Frozen 2

LET THE MOVIE COMMENCE!

Update: This post is imported from our original post in the LBT Facebook group.

Ashia R:
(typing live commentary as the movie plays)

So my first thoughts about this universe is the *whiteness.*

In Frozen I, eeeverybody was white. And that’s in keeping with the Disney tradition of presuming that semi-modern European countries were completely white until modern air travel. 

(Which has been disproven over and over).

So I’m kind of happy about his rando Black soldier in the flashback scene?

I’m wondering if this token Black guy comes back in the movie or he was just a thrown-in token to appease us pesky folks who have a hard stare for the whiteness of Frozen I. We shall see.

Everyone is so thin, of course. Because ‘beauty’ or something?

And the kids want to know why the princesses sleep in different beds. 

(Which is weird because my kids sleep in different beds.)

Oh! A fat person! The help, of course.

This song with the snow dude and Red are painting a kind of bummer picture about aging.

Ashley M: “I just love it. We have watched both Frozen movies a million times, and compared to the garbage values in the Disney movies I grew up with, they are beautiful. And if this is accurate, Disney actually collaborated with the indigenous folks in that region of the world to write and create Frozen 2: Disney Signed Contract to Respectfully Portray Indigenous People for Hit Movie ‘Frozen 2’ – DiversityInc

I mean it’s still Disney so it’s not perfect – but head and shoulders above most other kids movies I’ve seen. I’ll hold my spoilers though!”


Ashia R: This is great! And also saved me a whole bunch of googling!

Ashley M: as soon as we finished it the first time I was kind of floored by the final plot twists and had to know if they were being legit.

Ashia: More token brown folks in the village. Wonder if any of them will have a position with agency later or if they’re for decoration?

Rae X: Ugh, not a fan.

Ashia R:  The snowdude is allowed to rearrange for charades, Elsa should totally be able to make an ice sculpture.

This sub-plotline of a dude courageously proposing to a woman – they’re going to fix that, right? 

Are we doing this still with men being the one to propose as a surprise? 

And the viewer not seeing a discussion between two people about getting married way before a proposal happens?

Aarti KP: Yes I hated this part. This storyline, and even the main line, it seems more like a movie for middle school and up, not the youngers that it’s targeted to. Also all the violent scenes. I just watched it last month, but decided not to show it mine (5 & for these reasons.

Ashia R. If these women are going to sleep in full lipstick, mascara and eyeshadow I wish someone would wake up with bit of smudge.

Or are we teaching kids women look like this naturally and effortlessly 24/7?

:::Impatiently waiting for Elsa to *explicitly* come out because I’m not cool with Disney getting credit for being LGBTQ+ friendly if they’re going to say in the cowardice of subtle coding.:::

Oh Elsa has another big secret. Okay. White women and their mysteries I guess.

Apparently there are people (including my partner) who did not know about Elsa coding as gay in the first movie. So I guess we should put that out there.

Aarti KP: I didn’t either. If I had to thought about it, I would have thought she didn’t have access to any of her emotions at all, with all the shame and effort to suppress. Def got it in the second

Ashia R: 

Funny how in these movies, Elsa exploring who she is always causes catastrophe for everyone else.

Heaven forbid a woman just acknowledge who she is or follow her whims without worrying about how it affects everybody else.

You’d think a woman relaxing for a moment would be less catastrophic.

Red (I still don’t know her name, when do they say it?) is chastising her sister for not disclosing her mental experiences because we need to confuse kids on what openness & honesty means and how this an obligation, rather than a relationship?

“Elsa’s powers are too much for this world”…”we must pray they are enough” – well that’s gonna take me some time to unpack.

“prevents insanity” oh I don’t like where this is going. 

Already they’ve subtly painted Elsa as mentally unstable for hearing voices.

UGH. A dude just called a woman crazy.

Okay this is going full-in sanist. And Red is going ‘what does that mean’ / nagging girlfriend trope while Sven(?) gets defensive in the classic ‘haha isn’t that funny that women are so difficult and men have to deal with them’

Aarti KP:  I think I totally put the subject of your last two comments in the trash can of my brain while watching.

Do you mean Anna by red?

Ashia R. Yeah it took me a while to learn her name!

Sven reassures this nervous lil’ lady with a big manly hug. Are men ever nervous and in need of reassurance in these?

“You think we’re gonna DIE?!” Okay so ana was like “Yeah I can do this whatever” and brave in the first movie and now she needs constant reassurance from a dude for this one? 

WHY.

How this works: Stories like this subtly paint people with differing mental experiences as ‘crazy’ and kids pick it up. My kid literally just said the word ‘insanity’ while the snowman is acting weird. Where did he pick that up?

I do have to say that watching movies with a 5yo is legit entertaining. We watched Moana last week and even though he’s seen it like 20 times he still dcreams and shakes and hides and cheers with genuine enthusiasm and fear and excitement

Why is this dude screaming ‘Ana be careful.’ Stop telling her what to do like she’s a child! 

This whole relationship dynamic makes me uncomfortable.

Aarti KP: I think they had a good base for a relationship in the first movie, and the plot line + writing in 2 for them just sucks

Ashia R: “Water has memory” is going to set back our chemistry discussions for a while. Sigh.

COINCIDENCE! HE found a snow sculpture of her dad!

It’s like that one time I glanced at a TV on with the Pats game on and my cousin was on the TV chucking snow at people. WATER HAS MEMORY.

Oh good the Black guy has more lines.

This snowman recap scene, I can’t really hear because the kids are giggling too much but it seems fun?

These unfrozen people from the past seem completely nonplussed about losing like 3 decades and suddenly showing up in the future

THE FUCK I am TOTALLY not cool with Ana being an object that Sven reassures, placates, and rescues because she’s a helpless lady.

I mean she was oblivious and impetuous in the first movie but helpless and in the way in this one is going too far.

This fire salamander thing is adorbs tho.

I do appreciate the slightly expanded body weight diversity for the Sámi, but they are all still very curvy / thin by default.

I’m a little confused. Their mom was a member of the Northuldra but didn’t mention it to her daughters? And aside from that one bedtime song, raised them fully assimilated into colonizer culture?

Are we going to learn why?

Aarti KP: yea it was confusing

Ashia R. Ana has completely lost her sense of adventure and courage since the first movie.

She’s like a completely different character.

Ashley M: I see that – AND I think that in the first movie, she was alone and fighting to get what she needed (love/security/attachment); in this movie she starts out having all of that and is terrified of losing it. So I can see how that could change someone’s behavior to an extent. Her trauma history makes her highly sensitive to loss and reactive to people leaving her (again).

Ashia R. YES! I’m crossing my fingers they unpack that explicitly. I’d hate for my kids to see timidity and anxiety as a natural progression of a woman aging.

Sven calls her “feisty and fearless” in one of his proposals but she’s not at ALL feisty or fearless so far in this movie.

Oh it’s a 90’s music video montage ballad!

Which apparently my kids are completely confused about. “HOW IS IT CHANGING COLOR? WHAT IS GOING ON?!”

Wait this song is about him identifying himself and his masculinity in relationship to a woman.

Which feels kind of unhealthy? I would def not want to marry a guy whose identity and ‘lostness’ hinges on his relationship with me.

Like dudes who define masculinity in opposition to what women do – this is a bacterial culture for toxic masculinity. And unhealthy relationships.

Oh good they found the black box. I like the nod to the concept of making a whole plane a black box.

Oooh I like how the snowman is acknowledging and talking out his anger!

R2 is ecstatic that his earlier theory that Elsa can walk on water turned out to be true.

Oooh I like how her itarian bigoted duplicitous grandfather is evil. Elsa and Ana can be the descendants of colonizing jerks that modern white kids need to reconcile ancestor guilt.

I am VERY MUCH LIKING THIS exposure of truth (and hopefully reconciliation)

Ana just found out she inherited her power through violent colonization, heard her sister is in mortal danger and her buddy died. Hard day! I’m a fan of the ‘do the next right thing’ reprise in this context

Although the concept of ‘right’ kind of oversimplifies the choices we make. So many fragile white folks think it’s the ‘right thing’ to continue to be complicit in white supremacy when faced with the existence of it.

Oh I like that Sven listens to what Ana needs and does it without questioning whether she’s being hysterical.

This breaking the dam situation actually works really well for an earlier discussion we were having this week about water rights and why rain barrels are illegal in some states.

I was kind of hoping Olaf would stay dead. I want the kids to have to reconcile that decolonization and reconciliation isn’t clean and always 100% happy

Ashley M:I wish they had let Arendelle fall for this reason.

Ashia R: Yeah that would have been a really interesting third movie. 

What does a fallen colonization look like? How can they rebuild when colonizers have to give something up and face a fraction of the loss or violence?

Oh here we go with the happy ending proposals. Why’s he gotta pull attention to himself right now? Let them have this moment.

Ashley M. So the soundtrack on iTunes includes an unused track in which Anna proposes to Kristoff… but based on context clues, it would have probably had to happen after the sisters saved the day, ending the movie on the romance instead of the sisters. So I prefer the timing of the proposal as is, but agree it could have been handled better. At least this way he did it before finding out she was going to be queen, I guess?

Ashia R: That is so weird! It definitely felt tacked on to seal up the ‘happily ever after’ – as if Ana couldn’t be happy unless she was married.

Strange that it was a possibility, esp in the soundtrack, and they chose to cut it. I wonder why

So…I’m still not 100% on the white saviorism.

Like I get that the queen(s) are 50% Indigenous by blood quantum. But NOT culturally. Culturally they are white colonizer settlers. The resolution of this conflict required Nice White Heroes.

And the resolution that ‘unlocked’ everything and resolved things ended up with no cost to the white folks, giving nothing up – as if this is the only kind of truth and reconciliation we can accept.

I mean I get that this is what white folks need to see – that they need to take action. But it’s also not at all involved with working in tandem by affected and targeted people. It’s ultimately white people saving the day with a couple seconds of crying about the violence they’ve benefited from (acknowledging the pain of shame and loss, but not really giving up anything).

Why not pair up, at least, with an Indigenous leader and follow their lead?

Ashley M. thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts, I got a lot out of it. Was it obvious that my kiddos watch this movie a lot?

Aarti KP: With Elsa’s emotional health returning and getting vibrant once she returned to her land and her people, it would have been nice for her skin and/or hair to turn a few shades darker at the end

Ashley M. So, for good or bad, I don’t see that Disney would ever make a Frozen sequel where Elsa & Anna are not the heroes. My take on it was that Elsa needed to go alone for her own growth and healing (as a woman and theoretical LGBTQ+ person). 

All of the magic and intuition she used to make her journey came from her Northuldra roots. She was being led by her indigenous mother/heritage by following the voice she heard. I see the white saviorism, and I also see that Anna made the decision to destroy the dam believing that Arendelle would be destroyed. 

There’s plenty to unpack, but I do appreciate the plot and themes because it gave me a way to start the conversation with my young white kids that things like this have happened in real life (minus the magic and reparations). 

If they’re going to be obsessed with anything Disney, at least it’s got women in all the main leadership roles, tricky white bad guys, and a stamp of approval from the indigenous people it’s based on.

Shannon B.S.  hoped Arandale would be destroyed too.

Ashia R. nAgreed with all of this.

And how completely revolutionary vision for a Disney movie that will probably never be made:

Disney tends to segregate the leads of color (Moana, Mulan, Tiana, etc.) which is good and bad – I am in love with the idea of watching Moana all the way through with no white people busting in to make it about them.

It would completely shake the foundations of white entitlement if we had established white princesses (Cinderella, Elsa, etc.) who actively took a proactive role in passing the mic.

Frozen II ‘had’ to focus on Elsa and Ana as the heroes. But why? 

What if that movie had been an active decolonizing transformation where we see heroes in a non-white-leadership role?

Example: In Chinese culture (specifically because I know about this one, but I’ve heard MANY other non-European cultures) leaders eat last. The role of a hero is to self-sacrifice for others, and that often means listening to the weaker segments of the group and getting on your hands and knees to give them a lift so they can be boosted. 

This is diametrically opposed to say, the American Hero, who just Gryffindors their way into adventure, leaving a mass of destruction and friendly-fire casualties in their wake.

Frozen II looked like a very *white* version of what colonists are willing to accept for decolonization, which isn’t *actually* decolonization. I’m also wondering if by getting the stamp of approval from Indigenous folks, it acted more like an end-note on how an  author hired a sensitivity reader.

Like the power dynamic there is still uneven. Even if they agreed to get final approval – how much power did the Indigenous people really have over the script? Are they allowed to be like “yes that character can wear that blanket” or are they allowed to be like “Actually, what if we completely re-wrote the script from the mother’s POV and had her play a bigger role and Elsa and Ana became accomplices, rather than saviors?”

I’m wary of the stamp of approval because so often it turns out to be implicit permission without a real exploration of the power dynamic. Kind of a “I have a Black child so…” or “I have a signed agreement with the Saami people so…”

I’m not saying they had to, and I’d never expect it – but WOW wouldn’t it be AMAZING to for kids to walk into a theater in hopes of seeing a white hero, and see the white hero follow a storyline that is definitely NOT white.

Our school (and even my partner – as we were discussing this earlier this week) think ‘classic’ archetype stories are confined to the western versions – hero’s journey, etc. But there are so many more, once we stop defining stories by what white audiences expect.

All done! Time to put the Earthquakes to bed.