Yo-ho-ho This will be a long post about Disney's Frozen:
So, apparently “Frozen” which Tumblr and animation enthusiasts have been griping about, is actually quite good, like “Beauty and the Beast” level good. It has great songs, characters, Olaf the snowman is actually funny, Elsa is a compelling antivillain, beautiful animation, a female-positive plot, and overall, hearkens back to the grandiose Disney princess features of old.
And IMHO, that latter bit is the largest issue. Disney is constantly putting on nostalgia glasses and doing throwbacks, especially in the princess department.Charles Dickens made an incredible career out of writing a lot of classic books about orphan boys (and then there’s Bleak House), but he was just one man, and Disney is an infinitely powerful corporate monster that’s pretty much immortal at this point. Of the last few Disney princess movies I’ve seen (Pixar’s Brave, Tangled, and Enchanted) all of them play on/rehash princess tropes like the spunky/feisty white lass in her late teens (Enchanted’s Giselle acts like one) in some sort of conflict with an older woman/mother-like figure and some sort of romantic entanglement (frequently royalty-related, the “I don’t want to get married” trope comes back with a vengeance in Brave) on a journey of self-discovery to the outside world with magic, destiny, and cute animals. This has been done ad nauseam. It’s formulaic, and at this point, boring in the nicest way possible. Sure, the aforementioned three movies are widly different in setting, but ultimately not different enough. [I’d really like to see Princess and the Frog soon]
I don’t want to walk out of another Disney princess movie saying, “That was cute” (my reaction to Tangled). I want to walk out saying, “That was something great that I’ve never seen before and I was emotionally invested” (which was my reaction to Mulan). I don’t think cute’s quite good enough in this day and age. I know it sells toys well, and it’s emotionally and visually safe, but if Disney wants to progress into the future, they’re going to have to make something new, with more of a bite rather than resting on sparkly laurels. Wreck-It Ralph, while not a princess movie or particularly emotionally edgy, was a great example of a twist on a zero-to-hero theme, where it put on video game nostalgia glasses (something that no animated movie had done before), it had a heroic villain protagonist (Zangief explains this better), with a great and varied supporting cast. Felix, Vanellope, and Calhoun all look totally different and and act totally different, and don’t quite fit into any traditional Disney archetypes.
Perhaps, Disney could take a hint from Studio Ghibli in regards to it’s princess and female-led movies. Like Dickens, Miyazaki and Co. really like making movies about a lead girl, with a supporting boy, and usually magic, and themes about nature and pacifism (and then there’s the Yamadas), but they’re all wildly, wildly different and none of the stories necessarily require that the lead has to be attractive or romantically involved (this is either extremely subtle/restrained or more like a rewarding subplot). Also, Ghibli’s heroines run the gamut of personalities, looks, and ages, from a curious baby goldfish to a vicious teenager raised by wolves. They know the meaning of variety.
I’ve been hearing whispers and seeing concept art for Disney’s Polynesian island-based feature, so hopefully, that’s a step towards the future.
Disney’s princesses (and non-princess heroines) are almost always spunky and doe-eyed (and frequently teens) when there’s an infinite variety of personalities to choose from. How about a true villain protagonist princess? How about a slacker, or even one of those awkward, gangly, brainy types that male protagonists often are (I’m looking at you, Hiccup)? How about a girl with a Mufasa-level tragedy? How about someone a little bit sexy? Disney had no problem with Megara and Esmeralda, though they are the romantic objects in their movies. How about my dream, a Capt. Amelia Treasure Planet spin-off? That would be something.
TL;DR Disney makes a damn good classic princess movie (Frozen), but we really need something more progressive, and not just more PoC’s, but storylines and characters that are less cute and more risky and dangerous, but ultimately more memorable.
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