The Feminist Debate Surrounding Disney’s Frozen

This past year millions of little girls have likely belted out the Oscar-winning song from Disney’s Frozen, “Let it Go.”  The catchy tune has been hailed as an anthem for individuality and girl power with lines that encourage girls to “test the limits and break through,” to reject rules, overcome fears, and abandon dictates to be a “good” and “perfect girl.”  The song has even been embraced by LGBT communities as a subtle coming out song.[1]  The film itself has found mass appeal and has been lauded as a feminist success (with feminism, in this case, having one of its rare positive connotations in pop culture).  According to its supporters, Disney has created its best princess film to date:  one that features two strong female protagonists and rejects the traditional fairytale ending.  So, mission accomplished:  we’re now raising girls in a female paradise where they’ll encounter only positive gendered imagery. No more feminist media critics needed, right?  Well, perhaps we should re-check the cultural pulse.

            For as much praise as it’s received, Frozen has still sparked quite the debate in the blogosphere about whether it has truly earned its feminist title. For many, the main complaint rests with Disney’s use of its source material, Hans Christian Anderson’s fairytale “The Snow Queen.”  Most consider the original tale quite feminist, which is surprising considering its time of publication and its author.[2]    The original tale features Gerda, a young girl who embarks on a journey to save her best friend, a boy named Kai, from the Snow Queen.   Kai is the only significant male character in Anderson’s original story; the remaining characters are diverse females:  a powerful villain, a wise witch, a clever crow, a helpful princess (who swears to only marry a prince as intelligent as her), a set of female bandits, and many more.  Disney’s adaptation erases this cast of female characters, replacing them with various mountain men and leaving only a set of sisters (Gerda becomes Anna and the Snow Queen becomes her sister, Elsa).  Gerda’s solo journey to save a platonic male friend becomes transformed into a journey that features hints of the all-too-familiar love triangle, adding in male suitors like Hans and Kristoff. 

            Despite the addition of these male characters, supporters of the film have insisted that the film is revolutionary in that it does not focus primarily on a quest for romantic love and end in a way that highlights the importance of male/female partnering.  However, critics have enjoyed systematically unraveling this body of praise.  For example, in “The Problem with False Feminism (or Why “Frozen” Left Me Cold),” Dani Colman compares Frozen to its predecessors to prove that it is not as groundbreaking as some want to claim.  Other Disney princess films have provided female characters with non-romance centered goals (e.g. Ariel wants to experience life as a human, Belle wants adventure, Pocahontas wants independence, Mulan wants to bring honor to her family, Jasmine wants to overcome patriarchal control, Tiana wants to run a restaurant, and Rapunzel wants to learn the secret of the glowing lights), and, in the majority of them, they are rewarded for reaching that goal – with the bonus prize of landing a prince. In Frozen, one of the first goals Anna vocalizes is to find “the one,” and that is what she gets, with the other results (e.g. reopening the castle gates, renewing her relationship with Elsa) becoming her bonus prizes.[3]  Those who really want to see Frozen as a positive anomaly point to the fact that, despite the romantic storylines within, the film does not end in a wedding.  However, nor do most Disney films.  In fact, only seven of the Disney’s forty-three animated feature films include an on-screen wedding.[4]  And while the vast majority of them end in a heterosexual happily ever after (be they human or animal pairings), Frozen is not an outlier in this case either as the film ends with Anna and Kristoff partnered off, not with Anna as the rare single girl at the end of the movie (as is the case with Pocahontas, for example).[5] 

            If we just accept that romance is a staple of the princess genre, or the Disney oeuvre, then the feminist complaints about Frozen have to be directed elsewhere.  So many have focused on debunking the claim that the film features two strong female characters, arguing that having two female lead characters is not the same as having two strong lead characters.  In fact, Anna has been criticized for being self-absorbed, naïve, condescending, and lacking ambition; and Elsa has been described as self-repressed, pathological, and anti-social – not necessarily the staple traits we want in so-called feminist characters.[6]  And while Frozen has garnered the same complaints as other Disney princess films (e.g. reinforcing Western/white beauty standards), it has also been read as sexualizing its young female characters.  In an essay for Slate, Dana Stevens analyzed the climactic, trademark “Let it Go” scene in the film as conforming to the classic makeover moment found in so many films aimed at girls.  After proclaiming “that perfect girl is gone,” Elsa appears onscreen scantily “clad in a slinky, slit-to-the-thigh dress with a transparent snowflake-patterned train and a pair of silver-white high heels, her braid shaken loose and switched over one shoulder in what’s subtly, but unmistakably, a gesture of come-hither bad-girl seduction.”[7]

            Always late to the party, I only just watched Frozen last night.  Despite being told by family, friends, and colleagues (all whom I respect) that I would love the film, I was a bit skeptical.  And having read the various feminist complaints about it beforehand, I was all the more prepared to detail its various faults.  But, I liked it.  (This should not be confused as some proclamation of its inherent value and feminist potential because, after all, I’m the seriously flawed feminist who still watches The Bachelorette and knows all the words to The Little Mermaid soundtrack.  And while, admittedly, my enjoyment of the movie could be slightly colored by the fact that it was the first feature film my three-year-old daughter watched alongside of me (cuddled up in my bed for a sweet mommy-daughter date), I think there are things to celebrate in this film.  And there are things that could be better.  Our work in improving the media is never done.

            So what I liked:  1) I liked that Anna was openly mocked for accepting a marriage proposal from a man she had just met.  This was a nice critique of the “love at first sight” theme found in so many fairytales.  (However, that’s not to say the film didn’t buy into that in some way as we do see young little Kristoff seeing Anna when she was first a child being healed by the trolls and they ultimately end up together).  2)  I liked that the film showed that men can enter relationships with women for the wrong reason and that not all “princes” are perfect.  (The film sets up Hans to look like the quintessential hero only to reveal his true selfish, ambitious, cruel nature when Anna is dying).  3)  I liked that the movie had some subtle commentary about the fact that relationships (and partners) are never perfect.  (During the trolls’ song about Kristoff being a “fixer-up” I laughed out loud and especially appreciated the line that clarified, despite the song’s title, that ultimately you cannot expect to change someone.  Take that counter-message, Beauty and the Beast!)  4)  I liked that, overall, this was not a story about romantic love, but about sisterly love.  (Now admittedly, the film leads us to believe otherwise at various points.  The scene before the coronation when Anna dances around the castle imagining meeting “the one” is ridiculously cliché, as is her duet with Hans about love being “an open door.”  And when Anna is dying and it is implied that she will only survive if she receives the kiss from her (male) true love, viewers are bound to think:  yep, seen this before.  But the real message ends up being that true love is making sacrifices and this is showcased when Anna sacrifices her life for her sister (running to her rescue instead of toward Kristoff who she believes can heal her with a smack on the lips).  That it is Elsa’s embrace and tears that saves Anna from her icy death was a refreshing change, as were all the scenes scattered throughout reminiscing about their childhood bonds and Elsa’s guilt over accidentally hurting her kid sister.)  5)  I liked that the happily ever wasn’t (purely) focused on a romantic pairing.  (Sure, Anna and Kristoff share their first kiss as the movie nears its end and their romantic future is implied, but they do not get the last scene.  The last scene is of Anna and Elsa hand-in-hand as the older sister teaches the younger one how to ice skate and the kingdom celebrates).  6)  I liked Olaf, the snowman.  (Okay, it’s not just that he was cute and funny; it’s what he represents.  The fact that he magically appeared as the embodiment of the girls’ childhood play/bond, was very sweet…  As was how he represented the naivety of childhood himself as the snowman who dreams of enjoying summer…  And how he was able to live on during the summer heat after Elsa creates for him his own personal snow cloud to keep him cold:  what else can that represent than the imagination and hope of childhood?)

            So what I didn’t like:  1) Anna continued the tradition of the innocent, naïve princess persona.  (Not sure what to say here: It’s a plot requirement, apparently, that princesses must be reared in near isolation so I’m not sure how they could be characterized all that differently).  2)  Even in the 21^st century, the damsel in distress motif lives on.  (In this film both girls needed rescuing in various ways.  However, Anna attempted to be the rescuer of her sister and she even saved Kristoff a few times with some accidental ingenuity, so that was nice to see).  3) The film reinforces heteronormative sexuality and Western beauty standards.  (This isn’t a surprise and I think it will be a long time before we seen a princess film that doesn’t do this… although I’m tempted to write a script about a plus-sized, asexual princess and see where it goes).

            All in all, I found more good than bad in the film.  I can see the faults that some see and might agree that hailing it as a feminist film is a bit of an overstatement.  One blogger said that the film was “good enough” and then asked if good enough was really enough.  And, no, it’s not.  We can still do better and if the progression of Disney films is any indication, I think we will see better yet.  But, in the end I’m left with one conclusion:  I grew up loving The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast (and watching Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White too), and I still turned out okay.  I’m even a feminist media scholar (although, who knows, maybe it was some repressed anger about all of those sleeping princesses, captive girls, and voiceless mermaids that prompted my future career?)  Surely, my daughters are starting out with an advantage over me if their first princess film is Frozen and not those, right?

The feminist debate over this film reveals the larger media debates about representations of girls and women in popular culture and about feminism more broadly.  While many will say that the media has come a long way in its female representations, as is clear in the discourse surrounding Frozen, there are still plenty of us out there waiting to point out the leaps and bounds we have yet to make.   While there are many who want to say that because we have a movie like this (a “feminist” princess movie, gasp!), that it’s just proof that the women’s movement was successfully accomplished and feminism is no longer needed.  And then there are others, like me, who write little blog entries to hopefully prove that this is simply not the case.

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[1] Colman, Dani.  “The Problem with False Feminism (or Why “Frozen” Left Me Cold).”  Medium.  7 February 2014.  https://medium.com/disney-and-animation/7c0bbc7252ef

[2] Anderson is notorious for punishing female protagonists for any act that showcases agency.  He is, of course, the author of the story behind Disney’s The Little Mermaid, where the main character is literally silenced.  For more, see:  Feminist Fan Girl.  “Reasons I’m not Supporting Frozen.”  Tumblr.  14 August 2013. http://thefeministfangirl.tumblr.com/post/54520561695/reasons-why-im-not-supporting-disneys-frozen

[3] Colman, Dani.  “The Problem with False Feminism (or Why “Frozen” Left Me Cold).”  Medium.  7 February 2014.  https://medium.com/disney-and-animation/7c0bbc7252ef

[4] Although, when the list is narrowed down to only include those that could feature such romantic partnerships, and the concept of wedding is expanded to include betrothals and engagements, it becomes a bit more even with half of the films including such an element (Colman, Dani.  “The Problem with False Feminism (or Why “Frozen” Left Me Cold).”  Medium.  7 February 2014.  https://medium.com/disney-and-animation/7c0bbc7252ef).

[5] Colman, Dani.  “The Problem with False Feminism (or Why “Frozen” Left Me Cold).”  Medium.  7 February 2014.  https://medium.com/disney-and-animation/7c0bbc7252ef

[6] Colman, Dani.  “The Problem with False Feminism (or Why “Frozen” Left Me Cold).”  Medium.  7 February 2014.  https://medium.com/disney-and-animation/7c0bbc7252ef

[7] Stevens, Dana.  “I Can’t ‘Let it Go.’” Slate.  14 February 2014.  http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/movies/2014/02/_let_it_go_idina_menzel_s_frozen_ballad_it_sends_the_wrong_message.html

Cristina’s Farewell and How Grey’s Anatomy Got it Right (but Almost Got it Wrong)

Last Thursday I eagerly watched the season finale of Grey’s Anatomy, waiting to see how the program was going to write off one of the most interesting female characters television has featured.  In fact, I eagerly watched the episodes leading up to the finale as well, waiting for the foreshadowing that would reveal the final story for Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh).  During the build up to Cristina’s final episode I held my breath and at various points, swore at the television set, and begged the televisual fates not to mess up one of the best feminist storylines ever by weakening her departure.  With every tease, I was more convinced that I was going to be disappointed, but thankfully, in the end, Grey’s Anatomy did one of their star characters justice.

In one of my first academic essays (republished here), I argued that Grey’s was a feminist postmodern blended genre (mixing the medical drama with the sudsy stylistics of melodrama).  It followed in the footsteps of Sex in the City and Desperate Housewives in its effort to showcase female characters who struggled with choices concerning both careers and relationship, revealing the straddled fence that sometimes is feminism.  Younger me writes:

These shows with their strong female protagonists (of both career-driven and relationship-driven types) offer very different depictions of what it means to be a well-adjusted, happy, successful woman in contemporary America. These shows also explore the dynamics of female support systems (constructed / pseudo-family units) and they embrace and constantly re-define female sexuality, without embarrassment or apology, in nearly every episode.  But more specifically, Grey’s can be read as a product of (and / or response to) its two predecessors.  In particular, I argue that Grey’s struggles to deal with the often oversimplified choice that women have to make between work and family, career advancement and marriage, autonomy and love.  Grey’s follows the footsteps of both Sex in the City and Desperate Housewives, addressing this conundrum in its own way, expanding on and critiquing its predecessors’ stances on the issue.

Like its ancestor shows, Grey’s tackled various plots related to women’s health issues (e.g. abortion, abuse, fertility) and work discrimination (e.g. Izzy is disrespected because she is attractive, Bailey loses authority once she becomes a mother).  But the character’s whose feminist-themed storylines remained unflinchingly delivered was always Cristina’s (e.g. her decision to get an abortion in two different seasons, her struggles to see marriage and career as coexisting options). 

But it was not just her actions that made her a feminist character – she was depicted like no other female character on the small screen.  In an article for Cosmopolitan, Lauren Hoffman denotes what made Cristina stand apart from the typical female primetime character:

Audiences typically like their television heroines optimistic, kind, put-together, and maybe a little spunky… Grey’s itself has had plenty over the years, from Izzie Stevens (smiler, baker, and marrier of dead men) to Arizona Robbins (healer of tiny humans and wearer of roller skate sneakers).  Compared to them — compared to anyone — Cristina is undeniably dark and twisty. But what’s progressive about the way the show has framed her character is that being undeniably dark and twisty doesn’t make her an anti-hero. In a world where women are often encouraged to smile, be nice, and keep their feelings to themselves, Cristina does, feels, and says what she wants — and she's not painted as a bad person, or even an unhappy one, for it. That makes her a downright revolutionary character.

Although Cristina did develop emotionally throughout the ten seasons of the show – and the final episode highlights this well – the program never undid what was at the heart of her character:  her self-confidence, ambition, and ferocity. 

During the lead up to her big goodbye the show provided quite a bit of misdirection through cleverly edited promos for the episodes to come that allowed viewers to predict her story ending in various different ways.  After she failed to win the Harper-Avery Award (due to behind-the-scenes politics), her departure from the Grey Sloane Hospital was inevitable.  The episode teasers allowed viewers to imagine for a moment that she would be leaving through some romantic reunion with Preston Burke, her original love interest on the show.  Although the thought of seeing their chemistry again was enough to make me excited to watch that particular episode I was horrified at the prospect of Cristina’s story ending with the stereotypical “happily ever after” (especially from a man who had hurt her so severely).  In the end, he was not offering her that reunion, but rather his place at the helm of a prestigious Cardiothoracic Institute in Zürich.   After this job offer dangled in the air, the trailers for the final episode led viewers to believe that Cristina wasn’t going to get to move on to that position because the promotional clips hinted that she was going to die in the mass casualty that the hospital would be dealing with (another of its infamous season-ending catastrophe episodes).  And this teaser didn’t end with the promos, the final episode itself let viewers hold their breath for at least ten minutes waiting to learn if Cristina (who had announced that she was going to the mall that experienced an explosion) was alive.  And during this ten-minute period, again, I yelled at the television asking why it was impossible to let a successful female doctor make the difficult decision to leave her home, friends, and lover, choosing to follow the path that was best for her career advancement.  But, thankfully, she wasn’t dead.

The final episode showed her struggling, realistically, with how to leave the people and place that had been such a big part of her life.  It gave final scenes that revealed the type of person she had become there:  a caring friend (this is highlighted well in the final scene between her and Alex and in the closing scenes where he realizes that she has left him her shares in the hospital and the seat on the board) and a dedicated surgeon (this is showcased when she continually almost misses her flight because she wants to finish he heart transplant for a family she had spent a great deal of time with). 

I was really glad that the last in person goodbye that she had in Seattle was not with Owen.  Although I loved their storyline and half wished he’d be written off in a way that inferred he was leaving with her, again, the “happily ever after” romantic goodbye just didn’t seem appropriate for this character.  With their nontraditional, complicated relationship, the goodbye they received – a knock on the glass, a long stare, a sad smile, and a wave from the observation room above where Owen was performing surgery – was perfect for them. 

Appropriately so, the last in person goodbye was between Cristina and Meredith.  Since that show has done such a beautiful job developing the friendship between these two strong female characters over the years, it was so very fitting that their moment was the final Seattle-based screen time Cristina received.  And, apparently, I was not alone in feeling this way.  Hoffman expands:

True friendship, rooted in something other than cattiness, superficiality, or talking about guys, is a rarity on television — if only because spotting two strong, fleshed-out female characters on a single television show in the first place is still pretty close to spotting a unicorn… And so while Meredith and McDreamy might be Grey’s power couple, Meredith and Cristina are the series’ most compelling love story.  “You’re my person” has become so engrained in the way we talk about relationships that it’s easy to forget that Cristina Yang (with the help of Grey's creator Shonda Rhimes) is the one who originally coined it, and who taught us that being someone’s person can be entirely platonic. But that doesn’t mean their relationship is easy. While we see other strong female characters fighting in primetime …there’s an intimacy to Meredith and Cristina that makes their conflict both more interesting and more difficult to watch.  Meredith and Cristina fight hard, and they fight about things that matter and aren’t easily resolved: love, family, career… They’ve shown us that you can profoundly disagree with someone without losing your love for them, and that while it’s hard to stay close to someone when your life choices start to really differ, it’s ultimately very worth the effort. 

The line in Hoffman’s essay about Meredith and Cristina being the most compelling love story of the show is worth highlighting because while I’ve enjoyed many of the romantic storylines throughout the years that Grey’s offered, it is true that some of the most memorable scenes are between the two of them that underscored the deep emotionality of their relationship.

 So Grey’s got it right:  this final scene between the best friends took viewers back to the beginning of their relationship.  It was not all hugs and tears; it was upbeat, fun, and heartwarming:  they “danced it out.”  The image of them dancing around the on-call room, hair flying in abandon, will run through my mind for a very long time as one of the best representations of female friendship and enduring love… and plain old love of life… that I have seen.

But, the episode didn’t exactly end there.  One of the last acts of friendship Cristina did, beyond gifting Alex her shares, was to give Meredith subtle advice to not blindly follow Derek as he pursued his dreams in D.C.  Cristina commented:  “Don’t let what he wants destroy what you want.  He’s very dreamy, but he’s not the sun.  You are.”  And, perhaps inspired by this comment (and her own doubts), Meredith ends up telling Derek that she will not move to D.C. and become his “trailing spouse” and calls him out on valuing his career over hers.  Again, excellent move Grey’s:  ending Cristina’s final episode with commentary on an important woman’s issue. 

Cristina does get the last scene of the episode, as she looks out from her new office in Zürich.  This moment is interrupted by Ross entering to tell her that the board is ready for her.  And while I did feel it was cheesy that her star intern asked to leave  his residency to come with her (especially considering their past fling) and I thought it could have lessened the powerful choice to embark out on her own, ultimately his insistence that he wanted to choose his education and that she was the teacher he wanted, was a nice inclusion as it again showed Cristina’s growth (being that at one point in time she had no interest in mentoring other doctors).  Sandra Oh provides the final voice over for the episode about how fear of the unknown can leave you stuck in place and that it is only through faith that the future will be beautiful that you can take risks and move on and really experience all that is in store for you.  A good message to end on and, all in all, a great send off for a fabulous character.