Frozen Princess-hood

A dear family friend took the older girls and me to see Disney's new Frozen. The animation is spectacular, the characters likable, the comic relief genuinely funny, and the music top-notch. Now, I love me some Broadway-belting songs, archetypal explorations of familial relationships, and cute reindeer, but it left something missing. As I have rolled this snowball about in my mind for a few days, I've landed on some observations of the movie as a whole that relate to my current quest to reclaim the Princess for my daughters.

At the core of this story are two sisters - one with an inborn ability to control ice and cold, and the other one plain-ol' boring, except for her remarkable love for a sister who, through a series of events, is shut away from her for almost their entire childhood. The parents mess up royally in this one, not only by how they treat the older sister's abilities, but also in their choice of sea-faring vessel. In short, they tell the older sister (Elsa) that she must ignore her abilities, be a good girl, and wear gloves.

It all blusters up eventually, and Elsa leaves the kingdom, delivering the movie's best show-tune as she finally lets her powers go, takes off the gloves, and builds an ice palace in the mountains, 'cause the cold never bothered her anyway. The song, which is on permanent repeat in my head, is all about "letting go" and "giving in." Thus Elsa does, complete with guard-abominable-snowman, until she plunges the whole kingdom into ice. She isn't mean - she isn't evil - and she wouldn't hurt anyone. Except she does...and her sister adventures to find Elsa and convince her to bring back summer, and we get a nice slide to the end where love is the answer and the flowers bloom.

Here's the problem. "Love is the answer" is correct, on the surface. But crack through that surface-layer and you actually need something underneath. As a reviewer pointed out - not in complaint but observation - there is no antagonist in this movie. You have a few minor villains, sure, but no central bad-guy...no Voldemort or Sauron or Maleficent. Shoot, I would even take an inept dentist with a penchant for snorkeling off the reef. But the plot-driver of the whole movie is the conflict between the sisters, and Elsa's inability to harness her powers. 

And that just doesn't work. For love to be legit, there must be a villain, and there must be a hero. Post-Modern storytellers just love to tout hollowed-out love and throw it onto everything like magical fairy dust....Voldemort couldn't kill Harry? Love! You want to wear skinny jeans and smoke marijuana and be okay? Love! And Disney tries it here, but just like in the other instances, it is a pale and brittle shadow of the original. Our story-lines have become those toy horses who lay in a heap until someone pulls the strings taunt and they rise to life. But no one is really trusting those bad boys to stay up, let alone carry the day.

But the answer is love. Define your terms. Love as incarnated in the form of a tiny baby who held the Universe within His might and clung to a human girl for sustenance. This baby came knowing there was a villain, and knowing that evil and death could only be abolished through love. And self-control is central to love, not just 'letting go' and accepting your abilities as though that is the ultimate good. Sure, accept your abilities, and then hone them. Beat them into submission. Lay them down. Take them up and die a thousand deaths every day as those gifts get worn and battered unto others.

Being a true princess, like being a true knight, is not embracing the post-modern putridity about loving yourself and accepting who you are. Christ lay in a dirty barn and hung upon splintered wood so that He might love you into God accepting who you are. The fight is not some disembodied misunderstanding between two people that ends in sappy, water-colored dance, but against the powers of this present darkness, and a fight for joy and love and courage and sacrifice against a seemingly insurmountable foe who has been crushed. What do real princesses look like? They are the daughters of the Most High King who scrub floors with strong arms and sing into darkness, who face cruelty and judgement and hatred with humility and kindness, who grow up and marry their Prince Charming and then get down to the real business of it all. The cold doesn't bother them not because they have accepted it, but because it can't touch their light.