Women's Wednesday - Disney's "Frozen"

I AM TRYING TO NOT PUT SPOILERS IN HERE, BUT IT MIGHT BE IMPOSSIBLE, SO PLEASE BE AWARE OF THAT AS YOU READ!

As I watched the movie, "Frozen," I was beginning to get discouraged by the message.  It took me a long time to see the movie, so I had heard a lot about it (and I had the song "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" practically memorized because everybody kept singing it all the time!).  I had heard that there was a really powerful message for girls in the movie, and that it was vastly different than every other children's princess movie aimed at young girls.

I started to get discouraged, but there was a little twist, right at the very end of the movie, that made me feel better about it. The movie posed the question, "what is the definition of true love?" and it answered it perfectly.

However, my fear about this movie is that, because it deals with romantic love, that some people might discredit it as a movie that is somehow "anti-woman."  I took a class in college called "Disney's Women and Girls," obviously a women's studies class, and I learned about all of the ways that Disney has supposedly destroyed women.  That girls who watch these movies will inevitably become trapped in a cycle of worshiping men and not having a voice of their own.  The class even went so far as to say that the movie "Mulan" was destructive to women because Mulan ended up with a man.  Even though none of her journey or story was inspired by, motivated by, or even really centered around finding a man, that it just sort of happened on its own, the class tried to teach us that Mulan shouldn't have ended up with him because it teaches girls that you'll never be happy unless you find a man.  Yeah.  That's the message that girls got out of that movie.

It was really refreshing to see the movie "Frozen" and how it portrayed the girls in the movie.  They were strong.  They were brave.  They stood by each other.  They sacrificed their own happiness for the sake of others (Elsa sacrificed her relationship with Anna in order to protect all of them, and Anna sacrificed, well, see the movie and you'll find out).  Movies like "Frozen," "Lilo and Stitch," and "Mulan" are amazing movies that show how much power women really have without taking away their femininity completely.  It's ok to be feminine and be strong.  Those two things don't oppose each other. 

I really recommend the movie "Frozen."  If you haven't seen it, it's out now!  I think that it has a good, positive, amazing message about love, sisterhood and friendship.