On thinking about Frozen further... Fairy Tale imagery and meaning

I personally was not a huge fan of Disney's Frozen.  It isn't the worse animated children's film, to be sure, but I just didn't love it like everyone else seems to.  I know that kid's films aren't directed at me as a viewer, but most of the smart companies are aware that you want to keep adults entertained as well, so the argument "Its not for you." is a little weak in my opinion.  But on the other hand, if you liked it, that's fine.  Not everyone likes the same things, right?

The Snow Queen:1957 Soviet animated film by Lev Atamanov.

 So... in college, I did take some courses on studying Fairy Tales and many things came up in my mind while watching Frozen that were items we covered in the class.  See, many of what we now consider the 'princess' fairy tales (thanks to Disney) were focused on the idea of young women reaching sexual maturity and how that would change things in their lives.  Red Riding Hood was about a young girl avoiding the dangers of being preyed upon by Wolves (Men) though she doesn't listen and there is imagery of picking flowers (deflowering) and being consumed (sex), etc...  The huntsman that saves her and her grandmother was added later and wasn't part of the original story. 

Now, I'm not saying the writers of Frozen put tons of thought into it and the truth is, I wish they had.  The original story of The Snow Queen was an amazing fairy tale and was one of the few featuring a female character SAVING a male character.  For all the cries of how Frozen is such a great feminist movie with strong female characters, I can only shake my head and point to the original which had an amazing and colorful cast of strong female leads.  (Honestly, taking an all female cast and whittling it down to two and surrounding them with men...)

I missed the Little Robber Girl!

Anyway, if I look at Frozen in the same way as I would a Grimm Fairy Tale, we have Elsa, a young girl who is special and a princess.  She is on the cusp of puberty and her body is changing.  The uncontrolled power she has is symbolic of a lack of emotional control - this is shown by her ice flaring out when she gets upset. We know that as a girl goes through puberty (and young men) they go through deep emotional changes and can lash out, even when they don't want to.  Even THEY don't understand what is happening to them.  In this case, Elsa lashes out at Anna and causes her harm.  The King and Queen take both girls to specialists, concerned for the safety (purity) of their daughters.  In a traditional sense, girls going through puberty are dangerous - they begin to develop sexually and will begin to corrupt others.  This is of course an old misongynist view point, but again, I am harkening back to the OLD Fairy Tales and ideas behind them.

In this case, it is the trolls, old wise creatures that live in the woods.  They are wild  and ancient, but carry the tradition of the 'witch' or elder type.  You go to the older generation for advice.  They tell the parents that Elsa is dangerous to herself and others.  Confirming the idea that her growing sexuality is dangerous and she will harm Anna (corrupt her).  The solution to all of this is to lock her away from everyone. 

Now taking a step out of analyzing it, I am going to point this out: INSTEAD OF TEACHING ELSA HOW TO CONTROL HER POWER, THEY LOCK HER AWAY.  A friend pointed out to me that the chains in the dungeon had to have existed previous to Elsa being locked up later in the movie.  They had no time to have a blacksmith create those types of manacles - which were specially made to confine Elsa, which means her parents had them made before - just in case because they considered their daughter dangerous.  I wonder if Elsa knew about them.  All of this is a very dark shadow that NO one is talking about.

Seriously, they just had these ready and waiting!

Going back to the fairy tale...  Elsa matures as does Anna.  Neither is given a proper education on dealing with their own sexuality.  Elsa is apparently told on how to be 'a good girl' because she is going to be queen.  It is all about appearance and behavior.  Anna does not seem to get much attention or teaching (as seen by her constant state of boredom and isolation in that Snowman song).  Anna is so uneducated as a young woman that she holds on to the childish idea of love at first sight and getting married to a prince.  Elsa is stifled emotionally - clearly by her inability to deal with other socially and by the icing that she can't control.  The other part is that Elsa is a full blown adult and is covered from head to toe to keep her power (sexuality) hidden and under wraps because she has been taught that it is wrong and dangerous.  Her body must be covered up so as not to entice others to sin.

Anna, still being childish announces she wants to get married to the guy she just met and if you notice, there is little to no sexual tension (we know why later because: SPOILER: Hans is a douchebag.).  She is a child doing childish things.  While she might be pure, there is no sense of Anna being a normal young lady.  Now in terms of Fairy Tales, this addresses the 'childish' idea of a young woman choosing her husband to be, rather than having her parents or guardians choosing for her.  It shows that she is not ready and look what happens?  Things fall apart for her.  If she had allowed an arranged marriage as young girls normally had done, things would have been better for her - after all, even her sexually repressed sister agrees this is a bad idea for Anna.

Going back to Elsa...  Here she is being crowned queen and she is incapable of taking on the crown... showing that she really needed a man to help her.  Perhaps this is a warning to young ladies whose parents die (not an uncommon occurrence) to not attempt to take on the responsibilities on her own and that she should turn to a man or finding a husband to help take on the household items.  Elsa freaks out and runs away.  She has lost control of her sexual power in the face of all these men who are around her.  Showing sexual power is dangerous.  Let's take a look at the words she uses:

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

Repressed to free

Sounds like a little bit of a sexual revolution there right?  And how about the before and after Elsa?  If that isn't a young woman claiming her sexual power, I don't know what is.

But even as she releases her power, she is still isolated and does not appear any better for this new freedom, sexy slit dress, heels and all.  The lesson here?  Don't let your sexuality get out of control or else you will be alone. Elsa is no longer an innocent woman.  She is now the force which Anna must face.  In traditional terms, she takes on the role of the witch - the enemy of the other characters.

Anna decides to go running after her sister, alone.  It is not an unusual situation in fairy tales to have  a young female going out into the wild.  This is Anna's going into the forest, symbolizing her journey into maturity - facing the danger.  Normally, the young woman faces the witch, or old crone, and normally out of that encounter, there is a transformation - the young heroine is meant to return a woman with secret powers of her own. 

Free to be sexy!

But in this version, there is no other crone.  Instead it is Anna's sexually active sister who sends her away.  What are we to take from this?  Do we take that Elsa, now in the witch position, is refusing to help her sister achieve maturity, to help guide her to the next step in her life?  So much so, that Elsa creates a snow beast to attack her sister and send her away.  Because of this, Anna does not get to achieve her transformation - she is actually denied it and is struck by the uncontrolled power of Elsa yet again.  Elsa is dangerous still.  You can't trust her because she has not kept her purity.

Now, Anna must return to the trolls to try to gain healing for her frozen heart (symbolic of her frozen maturity).  What is it they tell her?  That she must marry the man she is with.  Now, here we see them showing that if she is to travel with a man alone, she should marry him so that it is appropriate for her to be with him - they ignore her 'childish' protests stating that she was in love with Hans and wanted to marry him.  Kristoff is a more appropriate match regardless of their own wishes in the matter because HIS parents/guardians are arranging it.  The elder troll tells her that 'true love' will save her but the reference here is to 'correct love'.  We are to assume in the story, that it would be the love of Kristoff who Anna knows just as long as Hans really, but that is an arranged marriage rather than her choosing with her heart - which is now not really capable of working correctly.

So, Hans comes and captures Elsa - Men have to confine her because she is out of control according to them and her behavior only proves them right.  They bind her and put her in a dungeon. If they don't she certainly will seduce them all with her power and corrupt others.  Anna, still convinced in her childish way that Hans in her true love, returns home to cure her heart. 

I'm going to skip some stuff here - because I don't want to spoil the movie for anyone, but I think its pretty clear from what everyone is saying, that Anna saves her sister.  In this situation, Anna is frozen by Elsa's power and is transformed (perhaps finally being connecting with her own sexual power?) and in the end, its her and Kristoff - the man that had been chosen for her by elder figures and an arranged marriage.  Proof that this is how it should be for a young woman.  Witnessing her sister's transformation, Elsa realizes her release is not healthy and she had to pull in the sexual aura she has been exuding - it is causing harm to others, a theme repeated throughout the story really.

Yay, I'm getting married and you'll be forever alone!

Elsa unfortunately, while achieving her own control is still a sexual being, but she has no love interest.  While she is sexy and powerful, she will not find a man to stand by her side and will be alone, unlike her sister who has gone through a transformative journey to womanhood and found her 'true love' in the end. 

I'm sure there are people who would read it differently.  This is just based on my study of fairy tales and the meanings behind them.  Most of them were about preparing young women (when they were featured) to prepare for puberty and their sexuality and getting married to the right person.  Remaining pure was very important.  And the above is just my observations on the matter.  I might be reading it completely wrong. 

I've clearly over thought all of this.