This animated film, “Frozen,” features two beautiful sisters that have never had a real relationship until their parents die in a tragic accident. As one sister Elsa finally breaks free, the other sister Anna chases after to show that she will always accept her. Frozen brings out the themes of family, love and of course just letting go and being who you truly are. While this a heartwarming parable of sisterhood, the story itself has much more to tell behind the curtains. Behind the curtains, Frozen uses magic powers as a metaphor for puberty.
This is a time when our emotions are raw, uneasy, unpredictable, and new. Elsa is the sister with magical powers. She has the ability to create snow and ice but from the time she was young she was told to conceal it. This could be because when going through puberty, girls go through changes in the body. Her parents did not want to allow the men to see that and chase after her so they locked her away. Her sister, Anna, who was a lot younger at the time did not understand which forced Elsa to feel like she could not relate to her anymore.
This caused Elsa to completely shut Anna out. When it comes to women hitting puberty, the more they suppress it, the worse it comes out. When Elsa finally explodes she puts the entire kingdom under a blizzard of unstoppable snow. The new feelings and our urges to appeal to the opposite sex or same sex, could both be described as having powers. The hit song, “Let it Go” may present a deeper meaning to the story and certainly paralleling with Elsa and the theory of her coming out and being gay. Elsa lives by the motto, “Conceal, don’t feel. Don’t let it show. Her parents hide her away in her bedroom, lock the gates so that nobody can see her powers. They say her nature is unacceptable as well as dangerous so is she forced to train herself to control it. They specifically say in the movie that she was not cursed with these powers but that she was born with them. She is forced to wear white gloves, which symbolizes that the gloves are some form of concealment holding in her true feelings and emotions. When Elsa finally takes off the gloves and shows her powers the society disowns her and she runs away to the mountains.
The mountains represent the uphill battle that Elsa is facing with her emotions but when she finally can’t conceal it anymore she blossoms into everything she is, but could not be. In the song, she finally says that perfect girl is gone, and that she is free. Elsa was a troubled character in the beginning and the more the story proceeds, the more she rebuilds herself. Accepting herself was the first part of being who she truly is but when she comes back to the kingdom, they finally learned to accept her. One of the most controversial theories for this movie, is that it is sexist.
Frozen is based on a Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale where a girl saves a male friend but in the movie they made Anna need a man’s help. As far as how the characters looked, the male was made out to look like he doesn’t care about how he dresses. This is portrayed as a stereotypically male. For Anna they make her almost appear to look like Rapunzel from the movie ‘Tangled. ’ This is just proving that most of Disney’s characters lack diversity. Anna also had huge eyes that were practically bigger than most her body parts.
This could be signaling that a part of being female is to be as small as possible while having other body parts big to attract others. On the other hand, Elsa expresses how free she is by always doing what she wanted. She got rid of her old traditional dress and outdated it with a beautiful, and sexy dress. She also decorated her new castle just the way she wanted, like the average traditional woman would do. The freedom also caused her to leave behind the kingdom as well as her sister. In most Disney movies the male would have took responsibility for his actions but she is forced to go back in chains.
The chains symbolize that her freedom is taken away from her. One of the most feminist theories is that girls are always falling in love at first sight. This happens to Anna when she meets Hans. Hans uses his charm to overcome Anna’s weak ability to see past it. The charm is almost seen as an unstoppable force over women. This is a power that men have used on women that can’t see past it. It is almost not fair to the women that they have no control over it. Anna also gives Hans all her trust, leaving him the kingdom while she searches for her sister. This represents her immaturity and lack of wisdom that young women now a days portray.
This leaves the audience feeling like they portray all women as naive and thoughtless. While the movie Frozen tells a tale about two sisters coming together, it also shows two women finding their own strengths and weaknesses. They not only find their strengths and weaknesses but they learn and rebuild from the bottom up. The deeper messages found in this movie can relate to how hard it is for someone hiding something to hide it and not be able to express who they really are. It encourages everybody to express their true self as well as break free and don’t let society decide who you are.
