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absent parent syndrome, aps, c.s. lewis, characters, controversy, courageous, creativity, disney, frozen, morality, oocs, out of character syndrome, spontaneous expedient character defamation syndrome, star wars, story dynamics, veggietales, writing
In which Erin delivers her totally-not-offensive run-down of the hit movie…
Okay, I fibbed. This will probably be offensive, though it’s not intended to be. It just depends on how the readers take it. (Please don’t be offended, readers mine. I’m just trying to be totally honest with you.)
A couple of weeks ago, I saw Disney’s hit movie Frozen. Those of you who are fairly conversant with me will remember how I said that I was very upset because I missed out on the “experience” of Frozen, per se; I had received so many spoilers (from generally well-meaning quarters, but also from trolls [not the small round rolling love experts, but the mean Internet entities,]) that by the time I saw the movie, there was nothing left to spoil. Sure, the movie was a good movie, but I would have enjoyed it a whole chunk more if I hadn’t had it spoiled for me.
That much said, even though I love a few things about the movie, there were a few things that bother me. But just to be polite, I’ll mention the things I loved about Frozen first.
- It’s about two sisters, their relationship, and family.
- It involves the sisters becoming closer and their familial bonds becoming tighter (though not quite a la Courageous, which by the way is a fantastic movie and you should REALLY SEE IT if you get the chance!)
- It’s the first Disney movie to be honest about early mornings. (Check out Anna’s bed-head!)
- It’s the first Disney movie to give young women the message that the first guy to catch their eye may not always be Mr. Right.
- Eight words: “You can’t just marry someone you just met!”
“Wait, what?!” Disney’s actually telling someone to wait for the banns?! *LE GASP!* - Anna actually believes in true love. (You’d be surprised how many Disney “heroines” say they do, but their actions say otherwise…) And FYI, true love is not love at first sight. It’s the kind of love that grows on you, that steps forward and says “I love this person even though they are horrible and egotistic and snappy in the mornings” and sends you swooning to the floor and sweeps you off your feet. It’s the sort of love that is a decision that becomes a miracle. It doesn’t have to be between spouses or lovers. Siblings can find it too. To quote the Veggietales (which is TOTALLY more quotable than Disney!) movie Duke and the Great Pie War, “True love’s the kind of love that puts others first.” (I love Duke and the Great Pie War too–not only was it the story of Ruth, Naomi and Boaz with the spotlight on Boaz, which we don’t really see that much, but it had a story featuring baby Moses and ten-year-old Miriam back to back with it. Pure gold.)
- Though Anna and Elsa have their falling-outs, they still make up in the end. (It was fear, not anger, that drove Elsa away.)
- Anna is the true hero of Frozen. Let me say that again: Anna is the true hero of Frozen.
When I heard the songs from the movie (completely out of context), Elsa sounded like a selfish, pettish little pest, while Anna sounded like the naive, sweet person (the classic Disney princess stereotype.) And when I saw the movie, I could identify with Elsa’s angst, but I completely fell in love with Anna. Though it was hard to respect her when she fell in love with Hans, her off-balance moments and spunky, eager, cheerful demeanor more than made up for that. (Get the idea I love Anna much?) Also, Anna is a Christ figure. Like Christ, she has to suffer for her sister’s sins even though she is entirely innocent (except if you want to blame her for being deceived by Hans, who is a much better actor than even Palpatine, really, so you people who love Anakin Skywalker and want to make excuses for him… YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE if you hate Anna over her naivety.) Also like Christ, she ends up saving her sister’s life, upon which Elsa, like Peter, begins to sob… over her “denial” of Anna and their wasted time. Sorry, Elsa. Your ice powers may be visually stunning, but your kid sister TOTALLY has you beat on this count.
Now for the things I didn’t like.
- Absent parents/parents with bad philosophy. Why does Disney (all of popular culture, in fact) have this vicious tendency to pick on parents?! GAH. They deserve our respect for what they do for us! This is just so annoying.
- Teenaged rebel princesses. BOTH of them. (Not only historically inaccurate, but
- Also, there is the fact that there may be a more insidious message to the absent/bad parenthood dynamic. “Conceal, don’t feel”? This sounds eerily similar to the statements anti-Christian propaganda attributes (often falsely) to Christianity. (Yes, I called it propaganda. Live with it.) People think that Christians want to tie people down, to force down their “natural impulses” and live a perverted, repressed life. No. That is not what Christianity is at all. Read C.S. Lewis, for heaven’s sake! He argues it totally better than I ever could. Moving on…
- Song lyrics.
GAH. This is the number one thing that disturbs me about this movie.While I loved “Frozen Heart” (OHMYGOODNESS IT JUST FORESHADOWED THE WHOLE MOVIE IN ONE SONG I LOVE YOU BRILLIANT WRITERS!!!), and the sweetness of “Do You Want to Build a Snowman” and the adorable “In Summer” (and Olaf was a marvelous foil without being ridiculous, by the way! Also, he was more than just a plot device! He made a place for himself, and he is the sweetest thing!), “Let it Go”, which is probably the one most popular song from the film, had a part that had me torn between being disturbed and feeling sick. Here it is: -
that perfect girl is gone
-
No right, no wrong, no rules for me; I’m free!
- SINCE WHEN DOES DISNEY CHANNEL JOHN LENNON?! (yes, I am aware of the pun. *pokes Disney Channel with a stick* die, you…)
- Does anyone else see the problem with this? Apparently, it’s a bad thing to try to be perfect (though having a “perfect image” is, actually, a problem, in my opinion), rules are also bad, and the second line just reeks of moral relativism. (Yes, I do have a problem with that! There is absolute right and wrong!)
Poor Disney. They have the same problem with lyrics and/or lines that Revenge of the Sith did: “Only a Sith deals in absolutes”? There’s a cringe-worthy rhetorical trap right there, and it totally ripped-off Obi-Wan, whose tenure as a Jedi and a character was otherwise absolutely shining. Of course Obi-Wan Kenobi believes in absolute right and wrong! Look at his actions, for the love of the Force!!! He has been wronged too many times in his life to believe that there is no such thing as moral absolutes (since he doesn’t have the throw-up-your-hands victim mentality that would be the only other option in this, I believe that this is safe to assume.) Seriously, Star Wars would be better served if we clipped this line entirely and put subtitles on it instead, claimed the audio was broken, and attributed that what Obi-Wan really said was “I am not your enemy, Anakin.” That speaks better to both the audience and the character. (In fact, when I eventually do see the movie, I will be mentally substituting that for the sickening rhetorical and out-of-character trap that we see above.) The line that was used can’t help but jar, and it ruins the pacing of the scene, making Obi-Wan seem to preach when it seems more in line for him to say something personal which brings a moral conclusion (leading by example, anyone?) to the character as well.
(Most fans agree–sometimes Lucas doesn’t really know what’s best for the franchise.)
Okay, there’s my rants on why Frozen (and Star Wars too) is flawed. Please don’t send me hate mail for ruining your childhood fantasy/favorite movie for you. (MWAHAHAHA–ahem. 😛 )
Thanks for reading, have a great day, and may God bless you! 🙂
The Upstairs Archives 
Okay, die hard Disney fan must have her say. 🙂
I’m tired of going on about the lyrics, so I’ll address your accusation’s of Disney’s portrayal of parents.
Remember Brave?
Tangled?
Mulan?
All of these movies have wonderful and caring parents, and the struggle for most Disney characters is doing what they want while not hurting their parents. I believe most, if not all, characters have a deep respect for their parents, even the evil stepmothers.
Snow White and Cinderella never bore their stepmothers any ill will, and that’s what made the stepmothers especially nasty. They hated their step-daughters for still loving them.
This is in Frozen as well. Elsa never wanted to hide her powers, but she didn’t want to upset her parents, and she definitely didn’t want to hurt Anna.
Likewise, her parents didn’t want her to feel locked away, or monstrous, they just wanted her to not be scared. They may not have known how she was supposed to control them, so they tried to have her hide them, and possibly forget she even had them.
It all comes down to misunderstandings.
That isn’t a bad portrayal of parents, it can be quite realistic.
No parent knows exactly how to deal with their child, and their sometimes unique gifts all the time.
*growls* Still irritates me, though… At least the parents are merely absent and not worse. (Also, don’t make excuses for Tangled. Maybe I’m just the sort of person who finds the novelty of a princess movie wearing off after watching it a couple of times and wants to watch a good Pixar movie instead, but Tangled really bothers me.)
Please don’t criticize me. It’s not my fault I’m a critic.
*does sinister voice* I am only what you made me… GO CHECK OUT PROFESSOR DUKE’S REVIEW OF “ON STRANGER TIDES.” Seriously. You will get a kick out of it. (I think the Spaniards had the right idea, by the way.) His blog is thepunchylands.wordpress.com. 😉
*shakes head* How can anyone ever not like Disney at all? I don’t think I’ll ever understand…
I’m not criticizing, just responding with an alternate opinion.
I’ll have to check that out 🙂
And yes! I love the Spaniards! I was cheering for them during the entire fight at the Fountain! 😀
I like Disney just fine. It’s just that so many of their movies never have a lasting resonation with me. And they make some pretty stupid decisions, sometimes. (Did you know that back during the years when everyone was freaking out about communism, Walt Disney was whatsisname the FBI chief’s insider? That’s partly cool and partly disturbing, to me.)
YAY! I love Professor Duke’s blog, and I’m pretty sure you will enjoy the dadblamery too. 😛
Very interesting analysis. I can’t really make a judgment because I still haven’t seen the movie. I was going to when I was sick but the credit card disconnected and I forgot the number and was too lazy to reconnect it and then I recovered. I guess that’s not really a good excuse … You didn’t like Tangled? A pity. I thought it seemed cool. I want to watch it more than Frozen. Also, I like For the First Time in Foreverhe best from the previews I’ve heard.
*hugs* Yes, another person who waited to see Frozen, and YOU ARE THE AWESOMEST PERSON IN MY WORLD RIGHT NOW!!! You still have not seen Frozen or Tangled yet! That is amazing! Great record. 🙂
Tangled is a great movie, and one of the most visually beautiful ones I’ve seen (I should make a top five most visually stunning movies I’ve seen one of these days…) I just get tired of it, and there are some themes in there which I don’t care for (teenage rebellion, for one.) I’m not a Disney afficionado, per se, but I do love a good Pixar or Dreamworks movie.
Um … not sure if the praise is warranted, but thanks. 🙂
*hugs you* 🙂 It’s just nice to know that other people are studiously avoiding the uber-popular things.
(i swear i am not a stalker lol i just got notification of your response to my other comment and i saw this 😐 ) I’m not a huge fan of Frozen because I’m related to people who worked on it and it was shoved down my throat for MONTHS, but! You disliked one of the things I loved most, so I figured I might explain why I liked it.
Elsa & Anna’s parents were emotionally abusive without intending to be, which is pretty uncommon (and deep) for Disney. I personally appreciated that because Disney usually takes either the decent or 100% awful approach. In Frozen, the parents are super out of their depth and end up accidentally hurting their kids even though they love them. I know a lot of people–myself included–who can relate to that. Including the part where they ask for advice on how to deal with Elsa and then completely, albeit accidentally, ignore it. I thought they played it pretty safe: nobody was angry and no blame was really thrown at them. Basically, her parents aren’t bad guys but they do make pretty big parenting mistakes.
As for Let it Go, the moment it occurs in is key. By the end, she does live in a world with right/wrong/rules, but prior to that moment, she’d spent all her life believing part of her is bad/wrong and that she needed fear-based rules to keep her in check. Similarly, the “perfect girl” is both the front she put up–the version of her without powers–and her prior to making any mistakes/letting her powers slip. That girl IS gone. Everyone knows now. She done screwed the pooch. But it felt good because, for the first time in a long time, she got to be herself–it’s freeing! And she realizes she can’t change who she is, hence the “moral relativism”. That’s the attitude you get when you raise a kid to believe that something they really can’t change about themselves is wrong: they go through a period of “whatever, I don’t care about anything!!” Elsa grows out of this by the end. But it’s a very, very realistic reaction. I mean, I exploded into a puddle of parent-hating hedonistic nihilism when I got my first taste of freedom, but I don’t act or think like that anymore. I’m not sure why “Let it Go” is popular with the masses, but I loved it because I didn’t think Disney had that kind of insight.
Maybe I’ve been taking that part of the song wrong, but it still bugs me. 🙂 And the parent thing: you’re probably right about the characters. I’ve only seen the movie once, so this is my initial perception that has been stewing a couple of weeks. Well, months. Anyway.
Did I mention I’d love to see a novelization and expansion of Frozen (provided it had that depth without the worries that special effects cause… sometimes I think we’re lucky as authors, because we don’t have to worry about that sort of thing much)? Also, dang it… I just realized I wanted to critique it as an adaption of Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Snow Queen”… and I forgot to do that in this post. Oh well, there’s always another day, I suppose.
Eh, you’re allowed to be bugged. I mean, she is basically dismissing the existence right and wrong (which isn’t exactly moral relativism, btw*). I know quite a few people with differing moral standpoints who don’t like that particular moment, but I get where both she and the writers were coming from. If she kept that view throughout the movie, I might’ve had an issue, but she did go back to her kingdom and reunite with her sister, so. Originally she was going to become evil and, from what I understand, that moment was intentionally ambiguous: she could’ve gone either way from there.
I don’t know if I’d even call it an “adaption” of the Snow Queen, though. Maybe “inspired by” haha. (And I’d also love a Frozen novel. I’d like to see more of what was going through Elsa’s head: her shift from the “perfect girl” to “Let it Go” to the end of the movie. Which I would’ve definitely explored as a writer. 😉 )
*Descriptive moral relativism is the acknowledgement that people disagree on what is moral, normative moral relativism is the idea that you can’t be objectively (as in, 100% logically; many morals have less to do with ~universal truth and more to do with tradition, basically) right or wrong, and meta-ethnical says that you should tolerate the behavior of others no matter your morals because you can’t objectively prove that your morals are big-T Truth. Most people are at least descriptive.
What Elsa’s talking about is more like moral nihilism (morals are meaningless because nothing is intrinsically right or wrong; I’ve never met anyone who’s held this view for a long time because it often creates a logic vortex).
About moral relativism: That’s true. I’m sorry, I wasn’t clear. I’m not quite familiar with the terminology, but I’m always ready to learn. 🙂
And she does wise up, so… bonus points for her. 😛
I would write a Frozen novel, except I’m really more into this other story I’m writing at the moment, with another one waiting to be scribbled down and two plot bunnies I’m trying to stave off…. yeah. Life is wild.
Yes, I’ve always wondered about Obi-Wan’s remark, in truth. Wasn’t Anna a bit dull, though?
She wasn’t dull. She certainly wasn’t uneducated. Perhaps she was a bit socially awkward, but that’s kind of to be expected. No, she was just naive. She was also unexpected and spunky, which is most certainly not dull.
Why do you suppose she never left the castle?
I don’t know. Maybe she just wanted to stick with her sister.
Dadblamery I tell you!
That’s probably true. (Why didn’t Disney make that a subplot?!)
Erin, if you were one of the scriptwriters, it would have been better. Did you know they rewrote the whole script just to fit the song “Let it Go”?
Thanks, but… I don’t think I’m THAT good. 😛
Really? *facepalms* What a cop-out. So, they released “Let it Go” as a promo and then had to write it into the script when it proved way more popular when they expected? Or did they just have “Let it Go” lying around and someone said, “Hey, this song has potential, let’s write it into the next movie”?
Well, they brought in the song–the composers, that is–and the director liked it so much, the whole first act was rewritten to fit it.
Ahhhh. So, more the second scenario, then. (Who directed it? I forget.)
I forget, too! But she was a she.
Ah. 😛
I wonder what Pixar is doing at the moment? (Whatever it is, I hope it’s good…)
I wonder, too. Did you see Brave? I thought it was a bit similar to How To Train Your Dragon.
Not quite…. It is a little similar, but I’d have to give it more thought.
Dadblame copy!
I don’t think so… Not exactly, anyway. And I do like Hiccup’s relationship with his dad in the end of the movie. ^_^
We watched a comedian in class today… his routine only had ONE funny bit. The rest of it was either slightly offensive or just plain weird. Hiccup is MUCH funnier.
Hiccup is funny. You know, I think a lot of that has to do with his voice.
And his imitation of other people. 😛
I thought it was a good movie, but then I read this article or something about themes that the movie promoted. “Let It Go” actually is promoting gay rights, and talking about how you have “to be yourself” and you were “born this way”. I wouldn’t put it past Disney to do that…And you know how Elsa had to hide her powers, just like gay people say they have to hide how they really are and all that crap…
After I read that article, I didn’t like the movie as much, if at all. : (
That’s horrible… Disney, why do you have to ruin our fun?! :’-(
I know!!!! It’s so sad!!!!
:’-(
Disney seems to excel at ruining my childhood loves…
They do. I only like Tangled, as far as their movies go.
I like other of their movies, but I really prefer their Pixar ones. The princess ones are ultimately forgettable, but classics like “The Incredibles” and “Wreck-it Ralph”? NEVAR!!!
I agree with almost everything you said here, even if I did really like the movie.
I did really like the song Let it Go, because it represented so much–that was wrong. She’s rebelling, she’s running away, she’s throwing off every restraint—and if you keep watching, it doesn’t work! It still comes back to haunt her. And I totally agree with what you said about parents!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That drives me nuts! Especially in Tangled……anyway, I love what I’ve read of your blog so far.
Thanks! 😀 I know there are several viewpoints on this, and it’s explainable for the story, but that doesn’t mean we like it. 😛 I know she partly ran off to protect people, but it was mostly because she was afraid, and that’s not a good reason to run.
Also, how’d Rapunzel become such a sweet girl when Gothel was such a…. well, you know what I’m thinking. 😛 I know that there’s nature as well as nurture, but that seems a little much, wouldn’t you say?
I agree! I do think she was wrong to run away! But it makes for a good story! (Just like killing people…..*cough cough*)
Again, I agree. People with good parents have a hard enough time doing it right….. Not saying that people with not so good parents are excused or don’t have the ability to do good.
But what got me most was how she disobeyed her “mom” and ended up as the right one. My sister says, “But she wasn’t her mom!” and I reply, “SO? She thought she was!”
Anyway….
X-P “All Authors are sociopaths–we just limit our murders to fictional people.” –me
Yeah… That bothers me too. The problem is that it wasn’t even wrong to stay in the tower from a moral point of view. From a purely relativistic point of view, it might’ve been, but it wasn’t wrong from a moral/ethical point of view.
I’m going to scream at you. You have been warned.
OF COURSE Obi-Wan believes in moral absolutes! The absolutes he meant, the ones that fall Sith-side, are the human ones. As in, once a villain, always a villain, or a person being absolutely bad or absolutely good. AS YOU WOULD KNOW HAD YOU EVER SEEN ROTS AND WATCHED THAT LINE IN CONTEXT!!!
And actually the line “the perfect girl is gone” is pretty damn spot-on for life in general. Like, yes, you can look perfect, yes, everybody can be fooled, but sooner or later you will slip and then… “the perfect girl is gone.”
Human absolutes… I will have to see if that’s a philosophy concept, because if it’s NOT then it should be.
People take it the wrong way, though… I want to smack them in the face with a newspaper. Maybe they’ll get headlines on their faces… now that would be amusing.