"Frozen" Offers Warm Holiday Fun

The new Disney offering, Frozen, will not leave you cold, unless you are very coldhearted indeed. Yes, this is yet another princess story of two beautiful, tiny-waisted, enormous-eyed princesses whose parents, alas, have gone the way of most Disney parents. Disney parents have a notoriously high mortality rate. And there is a handsome prince, and true love, and a faithful reindeer, and a goofy snowman sidekick.

Yet, in spite of those clichés, Frozen delivers a funny, beautifully animated story with lively music, and it even addresses some higher-minded issues.

Elsa, the older of the two princesses, has the power to make snow and ice. She doesn’t have a lot of control over it, and fear makes her dangerous. Her parents keep her away from others and teach her one basic life lesson: Conceal. Don’t feel.

When they pass on, Elsa is left to the throne with no experience outside of the castle. She gets upset after the coronation, loses control, and the kingdom is covered in ice. Then she flees to the mountains where she can be free to be herself.

Her younger sister Anna, the less graceful, more naïve sister, is really the main character, as she sets off on a quest to bring her sister back to the kingdom to make things right. Anna’s job is to convince Elsa that it is possible to be herself and still come back home.

I appreciated the storyline because I see a lot of young women (and some older ones too) who are working so hard to preserve a perfect image of themselves, unable to allow for weakness or vulnerability. Elsa’s desire to present the perfect queen, the good girl, leads to anger and fear and unleashes terrible consequences. As a Facebook and Twitter user, I know the temptation to present myself as someone other than who I really am, and it’s a temptation we all face—possibly more in the church than anywhere else, which is exactly the opposite of what we are called to do.

So I found it both entertaining and somewhat meaningful, and I had a certain 14-year-old next to me who also enjoyed it very much. The animation is amazing—made me want to build my very own ice palace, and I’m always cold!