Why Elsa Shouldn't Have A Girlfriend

Trending Hashtag Right Now: #GiveElsaAGirlfriend 

Also trending: #GiveCaptainAmericaABoyfriend. (Clearly this was before Marvel revealed that the comic book world's Golden Boy was a sleeper agent for the Nazis Hydra. Or maybe that doesn't matter.)

This may be a controversial thing to say but...I don't support either of these campaigns.

Now, let me clarify this: I'm definitely not saying I don't support LGBTQ+ rights. I'm definitely not saying I don't want to see a homosexual relationship in a Disney film. I'm definitely not saying I don't want to see a homosexual character in a Disney film.

I am saying that I just don't think that either Elsa or Captain America is that character. 

A little bit of background:

This all started when Twitter user lexi4prez tweeted this out:

According to her own essay on MTV,  the motivation for her Tweets is 100% valid. She starts her essay, for instance, by noting what she doesn't/hasn't seen:

"Growing up, I never saw a princess fall in love with another princess — and neither have girls growing up right now. The entertainment industry has given us girls who have fallen in love with beasts, ogres who fall for humans, and even grown women who love bees. But we’ve never been able to see the purity in a queer relationship."

The lack of homosexual characters in children's media isn't a new issue -- or an inaccurate one -- in children's media scholarship. Critics have pointed out that children's media in particular focuses on heterosexual relationships, with the traditional "happily ever after" usually being a marriage between a man and a woman. And Disney, as one of the giants in children's media. is often lambasted for its lack of diversity in many ways, not just with regards to homosexual characters.

SIDEBAR: As influential as Disney can be, it can be fairly reluctant to take a step that would anger its middle-class fanbase: it won't take a step in a progressive direction unless it knows it won't financially hurt them. That is, while there hasn't been a homosexual character in an animated film, the company is by no means anti-LGBT. The Disney Channel show Good Luck, Charlie featured a lesbian couple; the ABC show Once Upon A Time has the bisexual Mulan (and Ruby); and the fact that Disney World has specifically designated LGBT friendly days (Gay Days, usually in early June) has angered more than a few conservative groups. But feature-length animated films are the company's bread-and-butter, and they're going to be extra cautious.

And she concludes with an equally valid point:

"Giving young girls the chance to understand that a princess can love another princess the same way Cinderella loved her Prince Charming is vital to their development. No one deserves to feel isolated and confused about who they are. All we need is someone to show us that there are other options, other kinds of princesses, and other ways to have the happy ending that you deserve."

Yes, "no one deserves to feel isolated and confused about who they are." And, yes, it is important to show girls "that there are other options, other kinds of princesses, and other ways to have the happy ending that you deserve." I agree with this 100%.

But this is also where I start to disagree. Because while I agree that Disney needs be more diverse, needs to have a homosexual character and, one day, needs to show a homosexual relationship, I really don't believe that Elsa is that character, nor should she be.

Earlier in the easy, Alexis Isabel makes this statement:

"Yet Elsa, the film’s protagonist, will probably end up with a male prince or king in the upcoming Frozen sequel."

I understand where this concern comes from: every single Disney Animation Studios Princess before Elsa has ended up with a man in some way. I'm excluding Merida since she has the (more progressive) Pixar behind her story.
[SIDEBAR: It's interesting to note that only four Disney princesses actually get married (in the film itself, not in sequels or shorts): Cinderella, Ariel, Rapunzel, and Tiana -- and Flynn Rider only tells us that he and Rapunzel get married in the "epilogue" of the film. Snow White, Aurora, Belle, and Jasmine are merely shown with their princes at the ends of their films, usually dancing off screen with them. Pocahontas, of course, ends up alone; and Mulan merely invites Shang to dinner.]

So I get it. The temptation to pair Elsa with a man is there -- although I sincerely hope that Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee developed a better story than that. And I'd be lying if I didn't think the Internet's obsession with shipping Elsa & Jack Frost (from Rise of the Guardians) isn't absolutely adorable and perfect. I even own a TeeTurtle shirt with them building a snowman together.

But that doesn't mean I want to see them end up together in a Frozen sequel.

And here's why: there was nothing -- and I'm not counting the lyrics of "Let It Go," since the power of that song comes from the myriad of situations it can be applied to -- in the original film that implied or even hinted at Elsa's sexuality.

And that was the brilliance of it.

Because, again, yes. It's important to have a homosexual character in a Disney animated film -- but only if it is true to the character and the story.

Yes, it is important to have "other kinds of princesses, and other ways to have the happy ending that you deserve." But the emphasis here is on "kinds" -- plural. Not just another "kind" of princess -- singular. There are other options besides a straight princess in a heterosexual relationship and a gay princess in a homosexual relationship. There can, for instance, be a princess queen who is "enough" on her own -- who is strong and independent and resourceful.

I'm not saying she needs to be completely isolated -- that is, after all, the point of the first movie.  We need other people in our lives, our friends and family.

But for me, one of the most progressive aspects of the original film was that Elsa didn't need to be married to rule her country. There was no annoying subplot where she had to be married in order to become queen. (Which is, unfortunately, the plot of The Princess Diaries 2, itself a Disney princess film. Mia can't rule Genovia without being married. And while, in the end, she does give a powerful speech extolling the virtues of female rulers, and the law is overturned, it's still the plot of the movie.) Here, in Frozen, it's not even an issue, it's not even mentioned: the King and Queen of Arendelle die, Elsa turns 21, she's crowned as queen. There's no meeting of Parliament to decide whether she should take the crown; when she spazzes out and unleashes an eternal winter, no one mentions her gender (they mention her "evil magical powers," but that's completely unconnected to gender); and no one says anything about how a man would have been a better ruler. After all, the male authority figures in the film are largely ineffectual (excluding Grandpabbie, as he's a troll): the King of Arendelle is in the running for Worst Parental Advice Ever (when he tells Elsa to suppress her true self); the Duke of Weselton is an ineffectual dignitary with a Napoleon complex; and Hans...well, Hans seems like he could have been a good ruler (he did take care of the people when Anna was searching for Elsa), but he's too power-hungry and narcissistic to really rule well. (Plus, he's the villain.)

This is just as important a message, just as important an image, for little girls (and boys!) watching Frozen to see. You don't need to be in a relationship to be successful: you are capable of great things on your own. Yes, you need friends and family to keep you grounded, but a relationship isn't the only way to define happiness.

So while a gay Disney princess would be great, I still don't think it should be Elsa. Let Elsa rule Arendelle as a strong, empowered monarch and leave the romantic subplot out of it. The first truly gay Disney princess should be a character worthy of that storyline.

[SIDEBAR: All of this applies to Captain America, too. I get it. He and Bucky have an awesome bromance fraught with tension that people love to read stuff into. BUT. Cap loved Peggy Carter. That's like a big point of this most recent film: he goes to London for her funeral (because he loved her), and it's Sharon's recollections of her aunt's advice that cause Cap to not join with Tony Stark and whatever UN accords they're agreeing to. (Again, because Cap loved Peggy. And may or may not have had a thing with Black Widow. And may or may not have a thing with Sharon Carter, because that's not weird at all.) So, yes: it wouldn't be true to his character or his storyline. At least not in the Marvel movies; the comics have shown that Cap's identity and character are apparently pretty fluid, so, yeah.]

Confession Time: I adore Blake Lively.

She was the perfect Bridget in Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Confession #2: I've seen the movie AND its sequel; I've read all the books. And I love them. The perks of studying Children's Literature?). She slayed as Serena van der Woodson on Gossip Girl. And--lucky girl--she's married to Ryan Reynolds.

Now, our girl Blake has been in the news quite a bit lately. Sure, there was that whole "LA face with an Oakland booty" Instagram "scandal" (I use the term "scandal" loosely, because social media gets outraged over anything and everything) and while I love Sir Mix-a-lot's defense of her, that's not the news I mean.

No, Blake Lively is dressing like a real-life Disney princess. First, there was her Cinderella-inspired look in Cannes:

(c) Vanity Fair

And then there was this dress (also at Cannes) that cannot have been inspired by anything other than Elsa's "Let It Go" dress -- I mean, that thigh-high slit!  that cape and train! those sparkles! (She also captioned the photo "Let It Glo" so...there's that.)

(c) elle

And, in case you're not entirely convinced, consider Exhibits A & B: Blake Lively likes to instagram her jewelry and accessories (and honestly, given the bling she's wearing, can you blame her?) and one photo is captioned "Bibbidi Bobbidi bling" and the other "Not a footprint to be seen." 

Girl clearly knows her Disney princesses. 

But--and this might be why I adore her--she's also got a sense of humor:

And you know my undying love for The Little Mermaid so...

More Beauty and the Beast Thoughts

I've been doing a lot of thinking about Beauty and the Beast today...mainly after reading this Entertainment Weekly article, "Beauty and the Beast trailer: 5 Callbacks to the Original Film."

I have a weird relationship with this film...as a child, I loved this movie. Like a lot. (It was no Little Mermaid, though. That was, and remains, one of my top three favorite Disney movies. And Ariel is probably my favorite princess, since Tink is a fairy and Elsa is a queen.) After all, Belle was a bookworm -- she read books! Just like me!

But Beauty and the Beast is also the only film I've changed my opinion about after teaching this course for a few years -- it's the one film where I find most of the criticism to be accurate, raising some really interesting questions and issues.

It's also the film that has the most plot-holes to me -- where "fairy tale logic" breaks down the most.
(For example: where does Chip come from? Lumiere says the servants have been "rusting, needing so much more than dusting" for ten years -- but at the end of the film, when the household objects all turn back into servants, "Chip" looks like a little boy about 6-8 years old. And his mother, Mrs. Potts, is an adorable white-haired old lady who looks like she might have a thing for Maurice, Belle's father. So where exactly did Chip the little teacup come from? It doesn't seem like he was born when the castle was cursed so...)

But another one of the big plot holes seems to be addressed in the trailer. As the EW article points out, one of the links between the live-action film and the original animated film is the Beast's slashed portrait:

"We don’t see the Beast in this teaser, but we do see what his claws can do. In the original, he slashes a portrait of himself in his pre-Beast form. Here, it’s a portrait of him as a young boy with his parents."

Okay. So here's my issue with the original, animated film. Here's the portrait of the Beast from the animated film:

Okay. Cool. He looks like a handsome prince, a fairy-tale staple.

But.

Again, as Lumiere tells us, the servants have been "rusting" away for 10 years. So far, so good.

But.

We also know that Beast has until his 21st birthday to break the spell -- otherwise, he'll stay a Beast forever. This is pretty much the year our story starts -- which explains why Beast is extra moody and the servants extra needy desperate eager.

Now, I may be an English major, but even I can handle that math: If Beast is 21 now, and they've all been enchanted for 10 years, that means Beast was ELEVEN years old when the strange woman knocked on his door, demanding shelter.

Guy in that portrait above? Definitely not eleven years old. (In fact, he bears a remarkable similarity to what non-beast-Beast looks like once the spell is broken.)

Also--the plot basically hinges on the fact that an eleven year old boy is punished for not letting a stranger into his home. Clearly, wherever his parents are (another plot hole), they managed to teach Beast a little thing known as "Stranger Danger" before they left.
[Sidebar: I suppose you could argue that the spell freezes them all at the age they were at the time of the enchantment, but I remain skeptical. Because, again, Chip. Clearly a little kid. And, after 10 years of being a teacup, you would think that he would have matured a little bit...but then again, I've never been magicked into a teacup, so what do I know.)

Regardless, I very much appreciate the fact that Beast's portrait has been appropriately aged-down:

Which, hopefully, means that Stephen Chobsky noticed the same glaring plot holes that I did. 

EDIT: And which, apparently, a lot of other people on the Internet did as well. 

Now, if they'll only address how the villagers didn't seem to know about the giant castle and the emo Beast living in the forest, we'll be in a good spot. (Because if you can march to a castle, on foot, as a giant angry mob, it's clearly not that far away.)

Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme...

...Beauty and the Beast. 

The teaser trailer.

It's finally here.

I may or may not be having a fangirl freak-out moment over here.

I have been super excited about this adaptation -- and particularly the casting choices -- for awhile. I know that there was talk about Emma Watson playing Beauty in a Guillermo del Toro version (which would have been much darker, for sure), but when Stephen Chbosky (author of The Perks of Being a Wallflower and who worked with Emma Watson on the film adaptation of that book) signed on to write the screenplay, I got even more excited. 

Like most Disney projects, details of this one were kept tightly under wraps. While Luke Evans and Josh Gad were pretty active on social media (relatively speaking), the one thing that the Internet really wanted to see -- Emma Watson as Belle -- was the one thing we didn't get. 

Until now:

It's small, but it's something. (It's also the only shot we get of an actual character in the film.) My husband complained that the trailer didn't reveal much -- that he wanted "more" than just scenic shots and voice-overs. 

My response? "It's called a teaser trailer for a reason." At which he astutely compared it to the teaser trailer for Cinderella, which was basically just a shoe and a butterfly, so at least we got a little more. But not nearly enough. :) 

"Aw, shucks. That ain't nothin' but a little ole cricket bug!"

Ever since we found out we were pregnant, my husband and I have been referring to our daughter as "Cricket Bug." And my husband feels a little weird about it -- at least when we call her "Cricket Bug" in front of other people -- because he knows it has a weird, random origin. (To which I say, "don't most nicknames?".)

It's an odd nickname, for sure. (Although, in the beginning, when we didn't know whether we were having a boy or a girl, it was a nice, generic, gender-neutral nickname.) But -- surprise, surprise -- there's a Disney connection:



Last fall, before the semester officially started, we watched a few older Disney movies on Netflix -- especially ones my husband hadn't seen in a while.
The Aristocats was one of them. I loved this movie as a kid -- and I have very vivid memories of picking out a stuffed Duchess at the Disney Store mall in Connecticut. (Marie, of course, is very popular these days -- she's something of a transitional character for little girls who are too "old" for Minnie Mouse and too "young" for princesses. Savvy marketing, Disney.) 
Anyway--we both found the fact that, in the middle of the French countryside (or the suburbs outside of Paris? Not entirely sure on the geography here...), there are two super Southern dogs. And the line in the video above -- "aw shucks -- that ain't nothin' but a little ole cricket bug!" -- just struck us as really funny and we would bust out the quote in random situations and laugh about it.
Fast forward a few weeks to when we found out we were pregnant: it was fairly early on -- it may even have been the night I told my husband -- but I was expressing some anxiety and fear about being pregnant and becoming a mom. My husband, trying to make me smile, said to me: "There's nothing to worry about -- it ain't nothin' but a little ole cricket bug." 
And the nickname has stuck ever since.  (Turns out, it's an appropriate nickname too -- when she's calm and happy and content, she makes these little squeaking, chirping noises. My mom calls her a little mouse; we think she sounds like a little ole cricket bug.) 

Disney Artwork -- Isaiah Stephens

Blogger tells me that my last post was March 8th. Oof.

To be fair, I'd like to think I had a pretty good reason:
Another Disney princess (and future Disney consumer?) has entered the world. :) Our little Cricket Bug was born on April 21, three weeks early, and I've been playing catch-up ever since.

Cricket Bug has -- surprise surprise! -- yet to wear a Disney outfit -- but when she does, I'll be sure to document and share it.

For now, I thought it was fitting that my first post back be this "Disney Princesses As" piece by Isaiah Stevens for Cosmo: Disney Princesses As Mothers. (Follow Isaiah Stephens on Instagram here! He does a lot of Disney work that's super cool and inventive.)

[Sidebar: I just finished reading "Nearly Everybody Gets Twitterpated: The Disney Version of Mothering" by (Hollins professor!) Lisa Rowe Fraustino--which...well, let me just quote a line from the abstract:
"The animated films [reproduce traditional mothering ideology] not by animating the realities of marriage, childbirth, and mothering work for girls to model after but instead by idealizing the dream of romance that leads to the making of the traditional patriarchal family."
Basically, Disney movies end with the fairy-tale happily-ever-after of a wedding, and basically ignore everything that comes after -- including motherhood (although that's not necessarily a requirement).
So it's interesting to see Stephens kind of take up that mantle and portray the princesses (albeit in a romanticized, stylized way) as mothers. I dig it.]

Quite possibly my favorite:

This one just makes me smile -- even more so because I think the photo in the background is women of all different body types spelling out "B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L." I don't know if this is a subversive dig at Cosmo or something that was sanctioned by the magazine, but either way, I love it.

Okay, so this one's not as romanticized...but I love that Flynn is wearing a gas mask. (Although...shouldn't Rapunzel's hair be short and brown?) 

#ParentingTruth. I know Cricket Bug is only 4.5 weeks old, but I have nieces and nephews. This is pretty much how it goes. 

Also--it's called "karma," Merida. :)