Frozen

I saw the movie Frozen today.  I had heard a lot about it from the whole "prince as savior for helpless princess" thing, and, without giving the ending away, I was pleasantly surprised (though of course there was romance...wouldn't be a Disney movie without the whole idea of a woman needing to be completed by a man, DUH).  I was also surprised at the fact that the movie seemed to be a decent allegory in favor of gay rights.

I figured that I could not be the only one who had picked up on this, and when I googled it I saw that most people seemed to get the vibe that Elsa was gay.  Now I have notoriously AWFUL gaydar...I have a story from college about that where I found out in the course of a day that FIVE people I knew were gay and I had no clue.  At all.  And looking back, one was pretty obvious and had basically every stereotype you can think of when you think of a gay man....what I am saying here is maybe that is the case in the movie and I totally missed it.  It's happened before, OK?

What struck me, though, was when the king and queen took Elsa to the rock trolls and the grandpa troll asked the king, "Was she born this way or was it a curse?"  As is the case with homosexuality, the response was "born this way."  Another scene that stuck out for me was when Elsa is building her ice castle and sings the song "Let it Go" and something along the lines of "I'm alone, but I'm finally free to be me".   Away from the confines of the kingdom, where her parents literally closeted her, Elsa was finally able to revel in the gift that she was given and be herself.

The persecution and fear that came from the people of the kingdom also stuck out to me.  Fear, revulsion, horror...all of what they did not understand.  She was something to be removed, hid out of sight...even the gloves were symbolic of her repression.  Don't be yourself, don't be different, you are dangerous to our society.  If you can't control yourself and who you are, we must eliminate you.  Very similar rhetoric that comes from aficionados of Fox News...

What sealed the deal for me was the ending.  It was love and acceptance that saved the day.  Elsa was still Elsa in the end...still had her powers, still was who she was born to be.  The very fabric of the society that she loved, however, was not worse off because of acknowledging her gift.  In fact, when she tried to hide and suppress it, she ended up harming not only the people she loved, but also society and causing herself emotional harm.  When her kingdom embraced who she was and not some false caricature of who they thought she should be, Elsa was able to enhance life in the kingdom and they all lived happily ever after in true Disney fashion.