just as much of a twist, because it turns out that the fear that prevents Elsa from being able to control her powers isn't coming from those around her. If you keep track over the course of the film, you start to notice that her powers seem to get out of control when Elsa herself is sad or worried. It becomes (if you forgive the choice of metaphor) like a snowball rolling down a hill... her lack of control keeps her internal fear in a feedback loop, which is what the prophecy meant all along. It's been a long time since I've seen such a successful metaphor for shame and insecurity.
The main thing that everyone remembers from the film is the simple/complex/stunning song "Let It Go", which more than anything else I'm afraid will become an instant cliché. After all, who doesn't remember how jaw-droppingly *good* they thought "My Heart Will Go On" was the very first time they heard it? But while there are kids all over YouTube singing along with Elsa's signature song, the words and intention behind it reveal that it deserves to be remembered as so much more.
Look at it in terms of the story: this girl, who has grown up shut away from everyone -- even her sister -- ever since she was a child because of powers she can't control, accidentally lets her emotions slip and reveals her true nature to everyone. Afraid of what everyone will think of her, she runs away to a distant mountaintop... and there has a kind of epiphany. Over the course of three minutes, she realizes that she no longer has to worry about what anyone thinks. Her secret's out, and there's no longer a reason she shouldn't just own it and become who she really has been all along. There's even one line that's probably the last thing I'd expect to hear in a Disney song: "No right, no wrong, no rules for me!" Moral relativism in a princess song... whoa. (It helps if you know that the songwriters composed it early in the story process, when Elsa was supposed to be a more conventional villain.)
Those aren't the only convention-upsettings, either. A sheltered girl who suddenly finds true love over the course of a boy-girl duet? They've got that, *but* it later turns out that said boy is really just a power-hungry lowlife who's faking it (he later finds out that Anna has a wicked right hook). Even the traditional romantic male lead turns out to be almost totally unnecessary. He's more of a red herring than anything else. At its core, the story really is about two sisters solving the problems between them. What other $300-million grossing movie can you say that about? Frozen definitely plays to a parents' film cliché knowledge, too -- the movie's best laugh, for me at least, is when a riderless sleigh plummets off a cliff, crashes into a snowbank... and then explodes like a 1978 Pinto.
What we come away with is a fairy tale -- which traditionally has taken internal conflicts and made them external in the form of dragon- or witch-shaped metaphors -- and sucker-punched us by re-internalizing its own tropes. The problems, as well as the answers, come from inside. It's a whole new, smarter level of storytelling, and I'm pleased that my daughter is stepping in on the ground floor. And it's shown me that there's still originality out there, and that those in charge of the entertainment our kids will grow up loving really do have something new to say.
