With Frozen 2 a year away, there have been many rumors surrounding it. A big one was, of course, that Elsa may be getting a love interest, and, that it might be a woman. Since homophobia is a thing of the past, the internet did not freak out at all. OK, in spite of all the drama from “Think of the kids” to “People working at Disney are pedophiles”, the numerous shades of homophobia isn’t what I want to talk about, at least, not right now. Instead, I found a particular type of comment far more intriguing:
“I thought the point was her being a strong independent woman”.
Apparently, I decided to begin this blog with a bunch of contrarian opinions, so let’s get this out of the way:
- I don’t love Frozen, I like it, but that’s about it;
- Elsa isn’t my favorite character in it;
- I don’t agree with the Elsa is a strong independent woman™.
The last statement is the one I intend to develop, but, first, a not so short summary of the film:
In the kingdom of Arendelle, there’s a princess with ice powers named Elsa, who accidentally hurts her sister, Anna. Following this, and with her incentive of her parents, the princess begins to get in the closet try to suppress her powers, which leads her to isolate herself from the world including her own sister.
Their parents die and a bunch of years later, Elsa is crowned queen. Anna, forced to be alone as a result of Elsa’s isolation, is longing for human connection, which leads her to believe marrying the first guy she meets (Hans) is a good idea. Elsa disapproves of this, which leads to a fight that culminates in the revelation of her powers. She runs away, freezing the entire kingdom. She gets her catharsis by yelling “I’m gay!” singing “Let it Go” on the top of a mountain (or mid-mountain if you must be pedantic), and finally accepts herself and embraces her powers. Afterwards, she’s mostly miserable.
Anna goes on a quest to get her sister, show her acceptance and help end the Winter in Arendelle. During this, she meets Kristoff and his reindeer, as well as a snowman created by Elsa named Olaf. They reach Elsa, but she refuses to return as she doesn’t think she’ll manage to reverse the situation. Anna is stubborn, which leads Elsa to accidentally freeze her heart, forcing the group to finally give up in order to find a way to cure Anna. They are told that true love is the cure while Hans gets Elsa.
In Arendelle, Hans reveals he never really loved Anna and leaves her to die. He tells Elsa her sister’s dead and she has a break down, during which he tries to kill her, but his plan is foiled by Anna, who steps in front of Elsa, protecting her while freezing completely. Elsa hugs her and cries, and Anna… defrosts due to her heroic moment/sacrifice for her sister – a gesture of true love. At this point, Elsa realizes all you need is love (a shame she didn’t listen to the Beatles), which allows her to fix the kingdom.
Oh, Hans and accomplices are arrested. Also, Anna and Kristoff become a couple.
With that out of the way, it’s time for me to make my case.
Though Elsa freezes Arendelle (albeit accidentally), she never takes responsibility for it. Instead she runs away, leaving everyone else to deal with it. When Anna tries to reach her, she accidentally freezes her heart. In spite of being upset by this, Elsa doesn’t even try to fix it, so Kristoff, Olaf and Anna are the ones trying to figure out how to save the latter. Anna eventually succeeds in this by sacrificing herself in order to protect Elsa, the one who caused the problem in the first place.
Elsa is, indeed, a sympathetic character and she does learn from sister’s lesson in love, allowing her to use Love Ex Machina, but Anna (alongside her friends) is the one who takes on an active role and risks danger in order to save herself, Elsa and the kingdom. It’s a bit disappointing to see all her deeds being overlooked because she does that with help and she wanted romantic love.
There is also another thing I want to address in comments like this:
Ignore the part of “The Little Mermaid”, I’m not going to discuss in this post. I particularly want to focus on the part “making Elsa gay is especially moronic because it doesn’t fit the character at all she was always strong and independent”. I already explained why I disagree with this view on Elsa, now, I want to address the implication of the rest of the assertion: being single is synonymous with being strong and independent.
In order to avoid any misunderstandings, I agree with both the messages “It’s OK to be single” and “You can be strong and independent”, but they are different. Being single doesn’t automatically mean being strong and independent, and being the latter doesn’t mean you cannot fall in love with anyone and spend the rest of your life together.
Elsa isn’t the only single Disney princess either (I know she’s a queen), Moana and Merida also are. And I actually think they fit much better the role of strong and independent woman, since are more active in their stories and actually try to deal and fix their mistakes, instead of hiding and hoping it goes away (this isn’t to say that Moana and Brave are better than Frozen – they aren’t).
Confusing strength and independence with being single is just trading the ridiculous notion of “You need to be in a couple” for the also ridiculous notion “You have to be single in order to be independent”. I think I can show it with another Disney princess that you don’t have to want to be single to be strong and independent: Mulan. She joins the army in order to protect her father. She learns to adapt and use her creativity and quick thinking skills to win a war and succeeds, saving the emperor and country. I don’t think her character lost any value because she ends up with Disney’s LGBTQ+ icon, Captain Li Shang (I know it was accidental, but it still counts, Disney!).
So I guess I better end up my contrarian opinion with a cheesy, but ultimately honest message: be yourself. Unless you’re mean, then be someone else (that joke is totally original). And don’t let people convince that you’re worse for being either single or in a relationship… or for being in several of them, provided everyone involved is aware and consented to the situation. I’m gonna go now…
Nerd Side of the Media 