David Perry compares two different Disney anthems and explores the cultural implications for his daughter.
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How is a daddy supposed to deal with Disney?
My daughter, who is not quite 5, sings “Let it Go” at me approximately eight thousand times a day. What she lacks in intonation she more than makes up with the verve and gusto with which she goes after the song, not to mention the slamming of the door, the stomping of the feet, and the high volume.
I have vivid memories of a cousin of mine, who I shall not name, singing “Part of your World” with equal gusto in the early 90s. I can remember her singing, “Bet’cha on land! They understand! Maybe they don’t reprimand their daughters,” in front of her father. Oh, the pathos and power of it all.
The placement of these songs in the narrative structure of the movie differs. They both involve transformation, but Ariel’s renders her mute (so the lobster gets to do the good singing) capable of only, as Ursula the sea witch says, “body language.” Mermaid parents—teach your daughters to write and use sign language, ok! It’s followed by the fairly awesome “Under the Sea,” then reprised, before Daddy comes in and wrecks the place. “Let it Go,” on the other hand, is after the big transformation.We already know what Elsa can do, but it’s when she takes something she had perceived as horrible and turns it around.
They are, though, the signature songs with a female solo vocalist, defining their characters, and influencing a generation of Disney-loving girls, including (sigh) my daughter.
Disney isn’t the worst, I guess, but princess culture is so powerful and generally so awful. Beauty and the Beast is basically a story of violent partner abuse in which Belle excuses her abuse as he has “just a short temper.” Merida (Brave) kind of rocked, but of course Disney immediately tried to shift her from unkempt archer badass to heavily made-up hour-glass figure ballgown wearer. Little Mermaid, for that matter, is about a girl with a crush so bad that she radically disfigures her body in order to get her man. But Frozen, well … On the 47th viewing, this week, I’m beginning to think it’s not so bad. Maybe Stockholm syndrome (which likely doesn’t actually exist) is to blame, but let’s look at these songs.
“Part of Your World” (click for the YouTube) finds Ariel in her cave of “land stuff.” She sings about her belongings – “Wouldn’t you say I’m the girl, the girl who has everything?” Then she says no, “I want more,” it’s not enough! The animation has her sighing, swooning, eyes lifting towards the surface.
Flippin’ your fins, you don’t get too far
Legs are required for jumping, dancing
Strolling along down a – what’s that word again? Street
Up where they walk, up where they run
Up where they stay all day in the sun
Wanderin’ free – wish I could be
Part of that world
What would I give if I could live out of these waters?
What would I pay to spend a day warm on the sand?
Bet’cha on land they understand
Bet they don’t reprimand their daughters
Bright young women sick of swimmin’
Ready to stand
She wants to go somewhere else. She asks, “When’s it my turn?” This is a song about I WANT.
I’ve always seen Ariel as the quintessential spoiled princess. She has everything. Yes, her father destroys all her personal possessions and even threatens her, but I’m not sure that signing herself away to the sea witch and threatening the mer-people population is the right answer to that problem—especially to go chasing a boy.
Elsa, on the other hand, hasn’t been a pampered princess below the sea, whining about her lack of the hot boy. She’s been locked away, orphaned, abused, repressing her emotions. She’s been given bad advice—conceal, don’t feel, hide your identity. It’s not necessarily her parents’ fault that she was given the bad advice, but it’s still bad (especially because it turns out that feeling MORE—feeling love—is the secret to controlling her powers). In many ways, both of these girls are abuse victims and there’s a painful dysfunctional sadness to much of the first third of the movie.
Still, Elsa begins with a complaint too at the beginning of her big number:
Don’t let them in, don’t let them see
Be the good girl you always have to be
Conceal, don’t feel, don’t let them know
Well, now they know
That complaint about “be the good girl” could take it off into a teenage-rebellion kind of mood, but it doesn’t stay in that space, but abruptly shifts (the music carries it too. I’m a musician but I lack the technical vocabulary to describe the key changes, the modal transitions, etc. Just trust me, they are relevant):
It’s time to see what I can do
To test the limits and break through
No right, no wrong, no rules for me
I’m free
Still a little teenage rebellion. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Punk will never die!
Let it go, let it go
I am one with the wind and sky
Let it go, let it go
You’ll never see me cry
Here I stand
And here I’ll stay
Let the storm rage on
Later, she notes, “That perfect girl is gone.” She’s finding her powers, and sure, it all goes terribly awry, plunging the land in endless winter, nearly kills her sister and hands over her kingdom to a manipulating evil prince—but at least she’s embracing her power and her identity, and damn the consequences. Although the consequences catch her later. And it’s fine if she wants to do it all in a super sparkly dress.This song is “I am,” not “I want.”
I find it reassuring that this song about embracing one’s true self, no matter how weird or seemingly monstrous, is the big hit from Frozen. My daughter wants to be Elsa, not Anna. Anna has songs before “Let it Go,” and in another movie the charming, “Love is an open door” might have carried, or the classic “I want” song, “For the first time in forever” might have picked up the attention. But that’s not the story of this movie. It helps that Anna’s sweet love duet turns out to be with the Machiavellian would-be-murderer Hans. Hard to romanticize that relationship. The YouTube video above has been viewed 176 million times.
In many ways, Anna represents the new princess model better than Elsa. She’s plucky, determined, gets seriously abused in body and mind, but recovers through the power of love of a cute but imperfect boy (rather than Prince not-so-Charming). Sometimes when my daughter comes home and tells me about playing Frozen during recess, she say that she was Anna. She lifts her hand in the air so that she can freeze Hans’ sword. Not usually, though. Usually, she’s been Elsa, letting it go, using her ice powers for awesomeness.
I like the idea of a generation of girls punching their fist in the air and shouting, “The perfect girl is gone!” over rolling their eyes and sighing, “Maybe they don’t reprimand their daughters” or “I want more.” And if the message of Frozen is more complex, and perhaps more troubling, than the song—the song is living a life of its own divorced from context, much as “Part of Your World” did.
On the whole, I can accept this as an almost five-year-old’s power anthem. I’m sure Disney will find a way to screw it up, but for now … Let it go! Let it GOOOOOO. Here’s my daughter just hanging out, singing, and making it most of the way through the song before she runs out of steam. It may not be polished or perfect, but it’s real.
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Cross-posted from How Did We Get Into This Mess?
I’m somewhat troubled by the theming in “Frozen.” Growth comes through becoming, not “being.”
Striking a stance is important — for a start — but is not an end in itself.
I’ve seen a fair share of articles dismantling the problems people believe are inherent to Disney movies. I just wonder when we are going to begin to see such examinations of the kind of cartoons or movies that speak to little boys. Superhero movies, Transformers, and a host of movies aimed at young boys still heavily display traditional themes and heck, sexist themes. Yet, no one wants to talk about that. No one wants to talk about how Princess Leia in a gold bikini being subject to a slave by a 6000 ton creature is sexist. How many Dad’s took… Read more »
Great article, though I’d argue that “For the First Time in Forever” isn’t Anna’s “I Want” song, and that ‘Do You Want to Build a Snowman” is. What Anna wants is her sister’s affection, and her journey is more about understanding her relationship with her sister, and I don’t think she recovers through the help of a boy, but through her refusal to stop attempting to forge a better relationship with Elsa. At the end of “Do You Want to Build a Snowman” she gives up trying to connect with Elsa, but by the end she’s literally willing to give… Read more »
Do you want to build a snowmen is heart-wrenchingly sad, even when my daughter sings both parts with a mouth-full of broccoli.
Disney movies are a case study in the history of American feminism and also say a lot about economics and attitudes to success – check out the contrast in how the view on dreaming and wishes has changed over time: Snow White 1937: “Make a wish into the well That’s all you have to do And if you hear it echoing Your wish will soon come true “I’m wishing (I’m wishing) for the one I love To find me (to find me) today I’m hoping (I’m hoping) And I’m dreaming of The nice things (the nice things) he’ll say (he’ll… Read more »
Super comment. Mind if I put it on my blog?
Sure 🙂
Hey, David, we’re academics in the same neighborhood. Here’s this: https://goodmenproject.com/marriage-2/lets-stop-blaming-disney/ that I wrote when I was the Marriage Editor here.
Hey neighbor! Nice piece. 🙂 I don’t blame Disney for life, but I do blame it for perpetuating certain kinds of gender norms.
My little girl and all of her friends want to be Elsa, not Anna. I find this so interesting, because Anna is the one with the love interests (even though in the end, it is not about winning the boy). Elsa shows no interest in boys at all. Movies for little girls always seem to be required to include a love interest, even if that is not the main point of the story. It seems Animation for Little Girls 101’s first lesson must be “love interest required”. But the fact that all the little girls want to be Elsa should… Read more »
Couldn’t figure out why the biggest schoolyard girl quarrel jk through grade one is who gets to be Elsa. Makes sense now.
Yes, I wondered too!! All the little girls are obsessed with who is Elsa, and they take Anna begrudgingly, despite her being the hero of the story and the one who falls in love and is loved by a man. It’s a huge change, thematically, isn’t it?! Also, if you have a K or 1 kid, you’ll appreciate that my little boys are SO sick of hearing the K and 1st grade girls singing “Let it Go” that they have their own version called “Let It Die” where they say, “Please God just let this song die already” haha. I… Read more »
Hah, Joanna.
I took my 2 nieces, 9 and 11 y.o., to see Brave, and what we took away from it was that they could not put her archer-y badass into a hour-glass figure ballgown, without her breaking out of it.
With 3 daughters (and 1 son) I have watched the evolving of Disney characters. It seems to me that the message is always ” Be who you are”………”Love can transform you” whether it’s love for self, for family or romantic love. In real life, both messages ring true.
A day after watching “Frozen”, my daughter, who is the smallest girl in her kindergarten, got into an argument with a boy who was making fun of her friend (“It’s funny! It’s not funny! It’s funny! It’s not!!! – that’s how she described it), and then proceeded to slap him! This movie definitely empowered her, first to argue with a boy who is bigger and stronger than her, and then to physically stand up to him. Everyone was a little shocked, but no one reprimanded her. This movie may not be this bad after all…
“Stand up to him” Is that a new term for assault? Let me guess — if a wife beats up her husband you’ll also argue that he must have done something to deserve it? Also, everybody knows that men don’t feel pain like real human beings, right?
Scroll back the years even further – look at Snow White singing “I’m wishing” and see just how far empowerment has come!
“She’s plucky, determined, gets seriously abused in body and mind, but recovers through the power of love of a cute but imperfect boy (rather than Prince not-so-Charming).” You got this part wrong: Anna recovers through the power of her own love for her sister, not the love of a man. This is why I think this is by far the most empowering movie Disney has ever made.
You’re right! I should have written that sentence better.
I don’t totally agree with the interpretation that Little Mermaid is all about Ariel changing who she is for a boy. Yes, that becomes part of it, but I believe that a large part that is often ignored is that Ariel has a natural curiosity and a thirst for knowledge, as well as empathy for humanity that her xenophobic father doesn’t have. Even when she is on land and WITH the boy, she is super excited for all the human things she has always wondered about. She doesn’t put on any airs to get the boy, in fact, she is… Read more »
That’s all fair, but I also don’t think that’s how girls 3-12 process that movie.
True, but girls 3-12 probably don’t accurately process the message of Elsa’s fpor that matter. I think Jennifer’s interpretation is very, very spot-on. And if children misunderstand the message of these characters we must teach them what the character’s plight really is about.
I feel similarly, but not quite the same. I think David has a fair interpretation, but the way I read it at the time it came out was your classic “break your bonds”/”get away from your parent’s expectations/demands” kind of thing. Ariel’s life is planned and constrained, but she wants to know what the other side lives like, where all this interesting *stuff* comes from and how they use it, and is tired of being told where to go, what to do, and whom to love. The singing pageant that she skips out on is not unlike some Austen-esque cotillion… Read more »