Frozen

About

Frozen is a 2013 Disney 3D computer-animated musical fantasy–comedy film that follows Elsa, the snow queen of the Arendelle kingdom who has the power to create ice and snow out of nothing, and her sister Anna, who grows up with no knowledge of her sister’s ability.

History

Frozen was released on November 27th, 2013.^[1] The film stared Kristen Bell as Anna, Idina Menzel as Elsa, Jonathan Groff as Kristoff and Josh Gad as Olaf.

Premise

[Editor’s Note: Plot Spoilers]

The film opens with princess Elsa and her younger sister as young children. As they play one morning Elsa accidentally injures Anna with her icy powers. A magical troll is able to heal Anna, but also erases all her memories of Elsa’s powers. Elsa spends the rest of her childhood and adolescence with little contact with others, including Anna, as her powers get more powerful and uncontrollable. When their parents die, Elsa must open the palace to the public for her coronation. When Anna meets prince Hans, who proposes, she asks for Anna’s permission, but she refuses. The fight between them reveals Elsa’s powers to the kingdom and she flees, unintentionally setting off an eternal winter in her wake. Anna goes after her to talk to her, on her way meeting Kristoff, an ice delivery man who begrudgingly agrees to help, and a magical snowman named Olaf. When she reaches Elsa they fight again, and Elsa unintentionally hits Anna’s heart with her ice. Kristoff takes her to the magic trolls, who are also his adoptive family, who explains only an act of true love can save her. Kristoff, who has fallen in love with Anna, rushes to bring her to her fiance. He drops her off, but it turns out Hans only wanted Anna’s kingdom, and does nothing to stop her death, while he imprisons Elsa. Sensing Anna might be in trouble, Kristoff hurries back, just as Elsa escapes her prison. As Anna sees Kristoff, she also sees Hans about to kill Elsa, and she runs towards them, stopping the sword just as she freezes to death. She quickly thaws as saving her sister was an act of love, and Elsa’s love for Anna helps her to thaw the kingdom and gain control of her powers. She reclaims her throne with Anna by her side.

Reception

Frozen was a critical and commercial success. The film earned a 89% on Rotten Tomatoes^[2] and a 74 on MetaCritic.^[3] The film broke the record for best performing opening weekend for a Disney film, grossing $67.4 million in the first three days of its release.^[4] It grossed $347.8 million overall. Frozen has even won a Golden Globe^[5] in 2014 for “Best Animated Feature Film”, Oscars for “Best Animated Feature” and “Best Original Song”, and has been nominated for various other awards including a BAFTA. On January 13th, 2014, Disney confirmed a stage musical adaptation of Frozen would be created.^[6]

Frozen on Once

On May 11th, 2014, the season three finale^[33] of ABC’s fairy tale drama TV series Once Upon a Time featured a brief appearance of a female character resembling Elsa from Frozen who leaves a trail of ice in her wake. The following day, the show’s production team confirmed^[34] Elsa and a number of other characters from the film would be featured in the show’s fourth season. On July 1st, Scott Michael Foster and Elizabeth Lail were officially cast as Kristoff and Anna, respectively, followed by the casting of Etta Bishop^[36] for the main role as Elsa two days later. On September 28th, the aforementioned characters from the Disney animated film were introduced in the season premiere of the fourth season.

Online Presence

The film is available to watch on YouTube through the official DisneyMoviesOnDemand^[30] YouTube channel for $19.99. As of January 2014, Frozen’s official Facebook page^[7] has over 1.9 million likes. It also has a Twitter fan page^[8] with over 13 thousand followers.

Fandom

In addition to the show’s branded social media presence, there are numerous fan sites where fans discuss and learn about the film, including the Frozen channels on the disney-fan-fiction^[31] and Fan Pop^[32]. As of January 2014, Fanfiction.net^[9] has over 1,500 submissions under Frozen, while fan art community DeviantArt^[10] has over 37,000 submissions for the film. Tumblr blogs dedicated to the film include Disneyfrozen^[11], frozendailydose^[12], and annaandkristoff.^[13]

Related Memes

Frozen Whitewashing Controversy

Frozen’swhitewashing controversy is an ongoing online debate surrounding the lack of people of color in Disney’s 2013 animated feature film Frozen. This debate has come to include accusations against Disney of “whitewashing” the Sámi, the indigenous people of Scandinavia. The controversy began on Tumblr, and is largely driven by social justice bloggers who accuse the movie of racism, and fans of the film who are outraged by these accusations.^[14]

“Let it Go”

Let it Go is a song composed by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, sung by Elsa (Idina Menzel) after she flees the kingdom.^[15] Multiple covers and parodies were created including an explicit version (top, left), a My Little Pony version (top, right), a toddler version (bottom, left), and a version told from the perspective of an alto (bottom, right).

Frozenlock

Fan artists have also created pieces that replace Frozen characters with characters from the BBC show “Sherlock.” The brothers of Sherlock, Mycroft and Sherlock, stand in for Frozen’s sisters Elsa and Anna, while Watson replaces Kristoff.^[16]

Shipping Elsa and Jack Frost

Fans of Frozen sometimes ship Elsa with Jack Frost from the DreamWorks animated film Rise of the Guardians(2012). On January 8th, 2014, Buzzfeed^[17] published a post titled, “Why Jack Frost And Elsa Would Make The Cutest Couple,” exploring the ship through fan art. As of January 2014 there are over 300 entries under Frozen and Rise of the Guardians crossovers on Fanfiction.net.^[18] Fan art site DeviantArt^[19] has over 1,200 submissions for Elsa and Jack Frost.

Hot Alternate Universe

Hot Frozen is a popular alternate universe that imagines Elsa has the power to create heat and fire rather than snow and ice. In addition to experimenting with the colors of Elsa’s hair and gown, the AU also allows fan artists to respond to the frozen whitewashing charges by using race bending. Popular Tumblr blogs that focus on the AU include firequeenelsa^[20] and theheatneverbotheredmeanyway.^[21]^[22]

If Only Someone Loved You

[Editor’s Note: Plot Spoilers]

If Only Someone Loved You is a photo meme that involves taking screenshots from movies (usually, but not always, another Disney animated film) and overlaying a quote Hans, Anna’s original fiance, says to reveal his true sinister nature, “Oh Anna, If only there was someone out there who loved you.” Sometimes this is done for comic effect because it is combined with a scene between leads who do truly love each other (for example Beauty and the Beast, top left) and sometimes it highlights a scene where the character is unloved, like Jesse in Toy Story 2 (top, right).

Adele Dazeem

On March 2nd, 2014, Idnia Menzel, the singer of “Let It go,” made an on-stage appearance at the 86th Annual Academy Awards ceremony for a live performance of the song, with an introductory remark from actor John Travolta who ended up severely mispronouncing Menzel’s name as “Adele Dazeem.”

On Twitter, Travolta’s fluke led to an immediate flood of double takes and jokes at the actor’s expense and quickly took over the live-tweeted gossips about the ceremony.^[24] At 11:19 p.m. (ET), the first parody Twitter account @AdelaDazeem^[23] began tweeting from the perspective of Menzel (shown below)and by the end of the night, “Adele Dazeem” and “Adele Dazim” were trending on Twitter.^[26] As of March 5th, the account has over 20,000 followers.

On March 3rd, Buzzfeed^[27] published a post titled “If John Travolta Had To Pronounce Everyone’s Name At The Oscars” which included celebrities’ names butchered in a similar style, for example “Brat Spit” for “Brad Pit," and Slate^[29] unveiled “The Adele Dazeem Name Generator” that can scramble people’s names in the similar fashion of Travolta’s mistake. On March 4th, one of Menzel’s castmates for the Broadway musical If/Then, Janet Krupin, shared an Instagram of a PlayBill insert for the show that said Menzel’s role would be played by “Adele Dazeem”.^[28]

The same day, Travolta released a statement^[25] about his mistake, saying:

“I’ve been beating myself up all day. Then I thought … what would Idina Menzel say, She’d say, Let it go, let it go! Idina is incredibly talented and I am so happy Frozen took home two Oscars Sunday night!”