{"id":973,"date":"2014-12-09T10:00:55","date_gmt":"2014-12-09T08:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/?p=973"},"modified":"2014-12-09T10:00:55","modified_gmt":"2014-12-09T08:00:55","slug":"elsas-dress-and-girl-power-what-i-missed-about-frozen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/2014\/12\/09\/elsas-dress-and-girl-power-what-i-missed-about-frozen\/","title":{"rendered":"ELSA\u2019S DRESS AND GIRL POWER: WHAT I MISSED ABOUT FROZEN<\/em><\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"

On 5 January this year I published here a post on a new Swedish system to rate films according to their feminist interest. In this post I mentioned in passing Frozen<\/em>, noting that, although this Disney film exalts sisterly love, after seeing it my two Madrid nieces didn\u2019t hug each other but remained \u201cmesmerised,\u201d poor things, \u201cby the stupid glamorisation of a pathetic fairy-tale lifestyle.\u201d I totally missed the point. Stupid me<\/em>.<\/p>\n

An MA student, Camila Rojas, asked me subsequently to supervise her dissertation on how the concept of \u2018true love\u2019 has changed from Beauty and the Beast<\/em> to Frozen<\/em>. Thrilling! (She\u2019s almost done). I interviewed then my two Barcelona nieces (same ages as the ones from Madrid: 9 and 5) and this is what I learned: Frozen<\/em> is unrealistic in its depiction of sisterly love because actual sisters quarrel all the time. Still, older girls, though less interested in the princess theme, appreciate the fact that heterosexual romance is not central. They find the film warm and funny, in particular the quirky snowman Olaf. Younger girls simply love<\/em> Elsa. Why? She\u2019s pretty and smart and, attention!, she\u2019s powerful. And a queen who needs no prince, take that! When I stressed that Elsa\u2019s power to turn all she touches into ice is dangerous, I was explained that this is irrelevant\u2013what matters is that it\u2019s cool: look at her castle, her ice monster and her dress\u2026 My Madrid nieces corroborated these views, perplexed that they had to clarify for my benefit what was so obvious to them.<\/p>\n

Elsa, as Camila has seen, has clearly become a figure of empowerment for very young girls who don\u2019t even know such word exists. For them \u2018power\u2019 means Elsa\u2019s special power, presented as a sickly condition by the script but re-written as a super-power by the young female spectators (more Superman than X-Men, if you know what I mean). This is the real reason why the film has become so strong, even a cult film, among little girls, a phenomenon which, in its turn, explains the superlative boom in merchandising-related sales. Particularly of Elsa\u2019s dress, without forgetting that the doll based on this character will outsell Barbie herself this oncoming Christmas.<\/p>\n

Let me digress about the dress, now that I\u2019m the middle of the nightmarish process of commissioning the Three Wise Men with bringing one home. Think Snowhite, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Belle or Rapunzel, and you see a typical princess dress: a long, flouncy skirt accompanied by a bodice with puffy sleeves, ribbons\u2026 right? Now, picture Elsa (or check Google) and see what she\u2019s wearing: a tight-fitting sequined gown with a long cut up her skirt. This suggestive dress is aimed at showing off her sexiness, which in the script accompanies her decision to, as she sings, \u201clet it go\u201d and enjoy her unique, toxic power. Her younger sister Anna, in contrast, wears girly dresses of a more conventional cut, actually very pretty. But, then, she has no power, right? Except the power to love Elsa (almost) to death.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure Disney never anticipated little girls would want Elsa\u2019s dress (I\u2019m told that even some little boys<\/em> want it!!). The house designers have actually solved quite poorly the problem of how to adapt a sexy gown made for a curvy twenty-year-old girl into something wearable by girls aged 3 to 10 (without a major scandal). This is why you can currently find at least four official versions of Elsa\u2019s dress\u2013well, \u2018find\u2019 is a relative word, as they\u2019re sold out in official online stores, whereas in the physical shops they disappear as soon as they arrive. All these \u2018official\u2019 versions are quite ugly, made with low-quality, wrinkled, rough cloth\u2026 and totally overpriced (40 to 80 euros, plus shoes, tiara, and other accessories). One wonders about the Asian workers making them probably for next to nothing, unable to afford them for their own little girls. Yet, you should have seen the anxious parents and other relatives asking Disney Store employees to please, please, please, let Santa Claus and the Three Wise Kings keep one for their little girl. Other sweeter and prettier princess dresses elicit much less interest\u2013and, by the way, Merida\u2019s unfussy outfit (from Brave<\/em>) is gone for good. I also missed Maleficent<\/em>-related merchandising items, um, perhaps for good reason, though, my!, I loved those wings (not the horns\u2026). And Aurora is simply lovely. <\/p>\n

Back to Elsa: the home-made solution, having the Three Wise Men make the dress thus improving on the wretched Disney materials, is not really easier as the required cloth has been sold out from the main stores (at least in Barcelona). Holy cow\u2026 A chirpy sales clerk familiar with the Frozen<\/em> situation explained to me that mums came to his cloth shop accompanied by demanding five-year-olds, absolutely adamant that they wanted the \u2018right\u2019 dress. He was scandalised that mums allowed little girls to behave in this tyrannical way, curtailing, besides, all possible creativity. I wonder whether the choice of Elsa as a favourite reflects this trend\u2026 get me that dress, or else, I\u2019ll use my power to freeze you!<\/p>\n

As films with a very similar focus, I very much prefer Maleficent<\/em> to Frozen<\/em>, though I understand that Maleficent<\/em> is too dark for very young girls\u2013I found the fairy\u2019s mutilation almost unbearable to watch. As for the princess dress, though Elsa\u2019s is beautiful, I find it out of place in a fairy tale: it\u2019s closer to Gilda and Jessica Rabbit than to Scarlett O\u2019Hara. Why do little girls have, in any case, this fantasy of being empowered by wearing a princess (or queen\u2019s) dress? And, in our Catholic culture, how does this connect with the first communion dress and the wedding dress, both patriarchal concoctions? Well, I\u2019d answer that very obviously. Disney films for girls suggest that power only comes either by inheriting it from dad or by marrying a prince, and just in fairy tales, not in real-life contexts. In contrast, little boys are offered a much wider choice and may dress up as super-heroes or as more ordinary heroes (firemen, spies, astronauts and such). No prince outfits required for them\u2026 <\/p>\n

My feminist self would rather see my nieces become real heroines than fake princesses or queens. But, then, what little girl would accept an astronaut dress as a Christmas present with the same glee as an Elsa dress? Even I would go for that blue beauty\u2013though I\u2019d rather warm than freeze hearts\u2026<\/p>\n

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On 5 January this year I published here a post on a new Swedish system to rate films according to their feminist interest. In this post I mentioned in passing Frozen, noting that, although this Disney film exalts sisterly love, after seeing it my two Madrid nieces didn\u2019t hug each other but remained \u201cmesmerised,\u201d poor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,16],"tags":[212],"class_list":["post-973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film-adaptations","category-film-studies","tag-gender-studies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/98"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}