From the linked article, a bit of a plot summary:
Without going into too many spoilers, let’s just say that Frozen's climax does not involve a man coming to the rescue of a starry-eyed princess. The princesses at the center of this story—sisters Elsa and Anna—are defined by their unique upbringing and estranged relationship to one another, not by the men in their lives. They are fully fleshed out characters with a wide spectrum of human qualities including love, fear, loneliness, anger, frustration, bravery, and vulnerability. What drives the film is Anna’s longing to connect with her sister and Elsa’s struggle to protect Anna by keeping her distance. The stakes couldn’t be higher for them. Romantic love is an aside, a subplot; the men are supporting players in this love story between two sisters. I have no problem with them being role models for my daughters.Meanwhile, in the background, there's the original Hans Christian Andersen story "The Snow Queen," which I haven't read in a long time. Its ending is distinctly religious:
... Kay and Gerda... both had forgotten the cold empty splendor of the Snow Queen, as though it had been a dream. The grandmother sat in the bright sunshine, and read aloud from the Bible: "Unless ye become as little children, ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven."Unless ye become as little children, ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Here's my idea for a novel I won't write: A dumb but saintly American adult encounters that challenging advice — which is a weird combination of charming and dire — and dedicates himself to following it, using the anachronistic example of modern American children.
And Kay and Gerda looked in each other's eyes, and all at once they understood the old hymn:
"The rose in the valley is blooming so sweet,There sat the two grown-up persons; grown-up, and yet children; children at least in heart; and it was summer-time; summer, glorious summer!
And angels descend there the children to greet."
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58 comments:
Now I have Neil Young's "I Am a Child" going through my head.
Once, a reporter asked Young how he managed to often keep a child-like simplicity to his work.
Young's answer: "I like to poop and play guitar solos."
I can't find the source for that right now.
I am Laslo.
I am wary when they publish this kind of news. Now the creepy guys in the white vans know to keep "Elsa" dolls in the back, rather than "Barbie."
When I was a child, I looked up to my cousin Elsa, who had a doll named Sugar. I remember feeling that not only Elsa but Sugar was famous.
My father's mother was also named Elsa.
Forrest Gump has a child like approach to life. Is that in the direction you are envisioning for the novel?
A lot of Elsas this past Halloween.
I tried to explain the religious significance of the ending of The Little Match Girl to my daughter and she was having none of it.
As far as she was concerned, heaven is a lousy ending.
"Forrest Gump has a child like approach to life. Is that in the direction you are envisioning for the novel?"
I'm picturing more of critique or spoof of these kids today and how little they'd really work as a model for how to satisfy the Christian ideal.
Unless ye become as little children, ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.
One of those assertions that maybe sounds OK, as long as you don't think about it too much.
And Frozen is culturally subversive, some think. See here: Frozen, dissected for example.
I don't know why Barbie keeps getting dumped on as a role model for little girls. She has had a career path that has taken her from fashion model and nurse to doctor and paleontologist. If you have a little girl who aspires to be anything, you can probably find a Barbie doll who has that career. No magic or super powers involved. It's not little girls who are fascinated by her large breasts and tiny waist.
Took my 2yr old Granddaughter Trick or Treating (Snow White) & a vast majority of 3-10 year olds were Elsa. I had no clue.
I-am-out-of-touch.
p.s. Snow White was cuter
Surprisingly, what was not mentioned in the Forbes article is that the sale of Frozen merchandising has dramatically altered the profit margins of retailers like Target and Walmart. It's not often that a single category, let alone a single product line within a category, can make more than a marginal difference in the profits of large retailers.
This picture was a booming home run for Disney and for those in their supply line in the exploitation chain. Not for nuthin', but Disney is just banging them out of the park with Pixar, Marvel, their own products like Frozen and Big Hero 6 and now Lucasfilm and the JJ Abrams reboot of Star Wars. These are good times for the Rat.
-Krumhorn
- Krumhorn
I hated frozen. It was a fairy tale written by people who don't believe in fairy tales. Set us up with a traditional arc (handom Prince saves the day), yanks the rug out from that, presents an alternate traditional ending (poor boy with heart of gold saves the day), yanks out that rug, too, then finalizes with a confused relationship. In no way could an unchaperoned princess have a casual male friend like the movie presented. It made non sense.
The fact is girls like Elsa because she's a queen with no apparent responsibilities and extra magicical powers, not because she represents a new archetype.
Personally, I think the reason every girl likes Elsa is that she's bad ass. No one tells Elsa what to do.
No little girl dressed up as Anna this Halloween, even thought it is Anna who has the most screen time and acts with the most bravery.
THE NEWSROOM season 3 episode 3 used the word again here and Sorkin is a good friend of Dowd's re line in the show last sunday -- "ACN won't be attending the Saturnalia of incestuous ingratiation that does little
to instill confidence in the public that the press isn't ensorcelled by the powerful.”
And Frozen is culturally subversive, some think. See here: Frozen, dissected for example
There's something alarmingly nuts about that guy, and his declared need to re-cast all fiction as projected lunacy. There must be some set of terms to describe this sort of pathological need to rationalize all culture and art in mis-applied psychoanalytic terms, but nothing comes to mind. Pathological scientism maybe?
I have a stuffed bear named Tiger. I have had Tiger for forty years. When I have adult thoughts I push the adult thoughts into Tiger's head. Tiger has a lot of bad thoughts in his head, but he is still fun to play with most of the time.
Sometimes we play with Barbie dolls. Tiger, he always has me undress them, and then he makes me push two of them together. Push, push, push. After we push them together Tiger has me pull their arms off.
Tiger tells me that real women have these parts between their legs that Barbies don't. I don't want to know about that. Sometimes Tiger gets angry that I don't want to know about that, and he has me pull Barbie's legs off. We have a lot of Barbies with no arms or legs. We used to have a lot of legs and arms from Barbies, but Tiger has me bury those, he says that is what you do when you cut off a woman's arms and legs.
I have a pee-pee and Tiger doesn't. This makes Tiger angry. Tiger gets angry a lot, and says that women are whores. I don't know what a whore is.
Sometimes we see a woman that Tiger really likes and he wants me to get her to go away with us. I don't know where we'd go, but Tiger says leave that up to him. He also says we would need a saw and a shovel. I don't understand Tiger sometimes.
I worry that Tiger will not go to Heaven with me. Tiger tells me there is no Heaven, and that makes me sad. If there is no Heaven then where is Grandma?
Tiger says that if there WAS a Heaven then we would want to strangle women so they go to Heaven faster. This also has something to do with whores, but I don't know what a whore is, I think I have said that already.
I worry that if Tiger dies all those thoughts would come back into MY head. I don't want to strangle whores and cut their arms and legs off.
I am Laslo.
My four year old loves to belt out "Let it Go" and will happily put on an Elsa costume but it is Anna's character that really captured her heart. She didn't want to dress up as either one for Halloween though (she wanted to be a grizzly bear for reasons unknown.)
The song is definitely a big hook for little girls, and I'm not sure why. It's not bad and not nearly as grating as some music that little kids like but I really don't know why little girls find it so irresistible.
I haven't seen the movie. That synopsis makes it sound like a girl version of brotherhood/buddy movies like Stand By Me and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
When I was a youngster, a common observation was that boys and men tended to have better relationships with each other than girls and women. That seemed strange. Clearly the two genders tend to have different relationships that follow patterns, but when I was young, there was a qualitative assessment. I heard girls and women complain about it occasionally.
One of George Saunders's stories, Semplica Girl Diaries, deals with the consequences of a child following mom and dad's advice.
Mitch H. said...
There's something alarmingly nuts about that guy, and his declared need to re-cast all fiction as projected lunacy.
That might be your problem right there. He doesn't re-case all fiction as projected lunacy.
And, substitute the word 'irrationality' for 'lunacy' and you will nearer his point. Assuming, of course, that you want to do more than just dismiss him with an ad hominem.
There must be some set of terms to describe this sort of pathological need to rationalize all culture and art in mis-applied psychoanalytic terms, but nothing comes to mind.
Misunderstanding his meaning, comes to my mind.
There are some truly brilliant insights in his review of that movie. As a society, we pay far to little attention to what we 'let go' into our subconscious.
A lot of it makes us easy marks for those who would keep us on our knees.
Laslo shows what happens if you allow children to read too much Calvin & Hobbes without adult supervision and guidance.
Bullshit, his entire argument is constructed, from stem to stern, top-sail to keel, of contemptuous, explicit ad hominem:
From Frodo Baggins to Luke Skywalker, great souls often escape a petty world into violent fantasies – this is not meant to describe actual people or events, but is rather a description of the writers, since the stories are fiction. Great intelligence is a prerequisite for great imagination; fantasy writers seek to escape the dullness and predictability of their everyday acquaintances – particularly as children, when imagination first flowers – by creating heroes who leave boring childhoods for intergalactic adventures. This violent rejection of the writer’s early environment contains a base hatred against the culture he grows up in – this hatred is projected into the blackened heart of the usual arch-villain.
That's bugnuts.
When the great Judge reads me my sins, I'm going to try "I'm rubber and you're glue, it bounces off me and sticks to you."
Mitch H. said...
Bullshit, his entire argument is constructed, from stem to stern, top-sail to keel, of contemptuous, explicit ad hominem:
Ok, cousin. Have a nice life.
After all, one can lead a horse to water . . .
Henry:
"Personally, I think the reason every girl likes Elsa is that she's bad ass. No one tells Elsa what to do."
Right - here's my objection. Except for the magical powers, and that wonderful scene where she runs across the harbor with it freezing just in front of her, and that terrific song/palace-building sequence, she's not much of a badass at all. She's a remarkably passive character, to whom things happen, good and bad.
"No little girl dressed up as Anna this Halloween, even thought it is Anna who has the most screen time and acts with the most bravery."
Which is why I would much prefer my little girl to identify with Anna, but alas, no.
I rented Frozen and made it to the end. It was entertaining, but it wasn't a life affirming experience. I don't think I was part of the target demographic for that movie so I can't offer any opinion pro or con.
The kids know. We are entering another Ice Age.. but on the positive side there will be less tropical disease.
I want my daughter to grow up like Mulan, who frustrated her father to no end but.loved him so much that she saved China from the Huns
Here's what you need to know about Elsa. She represents the easy road. That you can get something for nothing. Just look to your beneficent leaders.
The best cages are those they can get you to not even see.
My granddaughter is obsessed with Elsa and was the most awesome Elsa this past Halloween. (I suggested Zombie Elsa, which made my granddaughter scream "No!" and glare at me.) She has rotated her obsession amongst other Disney princesses, particularly Cinderella (it's the blue.) I don't have an answer, but I think three factors are:
1) The music. I personally can't stand most of it, but my granddaughter loves it and it is really singable.
2) The look. Elsa looks different than many princesses. You can't discount the aesthetic appeal. Ariel has a definite popularity because of this.
3) It's contemporary. For better or for worse, Frozen is the only memorable animated movie in several years, especially from Disney. For a four to six year-old, I believe that this has a big impact.
Support for this last point is that when I watched my granddaughter's elementary school Halloween parade, there was an inverse relationship between age and the number of Elsas (and the opposite for Zombies, Captain America and Iron Man.)
"The music. I personally can't stand most of it, but my granddaughter loves it and it is really singable."
Starting with the Lion King, I've found Disney Movie Music intolerable. It all sounds like Broadway show tunes and lite opera to me. Oh for the Jazzy-pop days of "Lady and the tramp" or "The Jungle Book"
I liked Olaf...he made me laugh.
Teens like her too. My teen niece has outgrown that Disney Channel phase, but still managed to know every song on the Frozen soundtrack.
What Disney cleverly did was take the Snow Queen from Grimm's Fairy Tales cross it with the magical girl anime archetype.
The magical girl is someone who receives fantastic or mystical powers at a young age and then goes around kicking ass while wearing sparkly glammy outfits. It's huge with young girls in Japan (Sailor Moon, Pretty Cure, Lyrical Nanoha). There is little if any romance involved.
It is so popular over there that there are now some rather well-made deconstructions of it (Puella Magi Madoka Magica).
@Willow Also Revolutionary Girl Utena. The Magical Girl is a fun archetype. It's amazing it wasn't more prevalent before (since archetypes are supposed to be universal by definition.)
There are some funny parodies too, like Fate/Kaleid Liner, which takes Fate/Stay Night (a dark and bloody series) and turns the whole cast into a bunch of cute magical girls with wands.
Hmmm...I have been wanting to pull a "Dwight Schrute" by buying up all of the most popular dolls for 2014 in my area prior to Christmas. I would then sell them at an extreme mark up to desperate parents that let their shopping go to the last minute.
Gotta go buy a truckload of "Frozen" dolls....
Elsa is prettier than Barbie. In recent years, Barbie's clothes have tended toward 'practical.' Elsa still wears ball gowns.
So, what this means for children is "little girls like ball gowns."
Elsa's main outfit is the exact blue and silver dress and crown I wore as Glinda the Good Witch of the North in a 7th-grade Wizard of Oz.
JPS wrote: Right - here's my objection. Except for the magical powers, and that wonderful scene where she runs across the harbor with it freezing just in front of her, and that terrific song/palace-building sequence, she's not much of a badass at all. She's a remarkably passive character, to whom things happen, good and bad.
Can't really disagree, but the reluctant hero (or, really the reluctant anti-hero. in Elsa's case) is a very attractive character.
Think of Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven. Or Mel Gibson in The Road Warrior. It starts with the hero wanting to be left alone and ends up with a landscape of destruction.
If you turn the sound off, its an amazing movie. I wonder how it sounds in Japanese.
I'm not surprised that "Frozen" did well, considering all the talent from the Broadway production of "Wicked" involved with it.
JPS wrote: Right - here's my objection. Except for the magical powers, and that wonderful scene where she runs across the harbor with it freezing just in front of her, and that terrific song/palace-building sequence, she's not much of a badass at all. She's a remarkably passive character, to whom things happen, good and bad.
Ice is passive, it is the absence of energy.
richard mcenroe:
"Ice is passive, it is the absence of energy."
I need to think about this….
Henry:
"Think of Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven. Or Mel Gibson in The Road Warrior. It starts with the hero wanting to be left alone and ends up with a landscape of destruction."
Now these are the greatest "Frozen" connections since Mary Katherine Ham's essay comparing it to The Shining:
http://tinyurl.com/lykye49
What i find most interesting about Frozen is how important it still is. It came out a year ago, a huge chunk of a little girl's life, and those little girls are still apt to break out in a screaming rendition of "Let It Go" at any moment.
As far as whether I'm ok with my daughter wanting to be Elsa for holloween, Let It Go is pure girl power. These damsels can handle their own distress.
We didn't enjoy Frozen that much, so we didn't buy it, which means my kids don't have Frozenmania. I enjoyed Tangled a lot more.
My four year old was Princess Darth Vader for Halloween, which stuck out like a sore thumb in the sea of Annas and Elsas that littered my fb feed and the neighborhood. I was so proud.
"Let It Go" has a terrible message. She's singing it when she's being evil.
From the song:
It's time to see what I can do
To test the limits and break through
No right, no wrong, no rules for me I'm free!
Achievement linked to the transcendence of right and wrong. Cultural poison.
Also, girls want to be Elsa because she's the pretty one who wears the sparkling gown.
Current girl culture is repulsive.
I forgot about Tangled. My granddaughter went through a "Tangled" stage too (not Rapunzel, mind you, Tangled.) In a few years, there will be another Disney movie that will get kids excited. Oh yeah, Star Wars.
Also, it's not a "role-model" toy, it's a toy.
It sounds different when you recall that the "rules" she's talking about are the ones about not using or revealing her powers (and using them freely is the only "bad" thing she's doing throughout the song). She's not talking about transcendance of all right and wrong; she's talking about breaking out of the parental box, about growing up.
It's not a coincidence that she looks, acts, and is dressed like a little girl at the start of that sequence, and by the end her clothes, hair, even her body language are those of a grown woman.
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