Frozen

[The Shrub Dragon]

Alas, I cannot line you all up in pairs and march you into the cinema like an angry schoolteacher, so I have to settle for gushing about the film here.  Only, gushing would defeat the purpose of - oh, I don't know.

Frozen, though.  It was great. Well, I thought it was great, anyway. This did have a Song-by-song synopsis, but I thought 1,238 words for a synopsis on an online forum was a bit excessive, so it's lying on a word document, crying about how unloved it is. 

Throw your opinions at me! Love it? Tell me! And tell me why! Hate it? Do the same!
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[Shaymin]

i watched it and thought it was great despite tumblr crapping on it from a height and whining like little babies about how "similar" the sisters looked (idk about you but most sisters i've seen are pretty similar??)

meh whatever the internet says about whitewashing haha it was a danish fairytale pls leave and all that i think it was great and i loved the music and the characters and it's amazing end of story

[sylar]

meh whatever the internet says about whitewashing haha it was a danish fairytale pls leave and all that

actually, it was based on the sami people, who are predominantly people of colour. some of them are white passing in modern day, yeah, but thats colonisation for you i suppose.
not only did this movie whitewash an entire race, but they completely butchered their culture and knew they were doing it in the process.

disney did their research to learn that reindeer are sacred to the sami people, and the sami yoik they use, and they took both these things and appropriated them. reindeer are sacred and not supposed to be ridden like horses, so of course they take a reindeer and make it a goofy character that everyone uses like a horse. not like theyre kicking dirt in the face of a protected (yeah, protected, to the point where only sami people are allowed to herd them in certain countries) or anything here, right?

and apart from that? the female characters are pretty terrible and 2d. surprise! disney cant write a female character without focusing her entire "development" (if you can call it this time around) on A Man. those silly women need us men to do their thinking and lead them by the hand all the time. who said you could be independent, silly women? not on disneys watch.

and i know you think its whining and stupid? but the fact they were literally identical is inexcusable. "oh, it must have just been expensive to have her lift her hair over her shoulder instead of just ripping it through somehow, or have her and her sister look even slightly different and not like rapunzel 2.0 and rapunzel 2.0 (1)", nah, disney could buy out a large amount of expensive companies and still have money left over, they dont need to concern themselves with money.

also, remember the time this movie was called the snow queen? probably not. but they changed it because it might alienate young boys. sucks if youre sami and get offended or feel stripped of your culture and mocked, nobody cares about you, they only care about the young boys.

this movie is racist, whitewashing, misogynistic, and badly animated. sorry if you like it but umm get better taste in movies and higher standards? lol...

[Spriter]

^A bit harsh on the last sentence..."Get better taste in movies and higher standards?"

Not seen it myself but:

I don't know if your average person who watches that film would look into all that very much? You can say whatever you want, but telling someone to get better taste in movies and higher standards is harsh, especially if they didn't actually look into all of what you mentioned. I certainly wouldn't look into it. You're basically slamming people who enjoyed the film...that's not a good thing to do.

[The Shrub Dragon]

and apart from that? the female characters are pretty terrible and 2d. surprise! disney cant write a female character without focusing her entire "development" (if you can call it this time around) on A Man. those silly women need us men to do their thinking and lead them by the hand all the time. who said you could be independent, silly women? not on disneys watch.

I admit that I do actually agree with you on a fair few other things (and a nice redesign and an even fuller explanation of your point about racism can be found here, and the rest of the blog is pretty great too), I disagree with you on this point.  I'm sort of scared to try and explain why because I don't think I know as much about misogyny or view it in the same way as you do, but I didn't really get that vibe from it.  I thought that the main female characters made a lot of decisions themselves and - yes, they did need help from men in a way that you'd never see happen in a film with a male protagonist and I'm not going to defend that, but I certainly didn't get a 'being led by the hand' vibe from either of the female protagonists.


And, yeah, I did think that last sentence was a bit harsh - I appreciate that you didn't enjoy the film and I appreciate the fact that you have very good reasons for not doing so, but that felt a bit personal.  Sorry!

[SirBlaziken]

I will continue this. I agree with the starter of this topic as well as the others who are not agreeing with Sylar about the bad taste comment.

It was cute I guess. I had to see I because my sister went for her birthday and chose it over Catching Fire (see my frustration?). The magic stuff was cool, and I liked seeing the prince tied up at the end, at least I think he was, it's been a while.

[The Shrub Dragon]

I agree with the starter of this topic as well as the others who are against Sylar.

Woah, I'm not against sylar, I think he's made some darn good points - I just don't agree with all of them!

[SirBlaziken]

Ok, let me fix that. I know what I meant, just said it wrong. My bad.

[sylar]

ok yea i was kinda Dickish w the last sentence i didnt mean it to come across as mean u_u; sorry about that.

I admit that I do actually agree with you on a fair few other things (and a nice redesign and an even fuller explanation of your point about racism can be found here, and the rest of the blog is pretty great too), I disagree with you on this point.  I'm sort of scared to try and explain why because I don't think I know as much about misogyny or view it in the same way as you do, but I didn't really get that vibe from it.  I thought that the main female characters made a lot of decisions themselves and - yes, they did need help from men in a way that you'd never see happen in a film with a male protagonist and I'm not going to defend that, but I certainly didn't get a 'being led by the hand' vibe from either of the female protagonists.

they did make decisions, but a lot of them revolved around the male character from what i could tell? and some of their decisions were led by a bloody snowman. girl had a chance to save her literally identical sister, wow, girl gets to be The Hero! wait here comes a snowman to save her suddenly weak 2d ass and talk to her about picking ~boys~ over her sister. oh look shes totally buying it and swooning over some chud who talked down to her about Everything.

i didnt understand why they suddenly decided that she had to fall in love with a man who did nothing but look down his nose at her? love at first sight but also sort of felt like it was perpetuating the idea that boys only hurt and bully girls if they like them (or vice versa sometimes)... shed known the guy for a few days and she was in love with him, despite the fact he treats her like shes less than him. its pretty disgusting and i think that itd give little girls the idea that if a guy treats you like ass, hes a true keeper. gross.

also forgive me if im wrong, but im pretty sure i remember a comment like GIRLS NEED TO BE PRETTY in there, which is also trash. like, come on. girls dont ~need~ to be anything. dont give me that garbage.
maybe its not the most misogynistic movie of the millenium, but it is pretty terrible that its just another 2d No Actually Strong Female movie and yet its somehow being praised for being so great and some kind of feminist achievement in The Industry. like, really? you really think that? lmao.

i also laughed at that link because its a good point. so many people seem so mad that there might be poc in frozen, or any disney movie for that matter, but talking lions being used to re-tell hamlet?? totally fine.

and dude dont be scared to point out where im wrong like i have a generally negative opinion about this movie but i dont mind being told that ive got the wrong idea. just as long as youre not brushing me off as some tumblr social justice warriors oh those silly teens wanting good representation and less whitewashing and boring female characters hahaha.

I don't know if your average person who watches that film would look into all that very much?

no they wouldnt take it into account, but theres still a fair amount of people who are average people who just watched the movie that were probably sami people and they had to sit and watch their culture get pissed on for the sake of some kids movie. itd suck! even if youre just an average person, it still hurts to see your sex, your culture, your skin colour, your disability, anything like that be wiped or made fun of for cheap laughs.
plus, even though its just kids, itd be nice to grow up knowing you could be a disney princess even if you dont want to marry a man (or a woman. maybe you dont wanna marry anyone, thats not an issue), or youre black or youre sami or fat or bald or anything. its just nice to see yourself be represented as a kid, you know? maybe some kids dont care, they just like the pretty movie and nice songs and princesses and prince charmings, but it does help to include strong characters in media that arent just cis white males. i hate that combo of words, but they do make up a lot of Strong Characters!

[The Shrub Dragon]

ok yea i was kinda Dickish w the last sentence i didnt mean it to come across as mean u_u; sorry about that.

It's cool!  No one's above it!


But yeah I get you - I admit that I've sort of been seeing things as I want to see them and focusing on the soundtrack more than the issues surrounding the characters and all.  Also, I'd forgotten all about Olaf but yeah that scene was a bit weird I mean I get that they can't just have him open a door and go 'save urself' but the conversation matter was a bit dodgy.

itd be nice to grow up knowing you could be a disney princess even if you dont want to marry a man (or a woman. maybe you dont wanna marry anyone, thats not an issue), or youre black or youre sami or fat or bald or anything. its just nice to see yourself be represented as a kid, you know? maybe some kids dont care, they just like the pretty movie and nice songs and princesses and prince charmings, but it does help to include strong characters in media that arent just cis white males. i hate that combo of words, but they do make up a lot of Strong Characters!

Agreed - this is actually the second princess based Disney film I ever remember seeing (and the first was literally watching snow white on morphine six years ago, so it's not exactly high ranking in terms of memorableness (can I say that? Is there a better word?)) so I'm not really big on issues with Disney films - all I know is that I always kind of thought the dresses were rad but the stories were blah and I think the reason I liked it so much was because I was fixed on what I could relate to (the sibling stuff) and turning a blind eye to the problematic romance stuff (though I can tell you I was hoping for a PoC throughout).


But yeah, my Sister in Law and Ex Girlfriend have both mentioned as much (Jewish and Black Caribbean/Hispanic, respectively) and you can see pretty clearly where lack of representation in media affects them same way as you can see where lack of queer representation affects me - it's where you watch or read and start sort of seeing where there's potential for a gender/orientation ambiguous character to be trans or gay and you get kind of excited and then whoever's writing just poops on it by not following through and it's irritating.


It's the same here, where they're creating characters and could easily make a PoC but decide to follow a formula (and yeah girls just 100% don't need to be pretty and I hate the way that prettiness is stuffed into 'almond eyes tall but not too tall white but pick up a tan k you look like the ghost of christmas death skinny but eurgh look at that that's not even a woman' like don't even talk to me because that's like one woman of all the women you'll ever see in your entire life and you're expecting us all to pop out looking like we've come off the front of a Victoria's Secret magazine') and it's just a bit pointless to keep churning blonde white girls with dinky little noses and stick figures out of a mechanical womb.


And then - without the Disney - there are TV Shows that seem to be Good Females OR PoC and we're getting to the point where it feels like they're mutually exclusive and they're just definitely not and we need to get past that. (Like Buffy I mean sure we've got her but then the only PoCs are Kendra and they kill her and Robin Wood and he's left ambiguous).


I still say I enjoyed the film and I still have a positive view of it - admittedly gained through a bit of internal editing of the characters - but I do see where you're coming from with the criticism on it and I do hope that Disney (and everyone) actually start acting on that because yours is far from the first criticism of the sort that I've seen on Frozen and I think we could do with a well written Disney PoC before 2018

[Hahex and Oshawott]

jesus who would've thought a disney Christmas film could be so controversial.

[Spriter]

It's cool, if you didn't want to come across as that.

But yes, I see your point.

they did make decisions, but a lot of them revolved around the male character from what i could tell? and some of their decisions were led by a bloody snowman. girl had a chance to save her literally identical sister, wow, girl gets to be The Hero! wait here comes a snowman to save her suddenly weak 2d ass and talk to her about picking ~boys~ over her sister. oh look shes totally buying it and swooning over some chud who talked down to her about Everything.

i didnt understand why they suddenly decided that she had to fall in love with a man who did nothing but look down his nose at her? love at first sight but also sort of felt like it was perpetuating the idea that boys only hurt and bully girls if they like them (or vice versa sometimes)... shed known the guy for a few days and she was in love with him, despite the fact he treats her like shes less than him. its pretty disgusting and i think that itd give little girls the idea that if a guy treats you like ass, hes a true keeper. gross.

also forgive me if im wrong, but im pretty sure i remember a comment like GIRLS NEED TO BE PRETTY in there, which is also trash. like, come on. girls dont ~need~ to be anything. dont give me that garbage.

Well, I agree with that, that is pretty bad. Seriously though, that sort of thing annoys me to no end. So they're saying something like "being nice to a girl gets you nowhere and treating her like crap is a better idea" or some rubbish like that? That's pleasant. Not.

But I haven't seen the film so I didn't really need to come in her ein the first place