[On April 17th,
1937, Daffy Duck made his debut, in the Warner Brothers cartoon “Porky’s Duck Hunt.” In
honor of that foul-tempered feathered friend, this week I’ll AmericanStudy five
animated histories. Share your thoughts on them, on Daffy, or on animation or
cartoons of any kind for a weekend post that’s sure to draw a crowd!]
On challenges to
our expectations, less and more successful. [SPOILERS for Frozen follow, if you’re one of the lucky non-parents who haven’t
seen it many, many times by now.]
If the subject
of yesterday’s post, The Princess and the
Frog, significantly revised the existing canon of Disney Princesses, one of
the newest and now most
financially successful Disney animated films of all time, Frozen (2013), went further
still. The film overtly seeks to revise a number of the tropes and myths at the
heart of virtually every prior Disney animated film, including romantic
narratives and their reliance on the concepts of love at first sight and true
love, heroines/princesses and their arcs and goals, and even the relative
importance of familial vs. romantic relationships in our storytelling. We’re
not talking Who Framed Roger Rabbit? level
meta-textuality or subversiveness here, exactly—but for a Disney animated film,
I was struck by just how much Frozen
comments on and challenges those traditional tropes.
All of those
challenges are interesting and meaningful, but it’s also instructive to note
which ones work and which, to this viewer, don’t. In the latter category I
would locate the film’s challenge to romantic narratives, which it achieves by
first linking its princess heroine Anna with the dashing Prince Hans and then
eventually revealing him to be a heartless villain instead. It’s true that Frozen foreshadows that character shift
through multiple characters’ reactions to Anna’s instant love and connection;
she is repeatedly, incredulously asked, “You’re engaged to a man you just
met?!” But it’s also true that much of the early section of Frozen makes happy use of the romantic
tropes, including the extended, treacly song and dance number “Love is an Open Door.”
So if Hans’ sudden shift feels somewhat unbelievable (and to this viewer it
did), the film’s own heavy earlier reliance on those romantic tropes would have
to be seen as contributing to that effect.
On the other
hand, I found Frozen’s challenges to
the traditional heroine arcs and emphases very successful and quite moving. That’s
true for the two individual characters, as both Anna and (especially) her sister Elsa have
journeys that are far more about their perspectives, experiences, and
identities than about finding a romantic partner. But it’s even more true for
them as sisters, as their stories are deeply intertwined and come to a powerful
conclusion that remains more about them, individually and as a pair, than it is
about the love interest character or indeed anyone outside of this complex duo.
To see a pair of complex, interconnected women whose relationship is rich and
evolving and multi-layered, and whose most powerful emotional notes depend on
that familial history and bond—well, I don’t know that I was ready for a Disney
animated film that could pass the Bechdel
Test. But I’m very glad that this one does.
Last animated
history tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Other animation or cartoon thoughts you’d share?
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