#yelling about frozenblr 2022

[imperatorium]

Please rant to us about how you hate how the narrative and everyone in Anna’s life treats her. Personally I’ve grown to hate frozen and I love hearing other people’s rants about the movie. The only reason I ever watch 1 and 2 now is because the animation is stunning in both movies but hot damn if both of them could’ve handled Anna and Elsa’s relationship better (Christopher is still based though and so is Hanz before Disney decided to make the most stupid plot twist ever for no reason and ruin a perfectly character because we can’t show kids that you can be attracted to two people romantically but still only truly love one so I just ignore that silly little development)

H A P P I L Y.

So, I love Frozen. But I also hate Frozen. I was just reminiscing with my partner about the day my ex-bestie (the at the time Elsa to my Anna) and I went to see it and were like thisisamazing.gif but then came home and started trying to explain it to my mom and realized, while we were talking about it, that actually...it...wasn't really that good. We thought we loved the music, but then we realized what we liked was the opening song that stylistically did not carry through to the rest of the movie and that...while "Let It Go" was, removed from context, an amazing entry into Idina Menzel's repertoire of powerful protest/don't-hold-me-back songs, within the story it's a completely unearned moment. But that's fine, this doesn't bother me anymore. I still cry when I hear it because that's just what Idina singing songs like that does to me.

And the second movie is banger as hell, honestly, even if there are some aspects of it that I'd change. The entire soundtrack is good, even though it's not good as a musical, considering that it suffers from the same problem that the first one does, in regards to all the songs stopping while there's still like 1/4 of the movie left. And in this case, the last song is the most devastating thing I've ever heard in my life, but anyway that's ok because "Show Yourself" makes me ugly cry every time and I don't know how to explain to anyone else how funny it was when as soon as the soundtrack came out, we jokingly predicted the "Quit Playing Games With My Heart" style music video that the scene would be in the movie. People were furious with us when we saw it the first time in theatres because we were laughing so hard we were sobbing. (It's a dumb song, though, content-wise and actually diminishes Kristoff as a character but that's besides the point.)

ANYWAY.

I don't even know where to start with this. Anna is such a brave and loving and loyal character to what I see as an extreme fault and the story uses that but never rewards it.

Hans was the first good thing that ever happened to her and I don't care what anyone says, that twist is so poorly written because at every single fucking turn that they could have subtly hinted towards it, they actively did not. It's not good writing to just suddenly take the sharpest left turn and then be like, "Ha ha, audience, we tricked you!" Like, yeah, I guess you did, because you did something out of nowhere that made sense with nothing else you chose to tell or animate before this, cool.

Kristoff, meanwhile...okay, full disclosure, I did see the first movie like two days after I broke up with a long-term (abusive) boyfriend and saw a lot of similarities between the two of them, so I may have been harsher on him than he deserved for a while. But overall, I do actually like him. He is a very funny character and I think there's something terrifying that we're not being allowed to explore about how he was kidnapped by trolls, but that doesn't change the fact that he was a jerk to Anna for the first half of the movie. Just unpleasant and negative to the point that he even was like, "Well, I would be ok with her dying save for the fact that she's getting me a new sled." Like he says that. And like ok, he does chill out as things go on and has the decency to tell his creepy troll family to fuck off with the wedding stuff when he brings her to them for the purpose of trying to prevent her from dying and all they want to do is sing their dumb song about how sometimes people should just change for you and you should like them even if there's stuff wrong with them that doesn't work for you, idk.

It came to me at a time when I was not interested in hearing people preach about how someone who hated you upon meeting you could suddenly become your true love and all you had to do was put work into changing them and also ignoring stuff about them that were negative qualities.

The only passage in that song I really feel has any meaning is when they point out that people do bad things when they're sad or scared or stressed. To that point, Kristoff hadn't really been any of those things and was still kind of a jerk. Maybe stressed. I don't know. This isn't about him. My point is like clearly they wanted to extend that to Kristoff and Elsa, but not Hans? Who is maybe the most validly sad, scared, and stressed person present besides Elsa??

I'm also not as mad about Elsa as I used to be, either, considering all her trauma is also super valid and she clearly suffers from severe anxiety and agoraphobia, forced on her by the way their parents treated her. So, like. That's fine, I guess. But she definitely spends 90% of both movies dismissing Anna and her capabilities, despite Anna constantly proving both her unconditional love and adventure prowess until the end of the movie where Anna does some big heroic sacrifice and then Elsa goes, "Oh, you saved me!" like it should be any kind of surprise at that point!!!

Also, literally all Anna ever wanted was for them to have a relationship again and they do, kind of, for a few years, but then Elsa makes the decision to go be queen of the forest with the new half of their family they just discovered?? Like, okay, girl, I guess. Priorities and choices.

Also also, the directors/writers themselves have said before that they kind of hate Anna and just want to...push her aside in favour of doing more cool shit with Elsa. Which you can see in Elsa getting the hero treatment in the first movie, despite Anna literally saving the day. Again in Frozen Fever which is like...cute, but also supposed to be about celebrating Anna's birthday when really it just becomes about ~poor Elsa getting so sick~. Like, geezus christ, girl, sorry that performing even a fraction of the effort that Anna does on the daily gave you a fucking cold.

I see it in Dreamlight Valley, too - which is really fun, but. All of Anna's personal quests are about the other two people in her life - desperately trying to get Kristoff to remember her (he gives up his memory of his love for her for a spell to help save the Valley) and then being like "Elsa seems sad, how can I cheer her up??" while Elsa's quests are all about herself and like most of Kristoff's are helping new friends or taking a fucking bath.

And that's just like insult to injury, too, because for a property that wanted to spend so much time pushing the "true love can also be familial" agenda - which I do believe in - all they really ever want to do is talk about Anna & Kristoff together in like any other version of the franchise after the first movie. It neuters Kristoff as a character, making his whole personality/goal in life about being Anna's Love Interest AND it makes all the work they put into being like "Anna being so into the idea of romantic true love is dangerous and silly" just seem MEAN, since they ultimately decided she should forever be bound to a man she ALSO KNEW FOR LIKE A DAY. (AT LEAST HANS WAS NICE TO HER ON THE WHOLE DAY THEY KNEW EACH OTHER.)

It does help that Anna is queen now, I'll be honest. It's the least she deserves, but I'm sure if there's another movie, they're just going to be like, "Well, sorry, she's barely in this one because she's queen now and has to you know, just stay here and rule Arendelle, like everyone else who ruled before her did." OH WAIT.

Anyway, this is super incoherent because I feel all over the place when I start yelling about what I don't like about Frozen but the moral of the story is that I love Anna and I love Hans and at least once a year, I have to watch both of these stupid movies and be like, "BABIES I'M SO SORRY ALL THESE UGLY ASS BITCHES WOULD SAY THIS ABOUT YOU."

#asks #yelling about frozenblr 2022