Why I Hate Frozen

Day 6 of the July Everyday Geek Challenge! Today's prompt is why I hate Frozen:

Hello, my name is Gillian, I swear I'm a (mostly) normal person, and I hate Frozen.

Like, no really. It's painful.

And I could write a very, very long post about it. But this video covers pretty much everything.

My two beefs fall into two, broad ares:

Their complete dropping of the plot;

AND

The strong female character thing (hold that thought).

About the plot. I like the concept....having two sisters as main characters is awesome and unusual. But everything else is just confusing. So, Elsa has the magical powers to freeze things. Okay. Why did she apparently be able to control it early on? And why did it have to be hidden from Anna at all? And HOW did she learn to control it?

Who is the short little squirrel-y guy? Why wasn't he the villain? WHO ARE THE FREAKING ROCK LOVE EXPERTS???

Not to mention the fact that, after finding out Hans is evil, the entire movie nose dives to the end without wrapping anything up, and completely ignores a little thing called character development.

Anywhoooooo.

Now, the strong female character thing.

I understand the whole 'make good examples for our girls!' thing. I do...it's important. But:

A.) why just girls? Why can't we make strong characters that guys and girls can relate to? Newsflash: you can learn valuable lessons from the opposite gender.

B.) Everyone keeps messing up the strong female character movement, so it's back firing.

We've turned strong female character into an obligatory role...a quota to be reached. We've become so focused on making sure those strong female characters aren't ultra girly, or skinny, or end up with a guy, that we've created a new stereotype. Strong female characters are tomboys. They usually snub the guy at first. And they can kick their butt.

It's turned into another cliche. And, I'm sorry...a strong female is not a cliche.

Strong female characters (and, you know, strong women in general):

-CAN be tomboys.
-CAN be feminine.
-CAN be single.
-CAN end up with a guy.

For me, the only must-haves for a strong female character are:

-That she's smart. As in not a ditz. She can make mistakes, but please don't make her a ditz.
-She's KIND. She can absolutely be sassy. But she must be kind.
-She must know herself. Her wants and not-wants. Or at least, be looking for them and trying her hardest to always follow heart and head.

She doesn't have to have everything together. She doesn't have to be a totally, always confident person. She doesn't even have to beat the boys at everything. She just has to be in control of herself and her life, and do it with a kind heart.

Elsa keeps getting so much praise for being a strong female character. And, frankly...she's not.

An argument for her is that that's the point. That (finally!) Disney has made a movie where the heroine struggles with inner struggles, self doubt, fear, loneliness. And I will agree with you that those are awesome, important themes to have in movies. And I totally agree with you that strong female characters can still struggle with those.

But it's not real. It's all so fake, and cliche. Not believable. Not relate-able. And certainly not helpful to younger girls looking for answers, if that was their goal.

Happy Monday! xoxo