I finally saw Frozen. My feelings are mostly summed up by two links from Liv's post:
Dani Colman on medium.com
This summed up everything I was unsure about.
It's good that the film says "don't marry someone you've just met", but it's mostly the marketing of "disney princesses" that push that message, the actual disney films are quite progressive, and tend to feature a pattern of "protagonist states dreams, overcomes obstacles, achieves dreams and gets bonus love interest", where the love is important, but not the only point, or often even the main point.
And for that matter, Anna ends up with someone she's only known for, well, less than a couple of days at the end. And that's not terrible, but it's not a significantly less whirlwind romance than most other films.
On the other hand, I think this post missed what I thought WAS good about the film.
It's true the number of female characters was practically only the two main characters, which is worse than average for a disney film. But there were two main non-villain female characters, whose most important interactions were with each other, which is much much better than most films!
And I think she underestimated Anna's agency. It's true, Anna doesn't have as much agency as I'd like, partly because she's young and inexperienced, but I think she makes many of the critical decisions, and makes them in keeping with her character -- naively but bravely and morally.
Staranise on dreamwidth.org
Similar to how I felt about Brave, it had an emotional heart which didn't resonate with me. Because I just said "why can't they talk to each other", and the tragedy of growing up apart just felt pointless and motivated by plot not character. But many people who experienced something similar in real life, they COULDN'T talk to each other, and the film capturing that helplessness struck their heart like lightning. A film can be good for emotionally resonating with people who are not me!
( Nitpicks )
Dani Colman on medium.com
This summed up everything I was unsure about.
It's good that the film says "don't marry someone you've just met", but it's mostly the marketing of "disney princesses" that push that message, the actual disney films are quite progressive, and tend to feature a pattern of "protagonist states dreams, overcomes obstacles, achieves dreams and gets bonus love interest", where the love is important, but not the only point, or often even the main point.
And for that matter, Anna ends up with someone she's only known for, well, less than a couple of days at the end. And that's not terrible, but it's not a significantly less whirlwind romance than most other films.
On the other hand, I think this post missed what I thought WAS good about the film.
It's true the number of female characters was practically only the two main characters, which is worse than average for a disney film. But there were two main non-villain female characters, whose most important interactions were with each other, which is much much better than most films!
And I think she underestimated Anna's agency. It's true, Anna doesn't have as much agency as I'd like, partly because she's young and inexperienced, but I think she makes many of the critical decisions, and makes them in keeping with her character -- naively but bravely and morally.
Staranise on dreamwidth.org
Similar to how I felt about Brave, it had an emotional heart which didn't resonate with me. Because I just said "why can't they talk to each other", and the tragedy of growing up apart just felt pointless and motivated by plot not character. But many people who experienced something similar in real life, they COULDN'T talk to each other, and the film capturing that helplessness struck their heart like lightning. A film can be good for emotionally resonating with people who are not me!
( Nitpicks )