The In-your-face Politics Of Frozen 2 And Why It Is Disconcerting
Like most moviegoers, I sat down to watch Frozen 2 because of the positive reputation of its predecessor. But to say this sequel was a disappointment would be a gross understatement. It was an outright travesty. It is a lesson for every artist throttled by the ‘woke’ cancel culture today on what NOT to do.
It is a representation of what happens when you try to accommodate every random mega-narrative (‘patriarchy’, ‘climate change’, and ‘mental health awareness’) in your thought process without willing to seriously think about either. You create chutney that tastes like you are eating something inedible. You eat it, thinking…. Well, isn’t healthy food supposed to taste disgusting? But perhaps consider the possibility that you have just been sold cat poop.
The movie begins with Elsa hearing a feminine voice and wanting to explore more of her Being.
Before watching the movie, I had stumbled across fan theories of Elsa being gay. So, that is what I imagined was happening. The first movie was about this wonderful snow queen learning to use her powers for societal good – the education part of an individual’s life. The second part must be her finding the love of her life – someone who equals and complements her powers. Since she is gay, this equivalent was feminine, hence the feminine voice calling her out to explore the next stage of her Being.
I think the only reason I even watched the movie beyond the shallow climate change and anti-colonialism propaganda of the first hour was because I was sure that Elsa will find her soul mate in the river Ahtohallan. And the pairing of water and ice sounded beautiful. Water is stable in the ice form. Ice is freer in liquid form. But guess what Elsa finds near the river Ahtohallan? Her…… MOTHER! And guess who her soul-mate is? Come on, it’s very simple. Very cliché, very typical, of this vain, self-obsessed generation. HERSELF! Wow!
Apparently, Elsa’s paternal grandfather was a cheat who almost killed his son by bringing ruin to the ‘nature’ people. But then Elsa’s mother, the daughter of these ‘nature’ people, ‘rescues’ him. But that wrong of the past still needs to be made right (because of course, children should take responsibility for every cheat that ever existed in history) and Elsa must give her life for that. Throw in a depressed Anna and you have another tick on the ‘woke-o-meter’. Ultimately, Elsa comes back and it’s discovered that she is basically God, along with Nature, of course.
Anna is a personification of toxic femininity. By no parameter of sane psychology is her obsessive concern for her sister that keeps the latter from pursuing what she wants is healthy. And this is somehow legitimized for the ‘larger message’ of the story…. which is…. nothing.
If the lack of a partner for Elsa broke my heart, Anna’s relationship with Kristoff made me want to break my laptop. They can’t even talk to each other like adults! He finds her too intimidating and she misinterprets everything he says. At one point, Kristoff confesses to himself that he feels lost in the relationship. The lyrics are so poignant –
Again, you're gone, off on a different path than mine
I'm left behind, wondering if I should follow
You had to go, and of course it's always fine
I probably could catch up with you tomorrow
But is this what it feels like to be growing apart?
At this point, I thought Anna and Kristoff would separate, and it would be interesting to see Disney breaking another of its norms (like it did one in Frozen) by showing a separation at the end of the movie, rather than a union. Probably the underlying message could be of sanity in relationships. It is healthy to move on from a relationship that doesn’t make you feel secure – and still continue to help and admire the other person.
It would have made Kristoff a truly heroic character for me – a sincere man who is always there for you, without fearing the dreaded ‘friendzone’. And I imagined another warm ending for the movie in my head to enable myself to continue watching it – Kristoff holding Anna’s hand and telling her she is a remarkable woman, but perhaps not the one for him – and then disappearing into the sunset, riding on Sven.
However, he does hold Anna’s hand and then….. PROPOSES HER! So now these intolerably incompatible people have to marry each other so that SJWs can be pleased by seeing a man who is supposedly meant to represent a masculine figure who ‘accepts’ a ‘more powerful’ woman than him as his partner. Like everything, relationships that feel intuitively wrong too are hammered to fit in the power equations of the postmodern world.
Essentially, Frozen 2 is pretending to a feminist utopia when it’s not. No utopia motivated by political inclinations is as utopic as it sounds on paper. Propagators of political art seem to forget that it takes skill and talent to make art that uses subtlety and metaphors to represent truths greater than an individual or a political agenda. To make art that simply leaches onto the dominant political narratives for profit is dishonest and ingenuous.
We can take our time having conversations about what good art truly is. But until then, it is healthy to be aware of the difference between human freedom that is expressed with artistic force, and political force that is inflicted in the guise of artistic freedom.