Disney’s ‘Frozen’: The only Disney Film based around female empowerment.
Walt Disney is a Production company known all around the
world for its creation of children’s characters. Its worldwide popularity has
resulted in the company becoming largely cross-platform, with platforms varying
from theme parks and merchandise to cartoons and film animations. This was the beginning start of their medium
spreading out over many platforms. They target the younger audience by creating
characters that have the ability to influence children’s lives. Representation
plays a huge role in the influence they have on children, as they represent
their characters with positivity and usually stick to the stereotypical views within
the genders, due to children idolising the characters. Although we do not
realise, the roles within genders and social ‘norms’ are being set up in order
to educate children. They “give us ways of imagining particular groups,
identities and situations” (Branston and Stafford, 2010), leaving the audience
with expectations on how the world should be and how to experience it. The
debate over the certain idea of beauty is a rising topic within the media
industry today, due to different platforms swarming us with the ‘perfect’ ideal
image. Disney picks up on this through the Disney princess characters in which
they have released. Gender and
representation are two main concepts that signify Disney and it’s portrayal of
their characters, for example the princesses. Gender plays a huge role within
the interpretation of the Disney princess clan, as Walt Disney use
stereotypical characteristics of females and how they should be looked upon by
the world. Representation emphasises on how “realistic or compelling some
images seem” (Branston and Stafford, 2010), which could look at the idea of
Disney representing characters in an unrealistic light and embodying them in a
way in which we wish to be represented. One of the themes that I will be
looking into throughout my essay is feminism within the film ‘Frozen’. This
essay will focus on how spaces across media look at certain concepts, theorists
and themes in order to analyse Disney’s ‘Frozen’, “The Feminist FairyTale We’ve
Been Waiting For (with no Prince Charming)” (Rosten, 2013)
Walt Disney and his brother Roy founded the Walt Disney
Company in 1923. They produced a series of short animations and within the next
few years many changes took place including the introduction of their main icon
‘Mickey Mouse’ in 1928. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the first full-length
animation and was a huge success. This was the start of the Disney Princess
clan. Having produced several animated feature-length films, Disney became a
cross-platform organisation. They began to produce across different media
spaces, such as Television shows, Books, merchandise and even the now iconic
Disney World theme park that soon resulted in Walt Disney’s mass media title.
Disney is known for the amount of platforms it has around the world, as with
the use of technology and success of how they have represented their icons,
they have been able to across spaces, develop and create interactive features
such as Internet games, Apps, forums, films, competitions and many more.
Andy Mooney first introduced Disney princesses, with the
original line-up of Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, Ariel, Belle, Jasmine,
Pocahontas and Mulan. These characters were the first to be marketed in a
separate franchise known as the Disney princesses. The marketing team aimed to
make the Disney Princesses an inspiration to all young girls around the world
and did this through interaction through different media spaces. Mooney began
to use different cross-platforms to promote the characters and although there
were restricted in advertising, The Disney princess franchise has become one of
Disney’s leading accomplishments. It now features a line–up of thirteen
individual princesses from varying cultures and ethnicities. The most recent princesses
added to the Disney line-up are Elsa and Anna from the 2013 hit film ‘Frozen’.
Disney Animation studios released the film ‘Frozen’ on
November 27th 2013 in the United States, and it was the fifty-third
Disney feature animation to be released. The screenplay was written by Jenifer
lee and the film features the voices of two famous actresses Kristen Bell and
Idina Menzal. With the success of the film, it has won many awards including
two Academy Awards for best-animated feature and best original song. ‘Frozen’
tells the story of Queen Elsa and he sister Princess Anna. Elsa has magical icy powers and accidently
exposes these to her kingdom. She runs away and her sister Anna sets of on a
quest to bring her back to break the icy spell.
She meets various characters on the way, including the humorous snowman
Olaf and a mountain ice harvester Kristoff, who soon becomes a love interest.
Figure 1: ‘Frozen’
trailer. Source: YouTube
The story is the first Disney animation feature length film with
two female leads that are not rescued by any men. Women are often portrayed as sexualised,
stereotyped or objectified, and
the film ‘Frozen’ overthrows this idea giving women independent control and it
is said that it is a revolutionary step forward in how animated films interpret
women. Disney used its advertising campaign to highlight the significance of
Olaf’s character, who is a male clumsy, humorous snowman that was created by
Elsa using her powers. The advertising gave the impression that Olaf was the
films main protagonists, and did not make it clear that the film actually
featured two female leads. This could be because of the huge success of
previous Disney films that have all used a similar character set-up that includes
a dominant male hero. The film ‘Frozen’ is a “complete reversal and subversion
of the Disney Princess conventions” (Rosten, 2013) as although their image fits
in with these conventions, their personalities challenge them due to them being
individual strong female leads. Richard Dyer (2002) looked into the idea of
representation raising the question is reality achievable? And “how we are seen
determines how we are treated” (2002, p.1). The film ‘Frozen’ goes against
this, as although their image fits in with the typical idea of beautiful and
vulnerable women, they are not treated like this. Elsa is chosen to run her Kingdom with no man
at her side, and Anna is strong enough to go on the journey to find her sister
by herself, with no aid from a man. This in a way is why the film franchise has
become a huge success, as female power is a continuous debate within the media
industry.
Disney’s ‘Frozen’ has expanded to engage with a number of
platforms resulting in its cross-platform title. The popularity of the films franchise has
continued across other platforms, such as its soundtrack. Christophe Beck worked
on composing the films orchestral score along with Robert and Kristen Lopez who
wrote the original songs for the film. The soundtrack is known to become one of
the most successful for Disney since The Lion King, which was released in 1994.
Audio is becoming more important to active viewers, as it allows you engage
more with the feature and widens the audience to musical theatre fans. The song ‘Let it Go’ is the most popular song
from the soundtrack, and as shown in Figure two, the views on YouTube are
higher than most pop songs.
Figure 2: ‘Let it Go’ YouTube
views. Source: YouTube
Artist Demi Lovato (as shown in figure three) has produced a
cover version of the song in order to make the song appeal to a more mainstream
audience. Lovato is well known for her views on female empowerment and writes her
own songs. This meaning that doing a cover version was a very uncharacteristic
move of her, showing that she believes that the song is a great anthem to
promote female empowerment from a young age.
Figure 3: Demi Lovato – ‘Let it go’
Source: YouTube
The song itself highlights on the importance of staying true
to yourself and that you shouldn’t be afraid of what others think of you, as
shown in the lyrics below:
Figure 4: ‘Let it Go’ lyrics
“Let it go, let it go
And I'll rise like the break of
dawn
Let it go, let it go
That perfect girl is gone”
Source: Lopez, 2013
The line ‘The perfect girl is gone’ relates to a moment in
the film where Queen Elsa reveals her powers to her kingdom allowing her to
accept who she really is. This is representing to young children that you
should accept who you are, and as Dyer says, “How they see their place in
society” (2002, p.1) should not be based upon how others think they should be
seen. The lyrics themselves subvert to
Disney’s usual stereotypes as princesses are typically represented as being
‘the perfect girl’. The track allows young children to embrace the lyrics and
literally ‘let it go’ when it comes to their image, as the song provides the
positive impression of being yourself.
The relationships that evolve between Anna and Kristoff “are
completely secondary to Elsa, and they are woven into the plot beautifully”
(Rosten, 2013) as although an action of true love saves Anna, it does not come
from a male lead, it comes from herself saving her sister Elsa. This idea
highlights on the concept of gender as men are seen to have more dominant
behaviour traits over women and these roles are reversed in the plot for the
film ‘Frozen’.
The male characters within the animation are not the usual
macho male leads that normally feature within a Disney Princess film. They do
not save the day, although they help, and nor do they create the typical love
scene of ‘True loves kiss’ which appears in almost every Disney Princess
animation. They appear to be the understudy. They are represented as weaker than
the female cast, for example when Kristoff quotes “you’re not scared?” (Frozen,
2013) to Anna when she faces her fears, she reply’s with no and runs off to
help her sister. Within the film we are told that the female role is the one
that will save the day with the quote “we need Elsa to bring back summer”
(Frozen, 2013). This shows that the male roles and her kingdom are relying on
her to break the spell that she has cast on her kingdom for an eternal winter.
This again subverts the gender traits in which the stereotypical man and women
would have. These include men being dominant, powerful and intelligent and
women who should be significantly more vulnerable and weak. This picks up on
the idea of feminism, which is a debate about the position of women within
society.
When Disney widened their platforms and created Disney Land
in Florida and Paris, and introduced the idea of meet and greet with the
different Disney and Pixar characters. This cross-platform is seen as operating
across space as Disney try to aim on creating the most realistic life form of
the characters both visually and mentally. They choose actors and actresses
that both look the part and acted the part. Gender and Representation are shown
through this cross-platform, as the image Disney portray of the characters
represent to young children the idea of perfection. It relates to the idea the
hypodermic syringe model that describes the interaction between media and
public belief. Disney’s platform for meet and greet with the characters relates
to this as they are ‘injecting’ the perfect idea of women into the passive
media audience.
Figure 5: Meet and
Greet Anna and Elsa
Anna and Elsa were introduced to the Kingdom and quickly
became very popular with their meet and greet queue lasting up to four to five
hours. The video shows that Disney has considered the image of the two
actresses to play a huge impact on the success of the characters. The actresses
appear to be very attractive and petite looking adding to the ideal
representation of women to be ‘beautiful’. Despite Disney trying to create the
best life form of the characters, they undoubtedly have fallen into the idea of
the male gaze theory by Laura Mulvey (1975). Laura Mulvey’s theory looks into
the idea that women are looked at and displayed meaning that their image must
be essentially perfect and that is their only aim. Disney’s ‘Frozen’ aimed to
highlight on female empowerment and achieved this through the plot in which
they developed. However they did not alter the appearance of Anna and Elsa to
match a realistic form of how women should look, for example bigger frames or
less attractive features. Instead they stuck to the conventional representation
of a Disney Princess.
Figure 6&7: Anna and Elsa. Source: Disney
The two images show
that the appearance of Princess Anna and Queen Elsa are both very attractive and
as Mulvey said (1975) that appearances are coded with visual impact. The two
characters have petite frames, button noses and big appealing eyes,
constructing the idea that this is beauty to young children. Elsa even has a
provocative slit up her dress revealing more skin then would normally be shown
in a Disney children’s film. The Disney store allows you to purchase Anna and
Elsa dolls for children, again promoting the characters beauty as part of the
success of their merchandise. This leaves us with the idea that has Disney’s
‘Frozen’ actually ruled out feminism?
The character Olaf, who is a magical talking snowman, appears
to be a male tragic hero in the film, as he has the characteristics from
Aristotle’s theory of the idea of the tragic hero being a good man with minor
flaws in his character. This relates to Olaf as he plays the humorous sidekick
in the film that helps Anna on her quest. Due to the popularity of this
character, Disney widened their platforms again by creating a video game based
around the character Olaf. The game is called “Disney Frozen: Olaf’s Quest” and
is a “light-hearted, cheerful romp injected with humorous action that players
of all ages and fans of the film will enjoy” (Nintendo, 2013).
Figure 8: Disney Frozen: Olaf’s Quest
Source: YouTube
Frozen became popular as it operated through different spaces
and opened Disney’s platforms to a wider audience. They planned it well with
producing a video game based around the character Olaf as the character Olaf
appeals to both boys and girls of all ages.
The roles of gender traits also reversed when Hans, ‘the good
guy’ turned out to be evil at the end. This was a huge plot twist in the film,
as throughout the film we were aware that he was Anna’s true love and that she
was engaged to marry him. It was not until the end where we found out that he
was evil that resulted in Anna punching him in the face, again going against
the stereotypical traits of a Disney Princess. The idea of true love at first
site is looked upon within this film, as it seems to be a prominent theme
within the Disney Princess franchise, for example when Cinderella and Prince
Charming first met. Although the idea of true love at first sight is soon to be
criticised as both Kristoff and Elsa do not agree with it. The significance of this reversed theme in
Disney’s ‘Frozen’ is opening a deeper message for children “regarding matters
of the heart” (Chipman, 2013) as it represents the awareness of love being a
long-term commitment that needs to be worked at. Another element of the film
that was not to go unnoticed was the idea that Elsa did not have a love
interest. It could have been representing Elsa as a lesbian, “with her powers
acting as an unsubtle metaphor “ (Chipman, 2013) and is shown through the
nominated song ‘Let It Go’. Analysing the lyrics in detail, it shows that the
song could be anthem for homosexual children all around the world as it asks
children to embrace who they truly are. If Disney were trying to aim her
character towards this then they would defiently be adapting with modern day sexuality,
as being homosexual has become more common. Even the idea of Queen Elsa “who doesn't see a romantic partner as a mandatory accessory is
revolutionary in itself” (Chipman, 2013) relates to David Gauntlett’s (2002)
idea that “modern media has little time or respect for tradition”, as interpreting
traditional Disney films with a homosexual twist would have been frowned upon.
It could
be argued that Disney has lacked diversity around race and beauty within the
creation of the Disney’s ‘Frozen’, as Anna looks similar to Rapunzel from the
film ‘Tangled’. This represents beauty being a strict idea for young girls due
to the lack of difference in appearance created by Disney’s producers. This is
later revealed through Disney’s large cross-platform of merchandise in which
they have created for the film ‘Frozen’. Looking at the Disney store website the
products in which they are selling are mostly aimed towards females, other then
one doll of the character Kristoff. This shows that it’s clear to Disney who there
intended audience for the film was; otherwise more masculine products would
have been made.
Reflection
Researching into the film ‘Frozen’ was enjoyable, as I like
the film and embraced the idea that the film had two strong female leads. The
film has spread across different platforms through space, creating its success,
for example the soundtrack that could potentially be nominated for an
Oscar. The idea of feminism is a
continuous topic that lights up in the media industry today, and with the film
‘Frozen’ being such a success, I knew that it would be the perfect case study
to discuss this. It included lots of examples relating to feminism and I decided
to talk about how the film uses the concepts of gender and representation to
promote this. When I was studying the concept of representation I became
interested in how the film represents their characters, as they subverted the
typical traits of a female Disney princess. This became one of the topics in
which I mainly focussed on as the film highlighted on this greatly, for example
the two leads were two females and the act of true love came from a woman not a
man. Hidden ideologies also interested me, as it made me look at the film from
a different perspective. The idea of Elsa being a lesbian had a huge impact on
my perception of the plot for the film, as it made me re-think about her
reasons behind her actions. When I looked into the concept of gender, I found
this more difficult to research into, as I wasn’t confident in how the theories
would relate well to the case study and how it would show different platforms. I
then discovered Laura Mulvey’s theory of the male gaze, and interpreted this
into the film by relating it to the portrayal of the characters. The females
were designed to look beautiful and Disney did this well, although they did not
think about the idea of diversity, and maybe creating the characters with a
different race or ethnicity. The amount of cross-platform that the film has to
offer, strongly interested me as it is larger then I expected. I was unaware of
the success of the soundtrack and that artists such as Demi Lovato had created
cover versions of the songs. Overall I learnt that the future for Disney films
through space should use the feminist approach, as they would be very
successful. This is shown through Disney’s
‘frozen’ as it broke “the ice for Disney’s stereotypes” (Grammar, 2014) and
widened their platforms for the film, opening new opportunities and ideas for
young children to think about.
Conclusion:
Overall, the idea of female empowerment is embraced greatly
in the film ‘Frozen’. Disney has used the plot and engaged with the topic of
feminism, gender and representation allowing it to become such an inspiration
to young children, as it highlights on the fact that “modern media has little time or respect for
tradition”(Gauntlett, 2002). Disney has used different spaces to again
promote the film and spread the idea of empowerment even further, for example
getting an artist like Demi Lovato to sing a cover of their hit single ‘Let it
go’. Although Disney has yet to master the idea of creating a realistic image
on women to young girls all around the world, they are on the right track due
to creating the idea for ‘Frozen’. Laura Mulvey’s idea of the female gaze theory
plays a huge role in the way in which Disney has used spaces to promote the
film, as at meet and greet at Disneyland, they used two attractive females to
play the characters. This represents the way in which women should look to
young children who inspire to look like the characters Anna and Elsa. Using two
female leads was a bold move and will represent an important step in history
for Disney as they wish to widen their spaces even further by creating plans
for ‘Frozen’ in Broadway and possibly a sequel to the film.
Word count: 3581
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