Camestros Felapton

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Why (some of the)* Right Hates Elsa

I’ll start with the only place this post can start – which is where it needs to finish also:

How much does the right of Science Fiction & Fantasy hate this movie and this song in particular? A *lot*, more than perhaps you may have noticed. Sure, the new Star Wars movies have received more high profile attacks, and modern superhero comics have had there own troll-fest ‘gate’ but ‘Frozen’? Frozen has worked its way like a tiny shard of ice under the skin.

To wit:

“As I’ve told my children, Let It Go is an expression of pure Crowleyian evil “http://voxday.blogspot.com.au/2017/11/let-it-go-to-hell.html

“Do you remember hearing how Disney loved the song “Let It Go” so much that they created an entire movie to go around it? Did you ever ask yourself what it was they loved so much about it?…Disney is run by literal satanists preaching Alastair Crowley’s “do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law” to children.”  http://voxday.blogspot.com.au/2017/10/the-devil-that-is-disney.html

” Women and girls learning how to throw off all rules and inhibition is core to our new morality.  The song isn’t loved as a guilty pleasure;  it is loved as a bold moral declaration.  Stop trying to be a good girl and learn to worship yourself is a moral exhortation. ” https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2017/11/13/children-understand/

“The gay agenda to normalize homosexuality is woven into Disney’s movie Frozen not just as an underlying message – it is the movie.” http://wellbehavedmormonwoman.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/movie-frozen-gay-homosexual-agenda.html

“So when it comes to Frozen: Elsa telling Anna that she couldn’t marry a man she just met is a funny observation of a trope that is kind of silly if you think about it.Having that man turn out to be a sociopath that tries to kill Elsa and steal the throne, because that trope was always secretly ‘problematic,’ is subversion and spits on Disney.” http://www.superversivesf.com/2018/02/15/enchanted-parody-frozen-subversion/

“I am puzzled why the writers of Frozen wanted Hans to be the villain, for as best I can tell, they already had someone who would make the perfect villain… Elsa.” http://www.superversivesf.com/2018/01/22/frozens-fatal-flaw-or-the-unplotted-plot-twist/

“So how are things fixed? Does Elsa admit he’s right and strive to do better in the future? Does she vow never to cut loose like that again and learn to control herself?

No. She Loves Her Sister. And that’s it. Now she can control her powers. She never says that letting it go was a mistake.” http://www.superversivesf.com/2018/01/26/no-elsa-not-learn-lesson/

Note that THREE of that sample were from 2018 – this isn’t a short-lived attempt to gain attention by a cynical attack on something popular. No, indeed the Superversive articles, in particular, are by people heavily engaged with the plot of the film who seem to be trying to wrestle with what is wrong with it.

Crowley? Normalizing homosexuality? Wrong villains? Fatal plot flaws? This all from people who often claim that popularity and commercial success are the true marks of artistic quality. By that measure Frozen is high art – a Disney musical powerhouse at a time when Disney musicals were long past their peak. A film that launched a thousand lunch boxes.

The issue is not hard to diagnose. Frozen is mainly conventional Disney – in some ways even less than that. The plot is slight compared to other classic Disney films (e.g. the Lion King) and the songs (bar one) are unmemorable. Yet it does a few things and those things are interesting:

  • ‘Let It Go’ is a genuinely really good song, but it is also really well integrated into the story both emotionally, in its lyrics and in the character development of Elsa.
  • The story rejects romantic love as its central message and instead centres on the familial love of two sisters.

This being Disney, there really is zero implications about Elsa’s sexuality EXCEPT that at no point does she act out of desire for a romantic relationship with anybody of any gender. And with that we get to part of the multiple issues the right continue to have with the film.

  • Both Elsa and Anna reject a story line (and hence a role) of a princess finding the love of a prince. This element is strongest with Anna rather than Elsa. Anna does fall in love with a prince and while that helps drive the plot, this does not lead to the normal resolution because…
  • ..the prince is actually a shit bag. I’m surprised there are fewer rightwingers complaining that the film is ‘anti-man’. I guess because it is a reasonable point that at least some men are shitbags and it is a sibling’s duty to point that out.
  • Elsa overtly and very musically rejects not so much romantic love etc but ALL societal expectations of her and goes off and does her own thing. Now, the film’s ‘message’ is really quite reactionary in so far as it shows the CONSEQUENCE of this as throwing the whole kingdom into eternal winter but…
  • …instead of rejecting her descion to be independent, Elsa treats the whole eternal winter more as a technical problem to be solved.

Are the lyrics to ‘Let It Go’ amoral? Sure – the right ALMOST has a point there. Elsa, in frustration, rejects all of society so that she can act in anyway she likes. I mean, that does sound familiar – not so much ‘Crowley’ but the whole strain of ‘positive thinking’ self-help radical individualism that is peddled by multiple strands of the Alt-Right. The lyrics could *almost* be an anthem for some sections of the Alt-Right, except…

…except that it is a woman singing them and a woman rejecting not people expecting a basic level of decency & compassion but rather a mass of expectations that are literally crushing her ability to do what she is good at. And Elsa does ‘learn her lesson’ in this regard by realising that she SHOULD be allowed to be herself and make bridges and mountain top ice palaces but not at the expense of cutting herself off from her society and family.

Put another way – I think maybe ‘Let It Go’ struck a chord with these guys a bit. It caused a tiny twinge of recognition of their own feelings in a quite different character, to the extent that years later they still can’t (ahem) let it go. Yet, at the same time, the SAME message expressed their deepest fear – women following their own dreams for their own motives independent of societal expectations for the role of women.

To finish, here’s that song again but a version where Disney cut together all the multiple language versions:

*[I’ve had some concerned people on the right express concern for the sweeping headline. Not All Rightists hate Elsa and some find her quite charming 🙂 ]

camestrosfelapton

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75 responses to “Why (some of the)* Right Hates Elsa”

  1. “Are the lyrics to ‘Let It Go’ amoral? Sure – the right ALMOST has a point there. Elsa, in frustration, rejects all of society so that she can act in anyway she likes. ”

    If I squint real hard I can see how the Superversive SF folks really push this amorality because it offends their sense of Christian values, whereas of course Beale and company are all for that amorality. But its fascinating to watch them struggle with the film.

    Liked by 2 people

    • What Beale says he’s for Tuesday he will renounce Wednesday as often as not. I mean, he also identifies as Christian, and got himself started arguing for creationism and against atheism. (Badly.) And yet it’s a weird brand of it that’s getting weirder.

      Liked by 1 person

  2. “The gay agenda to normalize homosexuality is woven into Disney’s movie Frozen not just as an underlying message – it is the movie.”

    Wow, if it’s such a gay agenda thing, then how did I miss seeing this movie? Could it be that the well behaved Mormon woman doesn’t know what she’s talking about? “Methinks the lady doth protest overmuch.”

    Liked by 3 people

    • I find it hard to see teh ghey agenda when much of the plot consists of the romantic triangle of Anna/Hans/Kristoff, which takes up the majority of the running time. Which of two cute boys a girl ends up with doesn’t look real gay to me.

      Even the rock trolls live in monogamous heterosexual relationships.

      Liked by 3 people

    • Of course the movie hasn’t got a gay agenda, whatever that may be. On talking it over with some LGBT friends, however, I came to see that, after being closeted by her parents (especially with the poisonous advice, “conceal, don’t feel”), Elsa both escapes and closets herself. The happy ending for Elsa is coming out to her family and community as she is. This is easily applicable to LGBT people, but also to many others. I thought it was great.

      Liked by 3 people

      • I can also see the song “Let It Go” being read as being about accepting your sexuality — and the power that comes to someone *after* they stop denying their sexuality.

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      • Definitely applicable to LGBT people, but to people coming out of any sort of closet. Wiccans talk about “coming out of the broom closet” when they trust people enough not to hide their non-monotheism. Women who’ve decided to not get married at 18 and pump out kids, instead going to college or joining the military. Men who tell their parents they’re not going to become a doctor, they’re gonna be a musician. Or just admitting that on a weekend, you put on a Star Trek uniform and go to cons.

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      • So there are themes which, viewed through a little wishful thinking, can be said to apply to the LGBT community. But by the same criteria, so can Brave, Moana, 1939’s Ferdinand the Bull, 1941s The Reluctant Dragon, Mulan and so many more. Then think of the queerbaiting which surrounded Le Fou in the newest version of Beauty

        But compare these crumbs with something like Bucky and Pronk Oryx-Antlerson in Zootopia. Here we have a gay couple where there’s no subtext, and no fuss made about them. Cue the frothing.

        Liked by 2 people

      • The canonical example of a film embraced by the LGBT community is the 1939 The Wizard of Oz. No, Dorothy isn’t gay; the film wasn’t coded to have gay themes — but the visuals where a sad girl living in a dull, oppressive, monochrome world longs to go over the rainbow, and is suddenly transported to a new world of bright colour, adventure, praise, and friendship (and new red sparkly shoes!) — well, one can sort-of see how that might appeal to people who must usually repress themselves but then find a community where they can be as flamboyant as they want, and are accepted for their unrepressed selves.

        I seem to recall that feminists also complained a bit about how Elsa transforms into a flamboyant sexy strutting made-over slightly smug ice princess. For whatever reason, “sexiness” has become a proxy for “strong and confident” in our culture. Much ink (or many pixels) could no doubt be spilled over that point, and perhaps have been already.

        Liked by 1 person

      • I should clarify that penultimate sentence: For whatever reason, “sexiness” has often become a proxy for “strong and confident” when the individual in question is a young woman in our culture.

        And fear of female sexuality may be the real reason at least some of the right-wing hate Elsa.

        Liked by 1 person

  3. “and the songs (bar one) are unmemorable”
    Two. After all, in addition to “Do you wanna build a snowman”, there’s also “Let it go” which seems quite popular too.

    (Really, I’ll argue that “Do you wanna build a snowman” is _more_ memorable than “Let it go”.)

    Liked by 1 person

  4. “…except that it is a woman singing them.” Exactly. Women exist to serve men. *Men* exist to do what they will.

    It’s very simple once you have the code book.

    Liked by 3 people

  5. Is straw that cheap in Australia? You’re using a lot in making these strawmen to build your argument around. You’re treating conservatism as a monolithic grouping, because a few people dislike a popular children’s movie.
    Frankly, after seeing it 15-20 times in a week, and hearing the songs playing nearly continuous by kids with little singing ability — I could learn to hate it, too.
    But that’s true of everyone, not just a few ‘conservatives’ you dislike. BTW, isn’t VD Libertarian? Different cat.

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      • Perhaps he’s the sort of Libertarian I often encounter online: a bold, outspoken iconoclast who hates all liberals and loves 93% of Republicans.

        I also saw someone whose profile boasted that he called out liberals and conservatives equally. Looked like a quota queen, but I think what he really means is that whenever a Con is caught out doing something, he pipes up that both sides are equally at fault. So bold!

        Liked by 4 people

    • They aren’t straw, they are people who call themselves conservatives. If you think they’re wrong, tell them, not Camestros. This looks an awful lot like #NotAllConservatives.

      Liked by 1 person

    • Yes. Elsa is superior by birth, therefore she gets to rule. In her own new way, ignoring the “little people”. Not having children. And she’s even an architect. Throw in some snow trains and it’s absolutely Randian.

      Liked by 3 people

  7. I thought people disliked it b/c it’s everywhere OMG STOP PLAYING/SINGING THIS. I don’t spend time with children and even I got tired of it being everywhere.

    You’d think they’d like this. It’s all about family; Elsa and Anna, Kristoff and the trolls (great model for adoption). You really shouldn’t marry a guy you just met who your family doesn’t know a thing about. Princess Anna doesn’t marry the Evil Foreigner — she falls for the nice, hardworking, strapping young blond man from the rural area. Salt of the earth, very manly. Just the type the right extols. And everyone’s from Norway, Drumpf’s favorite country!

    And it turns out that “Let It Go” wasn’t a good idea. Being all solitary and doing her own thing turns out badly for Elsa and the whole country. She can’t be a loner, she needs other people (and snowmen and reindeer).

    So, as usual, they’ve completely missed the point. Blinded by that pesky need of theirs to keep women “in their place” and the fact that teh gheys like “Let It Go”.

    I like “Do You Want to Build a Snowman” better too. I like Kristoff and his reindeer pal — the reindeer has some of the best reaction shots in the film.

    Liked by 1 person

    • “And it turns out that “Let It Go” wasn’t a good idea.”

      Precisely.

      The song is one message. The whole of the movie, including the song in its proper context, is an entirely different one – with a fair chunk of it being straight out of Jane Austen.

      Liked by 2 people

    • I thought people disliked it b/c it’s everywhere OMG STOP PLAYING/SINGING THIS. I don’t spend time with children and even I got tired of it being everywhere.

      I mean, that’s why *I* dislike it. To be precise, I resent it because now everyone thinks I mean the Disney song when I’m actually talking ’bout Cowboy Mouth.

      It’s a shallow reason to dislike a song, but that’s cool. I’ve made my peace with my shallows.

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  8. A while ago, I was having a bit of a muse about social agency among SFF protagonists, and coming to the conclusion that most of them had a heck of a lot of it, one way or the other. (The context, if you’re remotely interested, was the Sharke jury’s comments about “A Closed and Common Orbit”, which I think confused them because the protagonists *don’t* have a lot of agency, they are just ordinary – and somewhat illegal – folks trying to get by in a system that doesn’t like them much, and that they can’t change.)

    It’s easy to find protagonists who are in positions of overt power – they are captains of starships, or heads of corporations, or guerrilla leaders and psychic messiahs who are secretly the rightful heirs to the throne (why, yes, I can see “Dune” from here, however did you guess?) There’s also a lot of downtrodden types who are, nonetheless, agents of change – more lost heirs, interstellar ambassadors, or people carrying vital scientific knowledge or military secrets that will bring down the Evil Empire.

    And then there are people who are individually powerful enough that they interact – or not – with society on their own terms. And this is where your typical Gernsback-era scientist hero tends to fit in; they are independently wealthy, or they have so much scientific know-how that they can sit in their laboratories and dispense their super-scientific blessings to the populace as they wish, and nobody can stop them doing whatever the hell they like. Gernsback’s own Ralph 124C41+ is a good example (he is answerable only to the other “+” men – they seem to be all men, oddly enough – and enjoys universal acclaim and approval even when he, for example, shuts off the power to half New York in the middle of the night), but the cream of the crop is undoubtedly E.E. “Doc” Smith’s Richard Seaton, who starts out by gaining personal control of a revolutionary new power source, and by volume 3 of his saga is swanning around in an armoured globe the size of Ceres, powered by a magical wishing engine – the sort of armoured globe the Death Star dreams of being when it grows up. A number of the more powerful or longer-lasting superheroes fit into the same category (you think Batman gets a ticket if he parks the Batmobile on a double yellow line? Dream on.)

    Individual power, with or without responsibility, figures pretty large in the history of SF, is what I’m saying.

    So what’s this got to do with Elsa? Well, she’s getting right on into the acceptance and the exercise of her own individual power, there. Like Dick Seaton building his Skylark of Space. Or – very like – Superman building his Fortress of Solitude at the north pole. The thing is, SF (and SF fans) are generally pretty accepting of people like Seaton or Superman. So why aren’t these particular SF fans accepting of Elsa?… I can only think of one reason. Dick Seaton, Ralph 124C41+, Superman, Batman… one thing they don’t have is girl cooties.

    Liked by 6 people

  9. VD: “As I’ve told my children, Let It Go is an expression of pure Crowleyian evil ”

    He uses phrases like “an expression of pure Crowleyian evil” when talking to his children?

    Seriously?

    Liked by 4 people

  10. 1) None of the Disney animated movies are actually romance centered. They’re all about building families and reclaiming/reuniting with families — out of woodland creatures, dwarfs, servants turned into cups and clocks, swamp animals, fairy godmothers, lost boys, a fox and a hound, a lion with a meercat and a warthog, etc. Ariel rejects her family and her identity for a dream of being human in the Little Mermaid, but then realizes that her identity is being part of her mer and fish family and only joining with her family will defeat Ursula — it’s about her learning to grow up and build a new kind of relationship with her dad, not Prince Eric. For most of the Disney “princess” movies, the princes are barely in the movie. Disney made fun of this with Enchanted, in which the heroine, who has a family of woodland creatures, doesn’t so much want to have a romance with a prince (whom she meets and decides to marry in a day without even kissing him,) as she wants a family, with the stepmom Queen to treat her like a daughter. Instead she ends up in the real world and builds a real family out of Patrick Dempsey and his kid.

    In Frozen, Ana likewise is denied/loses a family in Elsa being locked away as a monster and her parents then dying (and how dare you say that “Do You Wanna Build a Snowman?” is not memorable!) It’s not that she’s in love with Hans — she just wants a life and a family and grabs on to Hans to have that. With her adventure with Kristof, his reindeer and Olaf, she builds a family and is determined to reunite with her sister who she does not see as a monster, but someone needing help. Elsa likewise is denied a family because she believes she is a monster, is locked away and then her parents die. Trying to keep others from knowing about her special powers is impossible because, as the trolls meant to make clear, that will not give her control of her powers. Love of her family will give her control of her powers — being with people rather than being alone. When Elsa fails due to stress and all see her as a monster, she runs away to keep from hurting Ana, her family. “Let it Go” is about letting go of the attempt/demand that she be just like others, instead of herself, that she stop hiding but also that she will be alone, away, and thus able to deal with her powers without hurting anyone. It’s a cry of pain and loss as well as identity and freedom — the cold that doesn’t bother her is the coldness of being alone, but clearly it does bother her. It isn’t selfishness, but desperation. She’s already frozen her kingdom, doesn’t know how to undo it, so she exiles herself. She does gain some more control over her powers by being free to deal with her powers and the beautiful side of those powers comes out. But she still fears hurting others and so wants them to leave her alone to protect everybody. It’s when Elsa stops seeing herself as a monster and tries to save Ana, her family, that she gains control of her powers and gets her family and makes progress. She has to let go of being alone and isolated.

    2) They think there’s a gay rights agenda because Disney gave benefits to same sex partners and has gay pride events at its theme parks and so is obviously conspiring; the lodge owners where Kristof and Ana take refuge are a gay couple with kids and positive portrayals of gay people reduce the bigotry in society towards them, treating them as normal and equal, and the bigots don’t like that because then what will they use for political power fundraisers; and because Elsa has the secret of her ice powers, comes out/is outed of that secret and then they think she is proudly reveling in that. They liken it to being outed as gay. But it’s actually a parallel to having a mental illness, and how that illness doesn’t have to control a life, make mentally ill people a danger to others just because others don’t understand what’s going on with the illness, does not require mentally ill people to be locked away and isolated from all or harmed, etc. Of course, a lot of them think being gay is a mental illness and have horrible views about how to treat those with mental illnesses, so it’s pretty much the same thing for them. A lot of gay people also love Frozen and took “Let It Go” up as a personal anthem. Therefore, Elsa must be gay, etc. in their view. Mostly it’s just another handy thing to scream about and try to get money off of.

    3) And yeah, the fact that it’s a woman ruler with lots of power who has to thwart a takeover of her land they also see as advancing a feminist agenda. Women being powerful in a movie is a threat and must be characterized as bad. Or rather, it makes another good thing to scream about. The fact that they think “being a good girl” is locking a child up in a tower for years, hardly ever seeing anyone for fear she might hurt someone because she is different is a rather frightening view — the kind that created the horrible orphanages in Romania in fact, and many horrific mental asylums that warehoused people, many of whom didn’t even have actual mental illnesses. Frozen also made over a billion dollars worldwide, so that makes it a good target for claiming devil worship, subversive destruction of civilization, etc.

    4) The fact that supposed free speech advocates advocate instead for the suppression of speech, the need to be silent about who they are and to conform to a rigid view of who is acceptable and who is not, is always an illogical treat.

    Liked by 6 people

  11. “Crowley? Normalizing homosexuality? Wrong villains? Fatal plot flaws?”

    Don’t forget paedophilia:

    http://voxday.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/the-devil-that-is-disney.html#c1465946352668489399

    “The first time I saw Elsa waltz out of her ice palace onto her balcony my jaw fell open. It was shocking to imagine children were watching this. They overtly flung open the overton window regarding child sexuality. Now I see so called professors suggesting prostitution may be taught at University. It’s disgusting.”

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  12. I was trying to work out why on earth Frozen would be the target of their ire. It could be as simple as Frozen being 2013 and the next full Disney princess-style movie was Moana in 2017 (ignoring straight to video sequels and so on) – I suspect their alt-right indoctrination dates to that sort of period. Ditto Dinosaur happening to be a more literary story that was front and centre when these things were developing.

    (Random trivia I just learned, apparently the Frozen sisters and Moana aren’t official Disney princesses yet. No idea why.)

    Liked by 3 people

    • Yes, they are official princesses — Elsa the biggest seller in the princess department at the moment. Of course, princess is a very loose term in Disney. It means female main character in an animated movie, mostly.

      I think the main reason for continued ire is that Frozen has been the subject of much academia, women’s studies stuff since it came out (including criticisms for lots of stuff too,) some of which got covered in the media, that a large chunk of LGBTQ folk embraced it, etc., so it’s seen as a darling of the “Left” and therefore needs to be routinely attacked as degrading the culture and steering the children astray. The mass amount of merchandising for Frozen that still sells probably helps keep it in their sights. Most recently, Olaf’s Frozen Adventure holiday short, which played before Coco in December and then on network t.v., and the Frozen holiday show at the Disney theme parks probably keeps it a returning topic.

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      • They are not princesses because Disney decided to do ”Frozen” as a toy brand of its own (including characters Loke Olaf), separate from the toy brand ”Disney Princess”. In a broad sense she can be said to be a Disney princess, but toys of her is not part of the brand ”Disney Prinsess”

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      • If you go into the Disney stores, the distinction is pretty much moot. It’s still Princess Elsa and Princess Anna and they lead a lot of the Disney parades as Disney princesses.

        Liked by 1 person

        • Kat, I guess you’ll have to take it up with Disney marketing or something. I presented a piece of trivia in a parenthetical aside, it’s hard to express how little I’m invested in this point.

          Liked by 3 people

      • Why is Mulan an official princess and Elsa/Anna aren’t?
        Marketing makes no sense.

        Maybe Olaf gets into some cursed snow and becomes Loki Olaf. Kristoff, Anna, and the reindeer have to make him nice and goofy again. Maybe the trolls have a magic rock to fix him. I’d watch that.

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      • Basically because there are two of them in Frozen — Elsa and Anna, whereas for the other films, they have one “princess” who stars in the film, so they have a set with one princess from each film. So it was probably easier to keep Frozen separate. It’s also a matter of adult collectors for the dolls and some other merchandise. The Frozen dolls are worth more than the dolls of the other princesses, so they keep them separate and then have the princess line of dolls where princesses are officially inducted into the main merchandise lines. Even if they aren’t technically princesses.

        But for the kids, they are all princesses and they go for all the toys and there are actors doing all of them at the parks, so there’s really not a distinction. None of the animated films gets dropped, except for a few like Black Cauldron and the Fox and the Hound, which ended up with some legal issues and are not reissued much. (But The Fox and the Hound was released in theaters again not that long ago.) Most of them are massively merchandised and part of the brands at the parks and resorts and Disney continues to do its thing of reissuing them periodically in theaters, though now they’re doing the live action ones and of course sometimes Broadway shows, and they get shown on the Disney channels, etc. There are entire Disney cruises built around these princesses, including the ones of Frozen. Kids are continually exposed to them. None of these movies are going to become obscure. The idea that Disney would dump Frozen in twenty years when it’s a billion dollar brand for them, while keeping The Little Mermaid, is just kind of silly. Elsa has ice powers — do you know how many little girls want ice powers? They love Olaf, they love the reindeer and the trolls. They love the blue dress and Cinderella’s blue dress, and Aurora’s pink dress, and Belle’s yellow dress, etc.

        For the kids, it’s all girl power. It’s not better when the girls are like the boys — they aren’t boys, that’s just girls being girl power. The dresses are not frilly “feminine” stuff of romance, it’s girl power being strong and brave and cool. They don’t see them the way adults do, and you cannot stop the Disney princesses. 🙂

        Liked by 4 people

      • Kid-perception wise it’s all the same.

        Marketing wise – it’s the opposite. Frozen is such a strong brand standing on its own that it doesn’t need the other princesses to prop it up. So they aren’t part of it.

        If Cinderella or Aurora weren’t part of almost all the Disney princess franchise, do you think many little kids would be running around with backpacks with those princesses on them? Whereas you can’t throw a snowball in a playground without hitting an Else or Elsa/Anna backpack.

        (And for now there aren’t Any Elsa/Anna backpacks with Tiana or Jasmine or Belle also hanging out on them. Despite the fact that they used Tiana blatantly as a template for at least one figure in the coronation scene.)

        Moana may get inducted in a couple of years when the movie specific merchandising dies down. Elsa and Anna may quietly be moved over to the Disney Princesses line in 20 years when they are less popular and could use the combined power boost, and THEN they will appear on a backpack beside Tiana and whomever else at that point is a Princess, but at the moment, they’re making Disney more money than the entire Disney princess line.

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      • As someone who came of age before the whole Disney merchandising machine went into overdrive, the whole Disney princess concept is very strange for me. When I was at the right age for Disney movies, they were far more likely to star more or less anthropomorphic animals than princesses. The only princesses in the Disney line-up at the time were Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Eilonwy, though no one ever seems to count her. Meanwhile, The Rescuers, The Lady and the Tramp, Aristocats, 101 Dalmatians, The Jungle Book, Dumbo, Robin Hood or The Fox and the Hound were far more typical of Disney’s animated output than princess movies. And indeed, I’m a bit sad that those often wonderful movies have been overrun by the princess juggernaut. Though I do envy today’s kids when I see all of the toys, figurines, etc… and think back on my own collection of PVC figurines that were the only representation of Disney characters available when I was a kid. And usually, the Disney PVC figurines were of much lower quality than e.g. Smurfs or other figurines produced by Bully or Schleich. Though nowadays, Bully produces licensed Disney toys.

        Coincidentally, Sleeping Beauty is the only pre-1990 animated Disney movie I have never seen, because it was never in theatres at the time due to having been filmed in a format (70mmm Technirama) that most theatres were no longer equipped for.

        Regarding Disney’s cruise liners, I know some people who work at the shipyard that built many/most of them and they were baffled by the princess decor (though reportedly, there were also Marvel superheroes). Still, it seems to work for Disney and creates/secure jobs in East Frisia, where they arenh’t exactly plentiful, so why not?

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      • Lenorarose: Yes, if there was no Elsa and no princess line, Cinderella would be very prominent on backpacks, etc., because she was just that for several decades before Disney ever put a princess line together. Cinderella and her castle were the symbols of Disney and the parks and Cinderella led the parades and often still does. You could get a Cinderella or Snow White backpack in the 1970’s quite easily and you can get them today. They’ve made a fortune off of Cinderella alone. They made even more when the live action movie came out.

        Which is not to say that Frozen doesn’t make an enormous amount of money for Disney, but you have to remember that the kids are constantly exposed to different aspects of it — specials, cruises, bedsheets, games — they don’t phase that much of it out ever.

        Cora: Black Cauldron bombed and nearly took Disney’s animated company with it, so it’s all mired in legal stuff and they just aren’t doing reissues of it. But the rest — all the animal movies are heavily merchandised by Disney, although understandably more on the plush stuff animals, figurines and things like beach towels side of the merchandise than dolls. The Dalmatians are particularly popular and will be getting a huge boost when the Cruella movie comes out. The Jungle Book live action movie sent sales there through the roof with a whole second line around the movie. Bambi remains a big seller. And then there is of course The Lion King. And Zootopia more recently. The princesses have the advantage with actors in the parks, ice shows, cruises and the like, so they are bigger, but the animals do fine — plus there are animal sidekicks in all of the princess movies.

        And again, the princess stuff is not limited to just the “princess line” in its various incarnations, just as not all of them are actual princesses. Anna and Elsa are lumped in with the rest on a lot of princess marketing and meet the princesses stuff, as is Tinkerbell and Princess Tiger Lily from Peter Pan, Megara from Hercules, Sofia and Elena from Disney t.v. shows, etc. What actually crowds stuff out more now is the Star Wars and Marvel superhero material. But they don’t have tiaras.

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    • More random trivia. John Carter (of Mars) is a Disney product. That makes Dejah Thoris a Disney princess (though not, of course, a Disney Princess.)

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  13. Incidentally, is anyone else now hearing the opening lyrics, in their head, overlapping with “The sirens are screaming and the fires are howling, way down in the valley tonight”?

    *** crickets chirp***

    …. Just me, then. Oooookay.

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    • No, but I mentally replace Elsa with Dr Manhattan on Mars after he freaks out at the press conference in Watchmen. I suspect, but don’t know, that Elsa’s ice-palace creation bit must have been partly inspired by Dr M’s giant clock-spaceship-thing-palace that he creates on Mars.

      But Meatloaf also works.

      Except…Meatloaf make me think of Fight Club and now I have to plaster a wall with picture joining all these pieces together with red Twine and wave at it saying “See? See? It all fits!!!!”

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      • I suppose I just find the contrasts pleasing – Meatloaf hot in the valley, Elsa cool in the mountains. I wouldn’t be in the least surprised if Dr. Manhatten turned out to be pivotal. Or Fight Club. Or both. It all makes sense. The Empire never ended!

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  15. I don’t care much for the Disney princesses (though Eyvind Earles artwork on sleeping beaty is gorgeous), but I think it is cool that it somehow implies that they exist in a shared universe. Now I want the maps to see the geographical relation of the Snow Wite, Cinderella and Sleeping Beaty kingdoms. And I want Jasmine and Mulan to head trade delegations meeting on the Silk Road. Elsa may live in a parallel universe.

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  18. Disney will of course, as usual have to change a lot to make it a happy upbeat movie.

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  19. Incidentally, I am one of those bothered by Hans, who goes from being friendly, helpful, and even self-sacrificing to malevolent gloating monologuing villain. But then again, the alternative of having the villains be malevolent gloating monologuers from the start of the film is also kind of weak storytelling. Tired cliche, or cognitive whiplash?

    How about good villain character development? Is that too much to ask for?

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