Casmin Bui Week 3: Conceal, Don't Feel
Being obsessed with Frozen was an understatement. When I was 7, I LOVED Frozen. Especially Elsa. My blankets? Frozen. My backpack? Frozen. The poster on my door? Elsa from Frozen.
“What’s that show you always watch with every meal?” Frozen. It got to the point where I could recite every line of any song from the movie. Needless to say, my memories of the show started to fade away as I grew out of my phase.
I was rummaging through old notebooks and sketchbooks of mine when I discovered a thick paperback notebook coated with so much dust that my fingers left a dark purple color behind (which was the original color of the book). The cover of the book? You guessed it, Elsa from Frozen. Elsa! All of my fond memories of watching the movie flooded back to me.
Whenever I talk to my friends who have watched Frozen, they always take a liking to Anna. Why? Whether they genuinely just liked Anna for some reason or they wanted to argue with me, I had to have a really long rant with them about how I greatly favored Elsa over her sister other than for her cool ice powers. I’ve always admired Elsa as a character because her role in the plot in finding and showing her true identity appealed to me. Even as an infant, Elsa was taught that she was not the norm, and had to conceal her powers using gloves. Thus, she could really never show her true self because whenever she would slip up, her powers would hurt her loved ones or would get ridiculed by others into believing she was evil. Her insecurity of her ice powers was what indirectly caused the main problem to circulate in the first place. What really fascinated me was when she started to show the true potential of her powers. Once we see her open up and reveal her true self, she really embraces the beauty of her qualities and powers as exemplified by her ice castle, and most importantly, Olaf.
I will always deeply cherish Elsa as a character because of how she resonates with our society today. Her character pushes us to embrace our true selves, and whether they seem “weird” or “flawed” to others, we are all better off embracing what makes each of our identities unique. After all, identity isn’t about copying off a template to what seems socially acceptable, it’s what makes our society so beautiful and diverse. Also, never forget her ice powers. They are unbeatable.
I was also an Elsa fan when I was younger, but more so for shallow reasons (her dress, gradient with sparkles? Just superb). I haven’t thought about this movie since the last time I watched it in third grade so I really enjoyed your explanation of Elsa being a prime example of society’s scrutiny towards those who don’t necessarily conform to the standards of “normal”. It did make sense for safety precautions to be set because she did freeze her sister before, but I can’t imagine how suffocating it would be to be socially isolated and deemed dangerous for something you were born with. There’s a lack of sympathy in the world for people with varying conditions that they can’t necessarily control, but it’s great that you were always accepting, even as a kid.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was younger, I was also obsessed with a Disney princess: for me, it was Rapunzel. I can see a lot of parallels in their character arcs. For example, they were both forced to hide away for most of their childhood and both hid their supernatural abilities from the rest of the world. However, I think Elsa is particularly fascinating as a character because she was forced to grow up too early, as she was very young when she saw the damage her powers could do. A critical part of her development is learning to not be afraid of herself, and I think that’s a wonderful lesson to teach young children. Who said Disney can’t be educational?
ReplyDeleteHi Casmin! When I was younger, I also loved Frozen and Elsa in particular; however, like Charlize, I think that my reasons for loving her were quite superficial (mostly because I don’t think I was old enough to realize that most movies have a deeper meaning). I think what makes Elsa so unique as a character is the fact that her story wasn’t your typical Disney princess movie, in the way that her story wasn’t centered around romance and finding “true love.” It was more about learning to accept herself and embracing her relationship with her sister, which I think sets a really inspiring precedent for viewers. If I’m not wrong, I think Frozen also inspired later Disney princess movies where romance wasn’t the focus, such as Moana.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the points you make about how Elsa pushes viewers to embrace their authentic identities, even if they seem “flawed,” reminds me of a lesson in English 10H last year where we were learning about the Hero and Heroine’s Journey. Elsa is a prime example of a character who follows the story arc of a heroine, because she is taught to hide away her “feminine” or less desirable trait and embrace the “masculine” side of her identity instead.
Hi Casmin! Even though I have watched Frozen–out of obligation, because there’s only so many “You’ve never watched Frozen before?!”s that 3rd grade me could handle–I’ve never really thought about Elsa as an insecure person who had been told from birth that she was meant to be different, and that she had to conceal that uniqueness. I think the experiences of Elsa mirror those of oppressed individuals today and in the past, where they are led to believe the identities they were born with are innately wrong. Elsa’s big outburst near the beginning of the movie where she froze the town and went off to create her own ice castle are interestingly similar to the countless minority uprisings, protests, and riots that dot the sociopolitical timeline of human society. As a society, we have gotten significantly better at stopping the suppression of individual identities, but movies like Frozen help remind us that the freedoms we have now did not come without large-scale, and often violent, reform. And sometimes it has ice powers involved.
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