A perpetually perplexing phenomenon
Source: Wikimedia Commons
In November of 2013, years before I had a child, I played hooky from work to watch “Frozen” in the theater. I have a long history of enjoying children’s films, from “Madagascar” to “Pokémon.”
I left the theater underwhelmed and have only become increasingly disgruntled about the film’s staying power. I simply do not understand everyone’s obsession with this story and its characters. I think it is Disney’s worst film.
The protagonist, Elsa, has an erratic magical power she can’t control, which makes her angry, so she’s a dick to everyone. Especially her kind sister, Anna, who deserves it the least. If Elsa couldn’t handle her shit, she should have abdicated the throne. She needed counseling, not a pair of gloves.
Anna should have just let Elsa run off to her ice palace and stay there forever. Good riddance! Go throw your tantrums in the privacy of your own cold ass house. Everyone knows that 72 degrees is the best temperature.
Sure, the soundtrack is well done, but you can only hear “Let It Go” once before you have to throw yourself in front of a train. Irony is thinking I need only hear that song once in my lifetime. But my toddler (AKA Tiny Boss) has other plans. This song, combined with “Baby Shark” and “I Will Always Love You” form a trio of the world’s worst ear worms.
The major flaw of this movie is that when you create a fictional world you must also create the rules of this world. With Elsa, we find out scene by scene that she not only produces ice from her hands, but that she can use that ice to create clothing (which is somehow comfortable and doesn’t melt), she can bestow life to a snowman, freeze fjords, turn her sister’s hair white, and whatever the fuck else the writers feel like.
What’s going to happen the first time Elsa menstruates in her palace? Is she going to use an ice tampon? No! That warm blood is going to melt her clothes right off and bring her whole palace down around her. She’ll just be standing in a pool of blood. Now, undiscerning five-year-olds may not be asking these sorts of questions. But I will poke holes in any plot.
The snowman, Olaf, pines to experience summer. This paradox is apparently supposed to pull at my heartstrings. But, instead, it pulls on my last nerve. How does he know summer exists? He was just created and has only known winter. Furthermore, how does he know how to speak? In Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein,” the monster had to teach himself how to speak and read.
The movie wishes to reflect feminist ideals, as evidenced by Anna being the one to save her own life by — ironically — giving up her life to save her bitchy sister. For once, Disney, your protagonist didn’t need to be kissed by some dude to fix her problems. However, immediately before that, she was so gaga for Prince Hans that she was ready to marry him despite knowing him for less than 24 hours. Let’s not overlook that her first assumption was that his kiss would be the thing to save her. Thus, the story revisits old tropes even while trying to convince the viewer that this is indeed feminism.
History repeats itself when we can’t remember what we did wrong before. Thus, Anna’s parents taking her to the trolls to wipe her memory of Elsa’s magical powers was exactly the wrong thing to do. Now poor Anna has to grow up lonely, wondering why her sister shuns her.
Also — why exactly do these trolls just happen to have the power to wipe someone’s memory? That’s an oddly specific skill. But I digress. If the trolls say, “Thank gawrsh she got hit in the head and not the heart. She’d die for sure if she was hit in the heart!” why the hell didn’t her parents immediately put her into a suit of armor or a portable hot tub to protect her chest instead of just giving some flimsy gloves to Elsa to stop the spread of ice?
It boils my blood every time I think about all the things wrong with this movie. Parents — please give your children better role models. Try Ellen Ripley of the “Alien” series.
A Flick of the Pen 