Disney's Frozen

[Whippet Angel]

Disagree. It fits within the context of the film, because she's a character that goes nearly her entire life with this "bottled up" power that she doesn't know how to control but is clearly tied to her emotions. It's pretty clear that in order to contain her ice powers, she has to repress her emotions as well (Conceal, don't feel, and all that). Not a fun way to spend your entire adolescence. In a situation like that, it's totally understandable that she'd go a bit off the deep end once she was able to let it all out.

One thing that did annoy me is that fact that Elsa miraculously knows how to stop the weather at the end of the film when she previously claimed that she didn't. But that's just one flaw of many in this film. I liked Frozen, but it's kinda mediocre overall. Many people did find something deep and meaningful in Let it Go and Elsa's story arc however, and I don't begrudge them for that. Just because it didn't resonate with you doesn't mean it didn't for someone else.

[Dacey]

Eddie and Eric, there is really no need to quote a post when the post you're responding to is quite literally the one above you.

And let's please refrain from calling the fanbase stupid, or from letting the talk here get too "sensitive." Frozen is a movie that most people are enjoying. There's no need to turn it into something ugly.

[Scar]

Only if you completely ignore the song's context within the film, which is that she's solving her problems by running away from them and it's very strongly implied that she's fully aware of what her powers are doing and doesn't care. Calling the fans a "deranged cult" goes too far, I'll grant you, but they still sound incredibly stupid when arguing that it's this deep symbolic masterpiece when it's totally not. I should note that I don't hate the film, but I am getting extremely tired of it being hailed as one of Disney's best when it's not even in the top twenty in terms of writing quality. And this is coming from someone who is part of the lgbt community.

Speaking as a gay man who is a fan of Frozen and Let It Go, I think you're assuming there can be only one meaning to a song and that the original meaning is the one that you must subscribe to but songs can mean different things in different contexts. Like half of the songs that are now considered gay anthems in general originally had nothing to do with gay rights at all but that didn't stop gay people from finding meaning in them. The classic example is Judy Garland who was hardly the world's biggest gay rights activist yet she's still been adopted as the de facto classic gay icon because many gay people in the past were able to identify with her struggles and found her personal life inspiring.

[Randall]

Well said.

[Scar]

Somewhere Over The Rainbow was also originally a song about Dorothy running away from her problems yet it's the most famous movie song of all time and has been a source of inspiration for decades.

[EricJ]

Like half of the songs that are now considered gay anthems in general originally had nothing to do with gay rights at all but that didn't stop gay people from finding meaning in them.

(Or "Squatter's rights", as fed-up straights tend to refer to such overoptimistic bits of cultural claim-jumping.)

Speaking as a gay man who is a fan of Frozen and Let It Go, I think you're assuming there can be only one meaning to a song and that the original meaning is the one that you must subscribe to but songs can mean different things in different contexts. .

Yes, but the main philosophy that I think divisively puts straights and gays down the middle against each other is "Thinking doesn't make it So."

You can apply that to many, many aspects of the respective lifestyles, but in terms of songs, there is a border at which interpretations can actually be Right and Wrong. (Consider, for example, how many spent their college years trying to find the "dirty words" in Louie Louie.)
If I were to find personal inspiration from the Gilligan's Island Theme, believing it to be a secret allegorical tribute to the JFK administration, I could probably find great personal strength and insight from that in my own life. I would also have people either looking at me like a complete lunatic or thinking I was trying to get attention, because the general consensus would be that I was WRONG.
Even the songwriter would admit it. And when you try to "outguess" that source, let's face it, you're out there in your OWN cloudy blue sky.

Basically, you wish someone had written the song especially and lovingly about you. Well, what if they didn't? What if they never met you?

Somewhere Over The Rainbow was also originally a song about Dorothy running away from her problems yet it's the most famous movie song of all time and has been a source of inspiration for decades.

And was written mostly to work the BW/color gimmick into the story, which itself was a reader-fan nod to Baum's book.

It's possible to see a movie song as just a movie song, without being either a Friend Of Judy OR a Friend Of Elsa.

[Randall]

Ease up, Eric. No one's saying the song was specifically written for a particular group of people. But it's perfectly fine if a song manages to speak to someone. The songwriter writes for the songwriter, after all--- how it affects anyone else is a bonus, and is often unforseen.

[Dan]

Former Disney animator Tom Bancroft drew this lovely illustration that he's now selling as a T-shirt.



T-shirt can be bought here for $14

[Scar]

And was written mostly to work the BW/color gimmick into the story, which itself was a reader-fan nod to Baum's book.

It's possible to see a movie song as just a movie song, without being either a Friend Of Judy OR a Friend Of Elsa.

Actually, there is no rainbow mentioned anywhere in Baum's book and Somewhere Over the Rainbow almost didn't make it into the film. The producers originally thought it would slow down the film and in that time and culture, it was considered undiginified for a famous singer to sing in a barn. To claim with a straight face that Over The Rainbow was nothing more than a gimmick is a clear distortion of the historical facts about the song. Why do you have to get so angry and resort to name calling when someone disagrees with you? Just calm down, it's just a cartoon we're talking about here.

[EricJ]

And was written mostly to work the BW/color gimmick into the story, which itself was a reader-fan nod to Baum's book.
It's possible to see a movie song as just a movie song, without being either a Friend Of Judy OR a Friend Of Elsa.

Actually, there is no rainbow mentioned anywhere in Baum's book

No, it's mentioned that "Everything in Kansas was gray", and each successive Oz land is in a different color (because Baum wanted to use that new-fangled color printing in his book).
That text gimmick would seem hard to adapt for movies, but the screenwriter and producer paid rather imaginative tribute with the Technicolor change, and Arlen was even clever enough to capture Baum's point by working a "color" idea into Dorothy's wish for something better.

So, y'see, when they were talking about "rainbows" (nudge-nudge, wink-wink?), they weren't really talking about you (collectively), although it's nice to imagine that everything you personally see and hear and like in the world around probably secretly was, and served on a big caring exclusive silver platter.

(And yeah, I want that t-shirt for my next WDW trip next fall. )

[Dacey]

I am THIS close to mentioning how much I like grapes here. God help me, as I haven't done so in years, but if this keeps up....

[ShyViolet]

As Scar and Randall said, Eric, why is it such a big deal for different groups to find things they can identify with in different forms of art? The truth is that on the whole we really have no idea what most artists and writers thought when they were creating their respective works. Why do you have to be so angry about it?

[EricJ]

As Scar and Randall said, Eric, why is it such a big deal for different groups to find things they can identify with in different forms of art? The truth is that on the whole we really have no idea what most artists and writers thought when they were creating their respective works. Why do you have to be so angry about it?

Because we know what gays will do once they think the song is "Their" Song:
Soon they will insist it shouldn't be anyone else's. We have plenty of precedent for that.

If I seem "angry", well, this was what I was alluding to in trying to suggest that straights are not "phobic" or "angry" at gays for some imagined social or moral reasons, it's their constant narcissistic cultural circling of the wagons, and telling each other that as long as all those secret members of their little "club" out there support each other, the rest of the outside world can go hang. To them, it's "reinforcing their identity"; to the rest of the world, it's arrogant, antisocial, hyperdefensive, and/or acting like disgruntled five-year-olds on the playground.
That's rubs the wrong way a few more than, say, feminists believing the song is "Their" Song, that they've found "their" secret to the lyrics, and no one else deserves to breach the territory, just because they didn't come up with as "personal" an interpretation as they subjectively hit upon.

Stories, musical or not, are for EVERYONE, and that one thing that Walt wanted to enforce at his studio. He claimed he didn't make his movies "just" for kids or for female audiences, he wanted to show how much the right story could hit just about anyone in their sweet spot.
Nowadays, every group has to find their own reasons why they're Not Just Anyone, and that's really fooling themselves when the whole point of a Disney movie was to give us something we all agreed on.
(FWIW, frankly, I don't think Frozen did that very well, and, if we're making guesses, that Walt would have probably fired Jennifer Lee over her sister-bonding script.)

[Scar]

Your post was offensive and homophobic and as a gay man I request you apologize for it, EricJ

[eddievalient]

For what it's worth, Eric, I'm gay and I can't stand those people any more than you. We genuinely are in a civil rights struggle and have been for decades, but people like that do not help the cause. They make us look whiney and immature.