Personal Essay: What I Think About “Frozen”

What I Think About Frozen

I watched Disney’s “Frozen” for the first time this weekend, and after hearing nothing but hype about it for months on end, it was honestly a bit disappointing at first. There were glaring plot holes, the typical true love cliché, meandering, unsatisfying story arcs, and mediocre animation. But there was something that set this apart from other princess movies that intrigued me. Upon re-watching it, I noticed several fairly deep themes such as filial love and the psychological effects of self-image, as well as the motifs of cold and heat and their necessary balance.

As the movie opens, we are immediately greeted with a warning: “Beware the frozen heart”, the ice miners sing. The ice and the frozen landscape is described as “Beautiful, powerful, dangerous, cold,” and we are told that “There’s beauty and there’s danger here.” This is important because it introduces the attitude of this world towards the “cold” and fuels Elsa’s negative self-image as she comes to personify the characteristics of this element.

Elsa and Anna personify two opposing elements whose harmony/disharmony make up a running motif in the film. As the snowman Olaf says in his song, “The hot and the cold are both so intense, put them together- it just makes sense”.
Elsa personifies the cold, with her white hair and magical snow powers, as well as her characteristics of isolationism, emotional distance, wariness, and fear.