12/18/2019 From Evil Queen to Disabled Teen: Frozen Introduces Disney's First Disabled Princess | Resene | Disability Studies

ne | Disability Studies Quarterly

From Evil Queen to Disabled Teen: Frozen Introduces

Disney's First Disabled Princess

Michelle Resene
University of Connecticut
Email: Michelle.Resene@uconn.edu

Keywords:

Disability, Disney, Frozen, Princess, Children's Literature, Aesthetics

Disney's Frozen represents a landmark for the animation giant due not only
to its immense popularity but also its introduction of the studio's first disabled
princess. In order to make Elsa's story possible, the animators use a
combination of narrative devices including the introduction of a second
princess, whose story fulfills the audience's expectation for a traditional
"princess journey," their patented aesthetic of cuteness, and the encoding of
disability as fantasy. Although Elsa's disability is encoded as a magical ice
power, the language the film uses to talk about her condition maps on to the
experiences of people with physical, mental, and intellectual disabilities in
recognizable ways. Meanwhile, her status as a much-beloved princess
figure allows the animators at Disney to position disability as a universal
experience and in turn to create empathy for PWDs both on and off screen.

During the airing of the ABC special The Story of Frozen: Making a Disney
Animated Classic (2014), John Lasseter, the creative executive officer for Walt
Disney studios, spoke openly for the first time about the connection between his
most recent project and his son, who was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes at age
10. Lasseter recalled his son Sam's anxiety during the early stages of his condition
with tears in his eyes, stating, "I thought of Sam, and I was thinking of Elsa. She
was born with this. Why is she the villain?" Lasseter's revelation that Elsa was born
with this condition, much like his son was genetically predisposed to diabetes, led
him to call for a restructuring of the entire concept for Frozen from the script to the
character design and soundtrack, thus beginning Elsa's transformation from
villainous queen to sympathetic teen. Although Elsa is not the only character with
disability in the Disney canon, she is the first princess 1 to be designed with
disability in mind, and one of only two human characters with visible disability to
make the cut at all since Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996). As
one of the newest members of Disney's royal family, Elsa is in a position to
influence her audience in lasting ways. Studies have shown that children carry the
values they have been taught by Disney characters, and specifically Disney
princesses, with them into college and beyond.2 Whether she is singing her
trademark song, "Let it Go," in theaters, joking with her sister, Anna, on stage at the
Magic Kingdom before she lights up Cinderella's castle, or beckoning to buyers in
doll form from department store shelves, Elsa's brand wields a tremendous amount
of cultural capital, and it would behoove scholars in both children's literature and
disability studies to pay attention to what the Frozen line—and therefore Disney—is
selling in regards to disability.

It is not surprising that Disney has been reluctant to revisit disability representation
given Hunchback's poor reception by general audiences and the backlash against

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the film in the disabled community, both of which disability scholar Martin F. Norden
has discussed in his work on disability in film. However, it was only a matter of time
before Disney revisited the concept considering the steadily increasing awareness
of persons with disabilities (PWDs) in the education system, the work world, and
the marketplace since the introduction of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
in 1990. PWDs currently make up fifteen percent of the American population,
making them the largest minority in the United States, and as the baby boomer
generation continues to age, this number is likely to double. When we take into
account caregivers and family members in addition to PWDs themselves, at least
half the population is affected by disability in some way (Davis 4). Lasseter's story
about his son's condition and his own change of heart is just one example of how
disability is gradually gaining visibility and acceptance in this country. If the recent
introduction of a growing number of characters with disability3 into the Disney
movie-line-up is any indication, the corporation is not only aware of this movement,
but is also working to be a part of it. Henry Giroux and Grace Pollock argue that
"Disney actively appeals to both conscientious parents and youthful fantasies as it
works hard to transform every child into a lifetime consumer of Disney products
and ideas" (xiii). As Disney's reach continues to extend not only across the age
gap, but also around the globe, its consumer base is ever-widening. When the
mouse "roars," we as viewers and consumers have been trained to listen, and now
that the uproar has finally become about the way that PWDs are treated in this
country and globally, we can only hope that more balanced, ethical representations
of disability are on the horizon.

It is tempting to read Disney's rebranding of disability in Frozen as just another

misappropriation of marginalized identity in a long line of transgressions, such as
those committed in Pocahontas (1995) and Princess and the Frog (2009), both of
which met with understandable hostility from critical race theorists.4 However, in
this article, I argue that by creating memorable characters that both normate5 and
disabled viewers can relate to, Disney advocates for a new understanding of
identity—one that positions disability at its center. First, I discuss the history of
disability representation in Disney films in order to contextualize Elsa's emergence
as their first disabled princes. Next, I use Stuart Hall's theory of encoding and
decoding to demonstrate how Disney encodes disability in Frozen using Elsa's ice
powers, concluding with a meditation on the online community's willingness to
embrace her as a character who embodies a myriad of disabled experiences.
Building on this, I discuss the transformation Elsa underwent during her character
design phase in order to achieve the aesthetic of cuteness necessary to create
audience identification and empathy with the disabled body as a Disney brand.
Finally, I conclude with a reflection on Disney's use of the princess as a familiar and
much loved figure to create the impression that the disabled experience is a
universal one. Although disability studies scholars have often rejected this rhetoric
and have instead found power in identifying as a minority group, scholars including
Lennard Davis and Tom Shakespeare have argued that this turn inward is largely
counter-productive since it promotes separatism over inclusion and equality
(Shakespeare 110). I will argue, therefore, that by emphasizing disability as a
shared experience through Elsa, the creators at Disney are able to create empathy
for PWDs both on and off screen and as such are able to advocate for acceptance
and accommodation as inclusive moves that benefit all viewers, disabled and able-
bodied alike.

There has been very little scholarly work done on disability representation in
Disney films to date, and what there is focuses on their older films. It is only in the
last few years that the writers and animators at Disney have begun to change the
way they view—and encourage others to view—disability. Walt Disney Studios
remains the front-runner in animated film making to this day, and as such they set
the standard for other studios to follow. Lasseter's choice to send Frozen back to
the drawing board (literally) once he realized Elsa's condition was an impairment
outside of her control shows that Disney is finally ready to represent disability in an
ethical way. This is exciting news, not only for the scholars working in both
children's literature and disability studies, but also for the marginalized populations
that we represent. Rather than continuing to focus on Disney's past crimes, it

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benefits us to look ahead to their future potential to change the way PWDs are
treated for the better.

"A Kingdom of Isolation": Disney at the Movies

In order to contextualize Elsa's appearance as Disney's first disabled princess, I

am going to begin with a brief chronology of disability representation in film. As
numerous disability theorists have argued, television and film are awash in images
of disability, yet viewers rarely notice or acknowledge their presence. Paul
Longmore argues that when PWDs are represented in film, they are usually
portrayed as either criminals or monsters. Norden builds on this analysis, adding
that disabled people are almost always isolated from both other PWDs and the
community at large. He goes on to offer several categories of disability
representation including the Sweet Innocent, the Civilian Superstar, and the
Obsessive Avenger. Moving forward, David T. Mitchell and Sharon L. Snyder
advance the argument that the majority of representations of disability in film and
literature are little more than "narrative prosthesis," explaining that "disability has
been used throughout history as a crutch upon which literary narratives lean for
their representational power, disruptive potentiality, and analytical insight" (49). Ato
Quayson seeks to address what he sees as a limitation in Mitchell and Snyder's
proposal of narrative prosthesis by proposing a new set of categories including
"disability as moral test," "disability as epiphany," and finally "disability as normality"
(52). Finally, Sally Chivers and Nicole Markotić propose a wider reading of
cinema's representation of "problem bodies," as "a challenging multiplication of
physical and social problems" (4). Although Disney's representations of disability
have occupied numerous of these positions throughout history, as we will see, their
most recent work comes closest to Chivers and Markotić's position that disability is
both embodied and social, realistic and metaphorical.

Disney's own history of disability representation is fraught with problematic imagery

and stereotypical representation. Beginning with Snow White and the Seven
Dwarves' Dopey (1937), who can be read as intellectually disabled, Disney has
struggled to represent disability in a realistic and ethical light, due in part to their
need to make the disabled character a cute object. Schwartz, Lutifiyya, and
Hansen argue that Dopey is visibly Othered, partly due to the fact that he is much
younger than the other dwarves and also because he is drawn as a "human with
dog mannerisms and intellect" (qtd. in 183). Moving forward, Disney takes a
different tactic in Dumbo (1941) by encoding disability into an animal character
outright, this time a baby elephant. While the film attempts to advance a social
critique about the treatment of PWDs through the treatment of both Dumbo and his
mother, it ultimately resorts to supercripping when it is revealed that Dumbo can fly
by flapping his inordinately large ears, thus earning him the love of both the
audience and the other circus animals. Whereas both Snow White and Dumbo at
least seek to make disability loveable, Peter Pan's Captain Hook (1952) is little
more than a revival of the disabled person as villain, albeit a funny, foppish villain.
Beauty and the Beast (1991) once again attempts a social commentary, this time
using a familiar fairy tale as its catalyst. Tammy Berberi and Viktor Berberi argue
that Disney once again relies on the cute factor, focusing on Beast's human
qualities in order to make him more of a victim than a monster.

Up to this point, Disney's forays into disability had been mostly fictitious—a silly
dwarf, an elephant with overly large ears, a pirate in a children's fairy land, a prince
transformed into a monster by a fairy's spell. It is not until the release The
Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) that Disney took their first pass at a realistic
portrayal of disability, albeit with limited success. In the film, Victor Hugo's title
character is oversimplified, remade into an "awkward child with self-esteem
problems," who is oftentimes the butt of the depreciating humor of his imaginary
gargoyle companions. (Norden "Disability and Otherness"167). As Norden argues,
"Yes, it's a movie, but it's so much more than that; for disabled people, movies such
as The Hunchback of Notre Dame are harmful and divisive expressions that
reinforce negative beliefs that can lead to further discrimination" ("Disability and
Otherness" 173). The film was panned by reviewers in both the U.S. and the U.K.
for its oversimplification and misrepresentation of both Hugo's novel and the real-

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life issues PWDs face (Norden "Disability and Otherness" 168). Much more
concerning, however, was the rise in violence against people with scoliosis in the
U.K. in the months following the film's release (Norden "Disability and Otherness
173-4).

Given the film's poor reception, it is little wonder that Disney has been shy to
venture into disability representation in the years that followed. It was not until 2012
that the animation giant released Wreck It Ralph6, one of whose protagonists,
Vanellope von Schweetz, is a video game character with a "glitch" that causes her
image to freeze-up and pixilate momentarily. Vanellope identifies with disability
early on when she tells the other game characters that she has a "condition" known
as "pixlexia." Vanellope's disability may be encoded as fantasy; however, she
represents Disney's first foray into what Quayson terms "Disability as Normality"
since she deals with real issues including social isolation and homelessness due to
her physical difference. Unfortunately, despite the film's overwhelming success at
the box office7, Vanellope has failed to attain the same visibility in Disney's canon
that she enjoys in her own video game world. Wreck It Ralph appealed to an older
audience including the male demographic traditionally aimed at by Pixar films8;
however, it failed to appeal to traditionalist Disney fans on the same level as the
popular princess movies. As such, its marketing tapered off rather quickly, and it
failed to become a household brand as is typical with more successful Disney films.
Wreck at Ralph will be getting a sequel in 2018, which has the potential to relaunch
Vanellope; however, since Frozen has already enjoyed a short film sequel, "Frozen
Fever" (2015), has an upcoming Broadway release (2018), and will be launching its
own full-length sequel (2019), it's unlikely that Wreck It Ralph will displace it as
their number one anytime soon. As such, Elsa's position as Disney's first disabled
princess becomes even more important since her film is garnering more attention
than any Disney film ever made including golden-age classics like The Lion King
and Beauty and the Beast.

"Conceal Don't Feel": Disney's Encoding of Disability Rhetoric in

Frozen
Disney's Frozen began as a remake of Hans Christian Anderson's "The Snow
Queen" (1844). In the original story, a girl must embark on a journey to save a
friend taken captive by the evil Snow Queen after his head and heart are altered by
the fragments of a demon mirror. Her love for her friend allows her to overcome
obstacles and save him by melting away the fragments with her tears. Originally,
Disney planned on following the original storyline; however, after Lasseter's change
of heart, they reimagined the two female characters Anna and Elsa as sisters
rather than rivals. In the revised version of the film, Elsa is born with the power to
make ice and snow flow from her fingertips; however, when she becomes anxious
or afraid, she is unable to control her magic. This leads to Elsa unintentionally
plunging the country of Arendale into an eternal winter when she and Anna fight at
her coronation ceremony. The villagers attack her, believing her to be a monster,
and she flees her kingdom in fear. Anna then embarks on a journey to save both
her sister and her home, meeting up with mountain man, Kristoff, his reindeer,
Sven, and enchanted snowman, Olaf, along the way. After Elsa inadvertently
freezes her sister's heart, Anna must seek true love's kiss to save her life. Initially,
she and the audience both believe she needs Kristoff's kiss to save her; however,
in the end, it is the sister's love for one another that saves them both.

Frozen seeks to capitalize on the successful representation of disability in Wreck It

Ralph by once again encoding disability into a fantasy landscape. Disney's
decision to encode disability as fantasy is not an altogether unprecedented move—
they frequently attempt to encode race in their films, usually using animal
characters to do so.9 Sarah Turner uses Stuart Hall's theories of encoding and
decoding to argue that the animation company enlists the premise of a magical
spell to erase race and send audiences a positive message regarding
colorblindness in The Princess and The Frog as the lead characters, Tiana and
Naveen, spend the majority of the film as frogs hopping around the Louisiana
bayou. Disney may have intended to preach racial equality by removing the
characters from the racially charged atmosphere of 1920's New Orleans into the

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remote swamp region where alligators, frogs, and fireflies all work together towards
a common goal. Unfortunately, by reducing their critique of racial inequality to one
scene in the film wherein Tiana is told that a "a little woman of her background"
wouldn't be capable of withstanding the societal pressures involved in running a
restaurant, the company risks conflating sexism with racism and therefore eliding
audience members' concerns about the dominant culture's indifference to the
challenges minority groups face. Turner explains Halls theory as follows:

While the creators of the message 'encode' a particular ideology into a

text…there is a moment, the moment of 'decoding,' that enables an
alternate reading (either negotiated or oppositional) in opposition to the
dominant reading embedded within the discourse of the text. Dominant
readings and readers fully share in the ideological codes of the text;
negotiated readings and readers partly share the text's code but have
some questions or reservations, while oppositional or counter-
hegemonic readings and readers understand the intended or dominant
reading but reject it. (Turner 84-5)

In other words, although the majority of viewers are likely to adhere to the message
Disney encodes, or embeds, into The Princess and the Frog supporting
"colorblindness" as a form of equality, it can just as easily be decoded, or
interpreted, by resistant audience members as apathy, or worse, outright prejudice.
In the end, Tiana's film "fails to signify her color, clearly intrinsic to 'who' and 'what'
she is," choosing instead to focus on her work ethic as the only thing necessary for
her to "overcome" racism and thus erasing issues of discrimination and social
inequality (Turner 84). This message is overwhelmingly rejected by reviewers as
well as black audience members who understand the dangers of a colorblind
ideology that refuses to confront institutional racism as a source of social injustice.
Whereas Disney's attempts to be "colorblind" in The Princess and the Frog fail, I
argue that the encoding of disability in Frozen is successful because the film never
elides the social inequality Elsa is subjected to due to her difference. The film uses
the device of two princesses in order to fulfill audience's expectations for a
hegemonic princess journey through Anna while at the same time offering an
oppositional disability counter-narrative using Elsa. In doing so, the studio creates
a sense of audience comfort that allows them to advance a critique of the way
society treats marginalized populations—something they were unable to fully
achieve in either The Hunchback of Notre Dame or Princess and the Frog.

When audiences flock to theaters to see a Disney princess film, they arrive bearing
certain expectations for what I refer to as a "princess journey." Most princesses
embark on an adventure that closely mirrors Joseph Campbell's famous hero's
journey. Although Anna's journey offers viewers a feminist parody of the earlier
princess stories in some ways, her story is familiar enough for audiences to
recognize. There is a scene in Cinderella, for example, when the princess wakes
up with perfect hair and makeup while birds dress her and brush her hair that
Frozen parodies by showing Anna waking up in the morning with drool hanging out
of her mouth and her hair standing up on one side. In addition, in a twist on Snow
White's exhortation that "someday my prince will come," Anna rushes off to marry a
man she's just met in order to have her "happily ever after," only to be told first by
her sister and later by a second, better potential love interest that she's acting
"crazy."10 However, despite the comic twists and turns, Anna does provide viewers
with what they have come to expect from a princess story. She is shut away due to
her parents' decree that Elsa must never be seen. Next, she sings her "want
song"11 about opening the castle doors. Later, she heeds the call to action by
following her runaway sister up the mountain into the wilderness threshold space.
She meets helpers, Kristoff and his reindeer Sven, then later Olaf, the enchanted
snowman. Together, they encounter obstacles as they work to find Elsa and undo
the eternal winter she has unknowingly created. Along the way, Anna learns what
true love is as she sacrifices herself for her sister. Her love for Elsa is the catalyst
of her rebirth, and the story ends with her happily reunited first with her sister and
later with Kristoff, her unlikely prince. Anna could easily stand alone as Disney's
newest entry into the princess canon. She is courageous, funny, and most
importantly, adorable. However, the story of Frozen doesn't end with Anna; rather,

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she shares the stage with her older sister, Elsa, whose story is unlike any Disney
has ever told before.

The animators at Disney use the premise of two sisters in order to simultaneously
meet their audiences' expectations with a traditional princess narrative and at the
same time introduce a compelling counter-narrative about the way PWDs are
treated in modern society. Thus, rather than erase disability, they conceal it in a
second storyline that runs parallel to the first. They ground both sisters' stories in
an endearing scene that takes place in their early childhood. Anna coaxes Elsa out
of bed by asking her if she "wants to build a snowman," and Elsa responds by
transforming the palace entry hall into a winter wonderland for her sister's
amusement. At this point, Elsa's ability seems like something out of a fairytale; she
can make ice and snow flow from her fingertips in order to create a winter
wonderland anytime, anywhere. At this point, she could be mistaken for a typical
princess; however, her story quickly turns dark. As Anna races around the castle,
Elsa fears she may hurt herself and panics, accidentally hitting Anna in the
forehead with a blast of ice. Anna collapses unconscious, and their parents rush
into the room demanding to know what Elsa has done. While most children's
stories would present an ability like Elsa's as a magical power, Frozen rejects this
device early on to tell a different kind of story—one which positions disability at its
center.

Elsa's disability may be encoded as a fantastic power, but the way her condition is
discussed and managed links it unmistakably with impairment. Beginning with the
king and queen's response to Anna's "accident," Elsa's power is treated as suspect
in a manner that is reminiscent of Ernest Goffman's construction of disability as a
stigmatized position. He explains, "The standards [the stigmatized person] has
incorporated from the wider society equip him to be intimately alive to what others
see as his failing, inevitably causing him…to agree that he does indeed fall short of
what he really ought to be" (7). Elsa never has a chance to tell her story, or to try to
undo the damage she has caused. Instead, the girls' parents rush to the trolls for
help and advice, dragging Elsa in their wake. When the eldest troll sees Elsa, he
immediately asks her parents whether Elsa was "born with the powers or cursed?"
At no point is it implied that what she can do is a gift. This adds to the
stigmatization since her ice power is linked with an "abomination of the body"
(Goffman 4). The stigma surrounding Elsa's ability is further emphasized when the
head troll erases Anna's memory of her sister's powers, telling her "it's for the
best." Since he "takes the magic" but "leaves the fun," there's an implication that
Elsa's ability is incidental to these memories rather than at the center of them.

The depiction of Elsa and her ability as dangerous is perpetuated in the scene that
follows, which many disabled viewers have identified as the moment when they
recognize Elsa as "like them." The head troll speaks directly to Elsa for the first
time, telling her, "Your power will only grow. There is beauty in it, but also great
danger. You must learn to control it. Fear will be your greatest enemy." As he is
saying this, he conjures an image of the adult Elsa with a snowflake over her head.
As young Elsa watches, the snow flake above the adult Elsa's silhouette turns from
icy blue to blood red and a crowd of people gather around the image, attacking it.
Young Elsa is, ironically, visibly frightened by this declaration, and she remains in
this state for the majority of the film in part due to her parent's actions. Although
other protagonists in Disney films fall under curses, like Aurora in Sleeping Beauty,
Elsa is the first Disney princess to be accused of causing bad things to happen—
this is a role normally reserved for Disney villains. Therefore, this scene, which
takes place very early in the film, gives audiences their first cue that this is not
simply a fairy tale, but also a story about social injustice.

The disability rhetoric in Frozen differs from that in most animated features in that it
dwells on both Elsa's physical and mental difference, taking the time to show how
her condition impacts her lived experience, rather than using her ice powers solely
to forward the plot. Moritz Fink points out that in most animated social commentary
"disability does not so much represent a deficiency or flaw but rather contributes to
the destabilization of social hierarchies" (Fink 255). In animated programs such as
The Simpsons, disability becomes what Mitchell and Snyder refer to as a narrative
prosthesis, or a symbolic device meant to further the plot as is the case when Ariel

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loses her voice in The Little Mermaid. In Mitchell and Snyder's initial example, The
Steadfast Tin Soldier, the soldier's missing leg is only mentioned as a way to single
him out as worthy of a story. While Elsa's difference is the catalyst for the story in
Frozen in that she inadvertently sets off an eternal winter, the majority of the plot
actually focuses on the sisters' misguided attempts to protect one another. Elsa's
ice powers are never questioned or explained; their origin remains a mystery, but
not one that Disney is interested in solving. Instead, they focus on the way the
society (mis)treats Elsa because of those powers, implying that discrimination is
the real problem in need of a solution. In this way, they redirect the audiences'
attention away from the expected fairytale and onto more realistic issues. Thus,
instead of encoding a socially problematic motif like "colorblindness," they are
actually encoding a message about inequality and unfairness as universal
problems that all audience members can relate to and take action against.

Elsa's condition, which is triggered by fear and anxiety, is representative of not only
physical but also mental and cognitive disability, as many viewers have noted. The
mishandling of Elsa's condition by her parents resonates especially with those who
live with anxiety and depression. As Margaret Price points out, it is a common
misbelief that "mental illness…goes hand in hand with violent behavior," a
prejudice stemming from the unending supply of misrepresentations available in
media and film (2). Women in particular are prone to misdiagnosis and
misunderstanding, particularly by neurotypicals who may ask them why they can't
just "control themselves." As is the case with most invisible disabilities, Elsa is able
to keep her condition hidden most of the time, only making herself known when she
chooses. However, her impairment is "always ready to disclose itself, to emerge in
some visually recognizable stigmata, however subtle, that will disrupt social order
by its presence," as is the case for many people with invisible disabilities (Garland-
Thomson Extraordinary Bodies 347). Sensing this danger, when the king and
queen return home, they lock Elsa away in her room and forbid her from seeing her
sister or anyone else in the kingdom. They present her with thick gloves to cover
her hands, and instruct her, "Conceal, don't feel." Both the gloves, which serve as
an unwanted prosthetic used to make her hands appear normative, and the
instructions on how to suppress her power, represent an attempt at "curing" or
"passing" that resonates with both physically and mentally disabled viewers. Since
these viewers rarely see depictions of themselves as they really are—most
Hollywood films prefer to represent disability as either monstrous or heroic, as
discussed above—the representation of disability as the PWD experiences it is
both refreshing and empowering.

Whereas viewers who identify as disabled are likely to appreciate the unflinching
honesty present in Elsa's representation, normate viewers may experience a sense
of growing discomfort. This is doubly true since it is Elsa's own parents, and not a
discernible villain, who put Elsa into this isolated position. The audience, many of
whom are parents themselves, are forced to take a hard look at the way we, as a
society, demand that children who are different be made to either conform or be
shut away. Elsa's confinement, first in her own room and later in a castle of her own
making, can therefore be recognized as institutionalization. Elsa's experience of
being locked in her room unable to open her door resonates with Simi Linton's
recollection of "the institutions that have confined us, the attics and basements that
sheltered our family's shame" (1). Even after the tragic death of their parents, Elsa
continues to isolate herself, unable to break down the psychological barrier that her
parents and the trolls have erected. This is in keeping with Norden's theory that
PWDs are oftentimes depicted as isolated from both their families and communities
and also from other PWDs. Rather than imply this is natural or inevitable, however,
Disney uses Elsa's isolation to subtly critique the effect that institutionalization has
on those with disability in the real, as well as the fictional, realm.

As the story progresses, and Elsa grows up, it becomes apparent that the society
at large, rather than just her parents, is responsible for Elsa's poor treatment. The
people's fear of Elsa is most evident at her coronation ceremony when Anna pulls
off her glove during an argument. Without her glove, Elsa is unable to control her
ability, and she erects a wall of jagged ice to force the people around her to back
up and give her space. When they realize who and what Elsa is, the townspeople

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recoil from her in fear. Their looks recall Garland-Thomson's work on staring, in
which she describes the stare as, "a more intense form of looking than glancing,
glimpsing, scanning, surveying, gazing, and other forms of casual or uninterested
looking." She argues that "staring registers the perception of difference and gives
meaning to impairment by marking it as aberrant" ("The Politics of Staring" 56).
Through their stares, the villagers transform Elsa into a monster, and she is forced
to flee for her life not unlike Frankenstein's monster or Dracula in the familiar horror
movies.

At this point in a Disney film, a character like Elsa would ordinarily transform into a
villain—denied access to the party, no longer the "fairest of them all," most Disney
queens would lash out and seek revenge on those who rejected them. Indeed,
PWDs are oftentimes represented as the villains in films for both children and
adults, as was the case in Peter Pan. In this film, however, Disney refuses the
familiar stereotype of disability as monstrous or villainous, and retains the
audience's empathy for Elsa, by following her journey up the mountain rather than
remaining with the villagers down below. When Elsa reaches the mountaintop, she
does not cry or rage, rather she initially berates herself in a move that is common
among those who have been stigmatized by society. Her wildly popular anthem,
"Let it Go" begins with the declaration that Elsa has found herself in a "kingdom of
isolation / and it looks like I'm the queen" (lines 3-4). This is, again, in keeping with
Norden's theory; however, whereas in most earlier films this isolation was both
accepted by the victim and inevitably seen as "for their own good," Elsa's song
indicates that it is her parents and society, rather than herself, who are to blame for
her current situation. Her next lines, "Don't let them in / don't let them see / Be the
good girl you always have to be" ventriloquize her parents harmful teaching (lines
8-10). At this point, Elsa wags her finger, admonishing herself as she remembers
what she has been taught. By mid-song, however, she rejects this teaching, and
with it her home and former identity, singing, "I don't care / what they're going to
say / let the storm rage on / the cold never bothered me anyway" (lines 17-20).
These lines are not only catchy, they also form an anthem of independence that
resonates with both disabled and able-bodied audience members, all of whom can
likely remember a time when they have had enough. Disney's classic songs,
including The Little Mermaid's "Part of Your World" and The Lion King's "Hakuna
Matata" are a large part of their film's popularity. They not only reinforce the films'
imaginative world views, but they also create an empathic bond between audience
and character, and "Let It Go," is no exception. In addition to empowering disabled
viewers to take a metaphorical "stand" for their own rights, this song draws in
normate viewers and helps them to see themselves as like Elsa, tired of being
pushed around. Markotić and Chivers argue that "Disabled or not—when 'we' all
watch a film, we all participate in disability discourse" (4). The "we" in this case is
always suspect since normate viewers cannot ever fully embody the experience of
fellow movie goers with disability; however, the move to identify with a character
like Elsa rather than continuing to view her as Other is important since it opens up
a space for dialog on how she and the real PWDs she represents are treated by
society.

It is at this point that Elsa transforms visually, donning a new wardrobe to match
her new attitude. There is a sense of relief in this moment as Elsa releases the
tension that has been building around her character since the scene with the trolls.
For audience members, the relief partially comes from both the realization that she
is not so different from them after all. In addition, Elsa's song implies that she will
not become an Obsessive Avenger, but rather she will content herself to reside in a
beautiful ice palace of her own making, so the normate community has little to fear
from her. For Elsa, however, the relief comes from no longer having to perform for
that same normate audience. Goffman explains, "the stigmatized individual is likely
to feel that he is 'on,' having to be self-conscious and calculating about the
impression he is making, to a degree and in areas of conduct which he assumes
others are not" (14). In the scene on the mountaintop, Elsa finally enacts a sense
of play. Her face lights up as she creates a stairway into the unknown out of snow,
and then later, she spins around in wonder as an entire palace made of ice,
complete with a sparkling chandelier, rises up around her. At this point, Disney
reimagines Elsa's "kingdom of isolation" as empowering—not for the normate

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community, but for Elsa herself since she no longer has to hide or pretend to be
someone she is not. As her song ends, she makes direct eye contact with the
audience before slamming the doors and effectively shutting out not only the
people of Arendale, but also the viewer thus denying any attempts at disability
voyeurism, another common issue in earlier representations.

Up to this point, there is a tension surrounding this film, stemming from Elsa's
mistreatment by the community and her understandably angry response. The
animators' choice to focus on inequality for the first act of the film is a major
deviation from their flippant treatment of racial inequality in Princess and the Frog.
If Disney continued to focus solely on Elsa and the injustice to which she was
subjected as the film continued, it is very likely that viewers would reject the
encoded message about the need for social reform on behalf of PWDs and instead
begin to blame Elsa for what happens to her in an effort to shake off their own
feelings of guilt. As it is, most viewers accept and to some extent internalize Elsa's
rhetoric about disability, as I will demonstrate at the end of this section. Viewers are
able to do so because the return to Anna's narrative takes them "off the hook" in
two important ways. First, Anna's narrative returns them to the familiar realm of the
princess story and therefore puts audiences back on solid ground, as I have
demonstrated. Second, and perhaps more importantly, the film shifts the blame
from the society at large onto a failed prince figure, Hans, therefore allowing
audiences to do the same. On one level, Hans's role as a villain is similar to that of
Gaston in Beauty and the Beast. He is drawn in the traditional prince style—blue
eyed and handsome with a well-muscled physique that aligns him with the normate
community. However, unlike Gaston, whom Belle rejects early on in her narrative,
Anna believes Hans to be "the one" and agrees to marry him after meeting him
only twice. Up until the middle of the film, he appears to be the ideal prince figure, a
view that is only complicated by the entrance of the mountain man, Kristoff, who
audiences are likely to find equally suitable for Anna. It is only after Anna leaves to
find her sister that Hans shows his true colors as he sets off to track Elsa down
himself with the intention of doing her harm and therefore steps into the role of
villain.

Hans's behavior towards Elsa is once again a startlingly realistic depiction of how
PWDs are treated, albeit encoded into a fairytale narrative. First, he directs all of
his derogatory comments to Elsa outside of the villagers' earshot; in addition, his
words always have a double meaning. For instance, he tells Elsa, "Don't be the
monster they fear you are," implying that by refusing to be locked away, Elsa is
somehow in the wrong. This is not unlike the rhetoric that employers sometimes
use for not hiring PWDs; phrases like "it would create a hardship for you" or "it just
wouldn't be fair to the other employees" abound in stories about PWDs struggles to
find work despite the supposed protections offered by the ADA. Later, Hans tells
Elsa, "You don't belong in this world. You don't belong anywhere, which is why I'm
going to put you somewhere, where it's like you don't exist." Although at this point,
he is threatening to once again lock her away, this time in the dungeon, his words
are more in keeping with the language used to describe euthanasia or "good
death," for the disabled. Hans is again able to project his own villainy onto Elsa
implying that she is making those around her uncomfortable and therefore she is
the one who doesn't belong. PWDs are, unfortunately, all too familiar with these
accusations of being monstrous, making others afraid, and not belonging. By
making Hans the scapegoat for all of the negative rhetoric surrounding PWDs, the
Disney team allow for both Elsa and the townspeople who initially rejected her to
experience redemption at the movie's end. Disney's move to make the villain male,
and therefore representative of an oppressive patriarchal culture is an interesting
one. In the past, the majority of Disney's villains have been middle-aged women,
meant to represent the horror of a woman who embodies sexual desire well after
her child-bearing years have ended (Putnam). Women and children make up the
majority of the audience in Disney's princess films, so laying the blame on
powerful, white men potentially frees female viewers from blame and invites them
to side with Elsa and therefore take the moral high ground.

Elsa's narrative offers viewers a realistic and ethical critique of the way PWDs are
treated in modern society, as I have attempted to demonstrate. Of course, that

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depiction is meaningless if viewers ultimately fail to decode Elsa's story as a
disability-centric one. Fortunately, there is abundant evidence that audience
members, from parents of children with physical disabilities, to teens living with
mental disability, to adults with autism, recognize and applaud Disney's efforts to
bring disability to the big screen. There are dozens of articles and blogs relating
Elsa to disability, both on sites that focus on disability like The Mighty and Autism
Speaks and also parenting and feminist blogs. The majority of those I found are
overwhelmingly positive since the writers not only identify with Elsa's disabled
experience but also find empowerment in the words she uses to stand up for
herself during the song "Let It Go." Commenters see Elsa as representing a range
of conditions from autism to serious physical disability. This is potentially
advantageous since the disabled community has struggled in the past to reconcile
its myriad differences into a united disability culture with the potential to advocate
on its own behalf (Peters, Shakespeare). In a blog titled The Third Glance, a Ph.D.
student with autism outlines the way key scenes in Frozen, such as Elsa's
disturbing meeting with the trolls and her subsequent imprisonment in her room,
immediately map on to issues of diagnosis and passing familiar to viewers with
autism. The author explains:

We are forced to conform…to suppress our autistic traits, to hide them

from everyone. And when we fail, as we often do, because autism is an
integral part of who we are, we are hidden from view instead…We don't
have the opportunity to learn and grow with our powers, we are told to
suppress them or there will be dire consequences. (para. 7)

The author of The Third Glance demonstrates one of the potential benefits of
encoding disability as a power when they align it with the unique abilities of people
with autism. Rather than seeing stemming, or intense focused interest in a specific
subject as a limitation, Elsa empowers autistic audience members to tell their
neurotypical peers to "let it go," and to let them be who they are. In a similar move,
Autumn Aurelia writes in The Mighty about "9 Reasons Elsa's Storyline in Frozen is
the Perfect Metaphor for Mental Illness," arguing that the "conceal don't feel"
rhetoric Elsa's parents use is easily relatable to the struggle people with depression
go through to hide their condition. Sakki Selznick discusses taking a teenaged boy
with serious disabilities to the film and feeling grateful that he "saw himself in Elsa"
in her blog She Writes (para. 8). Emily Urquhart, whose daughter has albinism
writes about the way children now identify her daughter and her condition with Elsa
in an article for BBC. Although she worries what will happen when Elsa is
eventually dethroned, she does point out that Elsa is objectively the most positive
filmic representative of the condition to date. Even Target seems to be getting in on
the act; David Kiefaber points out in Creativity that Target's 2015 Halloween
advertisement, which featured a young girl with arm crutches dressed as Elsa for
Halloween, has caused parents to write in and praise the company for its
representation of children like their own.

Elsa's overwhelmingly positive reception by members of the disability community

as well as able-bodied children, parents, feminists, and other social rights activists
indicates that Disney's counter-hegemonic disability narrative has hit its mark. Their
immediate move to create a short film featuring the sisters together on screen as
well as both a floor show and a new ride at Walt Disney World's Epcot, and now a
guaranteed sequel, indicate that by and large Elsa and the social justice rhetoric
she represents are here to stay. Disability scholars, beginning with Garland-
Thomson, have argued that "representation informs the identity—and often the fate
—of real people with extraordinary bodies" (15). Mary-Catherine Harrison builds on
this argument claiming that "empathy for fictional characters can prompt ethical
behavior in the extra-fictional world" (257). Elsa's overwhelming popularity as a
Disney princess in combination with her realistic, ethical depiction of disability
means that her character, and Frozen's subsequent Disney brand, have the
potential to change how normate viewers understand disability moving it from the
realm of limitation and stigma to a position as fully realized identity deserving of
equal treatment. Furthermore, since Elsa has been identified by disabled viewers
alternatively as having mental, intellectual, cognitive, and physical difference, her
character offers PWDs a representation of disability as a range of embodied

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positions that can be united to fight against prejudice and social inequality. As
disability scholars have argued, there has yet to be a firmly established disability
culture due in part to the wide variety of conditions that fall under this broad
umbrella and partly due to a reluctance among the population to identify as
disabled (Peters, Shakespeare, Davis). Unfortunately, without unity, widespread
activism is difficult to achieve. Social Media provides a unique opportunity for
PWDs to identify as such and come together in a relatively safe space, free from
stigma and issues of accessibility. Ideally, as viewers with disabilities gather online
to share their love of a popular film in articles, blogs, and their comments sections,
they will also share their stories about discrimination and acceptance, and in doing
so will band together to work for social change on a global scale.

From Villainous Queen to Sympathetic Teen: Disney's Use of

Cuteness to Create Empathy

Frozen's Elsa has without a doubt created a stir both in theaters and online with
her catchy theme song and striking social rhetoric. However, it is her position as a
Disney princess that ensures both her current and future visibility. Disney
princesses may grow old, but they never fade away. If there was any doubt, one
need only take a stroll through a Disney theme park, or a local Walmart store, to
see each princess's image, from Snow White to Merida, replicated in dozens of
products from dresses and dolls to Blu-ray movies including straight-to-video
sequels. Elsa's status as a Disney princess is necessary to her current and
continued success; however, since she does not embark on a traditional princess
journey, her story alone is not enough to signal her as belonging. In order to make
her recognizable as a Disney princess, she has to have the look of a Disney
princess, a design choice that is somewhat problematic from a disability activism
standpoint since it involves erasing all physical traces of difference.

The Walt Disney Corporation may not have invented the modern concept of
"cute"12; however, they have built an empire out of it.13 Tom Bancroft, who worked
for Disney Studios as a supervising animator for twelve years, elaborates on the
Disney aesthetic as it is taught today. According to Bancroft, the guiding principles
to creating a cutely proportioned character are a large head and a small body
because "these are the proportions of small children" (67). Next the face must have
"expressive eyes with large pupils, a small, pert nose, and a small mouth with thick
lips" (68). In order to emphasize the princesses' femininity, Bancroft encourages
animators to draw curves because they "create a feeling of grace and elegance
that is so naturally evident in the female form" (70). In keeping with this model, the
reimagined Elsa has impossibly large blue eyes in a pert, heart-shaped face,
framed by long, wavy white-blonde hair. When she sings, viewers can focus on her
large, pouty lips, and when she dances her swerving hips and torso are all tilts and
curves. Whatever objections parents and scholars raise due to Elsa's
reinforcement of a limited model of femininity tend to be drowned out by the
rousing success of her film and her brand.

Elsa's character design is important because it reinforces her status as a princess,

and therefore as a figure worthy of audience identification. The connection between
character appeal and audience empathy that Disney strives for stems from the
belief that we tend to empathize more readily with those who are similar to us than
those who are different. Martin Hoffman identifies this as "'similarity bias,' or our
unwillingness or inability to empathize with people who are not like ourselves" (qtd.
in Harrison 258). Francis de Waal supports this, stating, "We find it easier to
identify with those like us – with the same cultural background, ethnic features,
age, gender, job, and so on" (80). When we encounter someone who is not like us,
for example someone with a physical or intellectual disability, we tend to
experience what Quayson has termed "aesthetic nervousness." When this occurs,
a person's ability to empathize with another human being is "short-circuited" by
feelings of fear, pity, awe, or disgust (15). In order to engender empathy, Disney's
heroes and heroines are drawn with the proportions discussed above in order to
ensure that they are physically attractive, whereas their villains often display some
form of physical difference in addition to being aligned with animals such as
dragons or snakes rather than with other people.

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When Elsa was originally designed, animators intended her to be the villain of her
film and as such her aesthetic design reflected Disney's own brand of Otherness.
Whereas Disney's princesses are built on curves to reflect their femininity, their
villainesses are normally built using squares and triangles in order to make them
appear more masculine. Amanda Putnam argues that Disney's leading ladies of
villainy including Lady Tremaine and her daughters from Cinderella and Ursula
from The Little Mermaid are drawn in a masculine style in order to visually
represent their gender transgressions (demanding power and respect is just not
ladylike, at least not in the early Disney movies). Putnam argues that while
Disney's princesses wear form-fitting gowns that expose their cleavage in order to
express their (heterosexual) desire, villainesses are "subtly masculine—their faces,
body shape, and behavior lend 'mannish' traits to their characters" (151). For
example, Lady Tremaine's face is "sharp-edged, with large eyes and a pointy chin,
a clear divergence from Cinderella's softened cheeks, nose, and lips" (153).
Furthermore, Putnam notes that Tremain's face actually changes colors "from gray
and tan to dark green depending on her mood and actions," a move which further
dehumanizes her (154). Elsa's original character design fits the mold that Putnam
lays out quite clearly. She was meant to have cropped black hair, blue skin, and a
"coat of living weasels" (Acuna para. 7). Like her predecessors, her face and body
would have been sharply angled, and these characteristics in addition to her
unnatural skin tone were meant to code her as evil and inhuman. Disney's choice
to encode villainous attitudes using physical characteristics is obviously
problematic from a disability studies standpoint since characteristics such as an
unnatural skin tone or extreme thinness are often the result of long-term illness.
There is a danger here that children will decode the message that illness is evil
whereas a healthy body implies inherent goodness. Creating villains like Gaston or
Hans, who are built on the same model as earlier Disney princes, helps to dispel
this myth, but until Disney protagonists—including princesses—are able to embody
realistic physical disability, the danger is ever-present.

Unlike either the Disney princesses or the villains that Putnam analyzes, Elsa's
appearance actually changes mid-way through her film. When she comes out for
her coronation, she is covered from head to foot in heavy clothing. She wears long
gloves to hide her hands, and her hair is done up in a tight bun. When she reaches
the mountain peak, however, she transforms from looking like an eighty-year-old
spinster to being both young and sexy—characteristics we've come to expect from
a Disney princess. During her song, "Let It Go," she literally lets her hair down and
dons a sheer dress made of frost with a slit up one side and a pair of high heels
reminiscent of Cinderella's glass slippers. If we look at Elsa's transformation from a
disability studies perspective, in which women with physical disabilities are
frequently rendered invisible, Elsa's newfound desirability is refreshing. It is doubly
so since there is no "prince" in the picture for whom she is dressing up. Instead,
Elsa's desirability is being emphasized for the audience with whom the creators
hope to create an empathic bond. It is not surprising, then, that the entire sequence
is visibly stunning since audience members need to view not just her body, but
what she can do with her body, as beautiful. After all, our ability to empathize with
characters like Elsa is tied up in our ability to see the character as "like us," or in
this case, a more spectacular version of us to which we can aspire.

Child's Play: Marketing Elsa's Disability as a Universal Identity

Thus far, we have seen how the powers that be at Disney use a pattern of
rhetorical devices including their familiar princess genre, the encoding of disability
as fantastical power, and the aesthetic of cuteness in order to persuade viewers to
empathize with the company's first disabled princess. However, empathizing, while
important, is not enough. In order for PWDs to enjoy the same rights as normate
citizens, the majority of the population must embrace disability as a part of their
own identities. When Lasseter realized that Elsa's condition was not unlike his
son's, he stopped trying to villainize her difference, and instead encouraged his
staff to embrace it. Similarly, if audience members can be convinced to relate to
Elsa and her experience as like their own, they are more likely to advocate for
persons with disability in their schools and workplaces. Here, again, the aesthetic
of cuteness comes into play—quite literally. Lori Merish argues that cuteness

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creates a fundamental maternal desire because consumers identify the cute as not
only part of their families, but also as a part of themselves; in order for this
connection to occur, the person must see the cute object as like the self, but also
recognize that the self is like the cute object (187). This transference of identity is
most clearly seen when children play with toys, specifically dolls.

As they eat, sleep, live, and play in a Frozen world, children internalize the rhetoric
of Disney's most recent princesses. Karen E. Wohlwend describes an ethnographic
study of how 21 girls in a kindergarten classroom interact with their Disney
Princess dolls in play and later in classroom writing exercises. Wohlwend notes,
"Children reenact film scripts and expectations for each princess character, quoting
memorized dialog or singing songs from the films as they talk in-character while
playing with dolls or while using princess accessories" (58). As Disney's Frozen
line outsells the combined princess brand, we can assume that more children are
playing with Anna—and especially Elsa—dolls than any other princess figure
(Fritz). When children play with these dolls, they internalize Elsa's storyline, and
(albeit momentarily) become Elsa. This means that able-bodied, as well as
disabled, children are imagining themselves into the disabled space and
recognizing disability as a part of a shared identity. Through its cuteness and
desirability, Elsa's doll line is able to make disability itself desirable. Furthermore,
children are able to rehearse the social rhetoric that Disney subtly plants in the film
as they re-enact the story over and over. When they play, children re-enact what
Wohlberg terms the dolls' "anticipated identities: identifies that have been projected
for consumers and that are sedimented by manufacturers' design practices and
distribution processes" (59). However, they also push against those identities and
create new scenarios in which their princess dolls are (at least somewhat) more
empowered. In this way, children can reimagine spaces for Elsa where she no
longer needs rescuing or to apologize for who she is, but rather she can be
accepted and loved from the outset. This proactive play has the potential to prime
children for social activism on behalf of Elsa and the real PWDs that she
represents.

When children imagine themselves into Elsa's role as a disabled princess, they are
taking on the disabled identity for themselves. In doing so, they are taking the first
step towards acceptance of disability as a universal experience, a position that
every one of us will occupy at one point or another if we live long enough. This
attitude is in keeping with what Lennard Davis terms "dismodernism." Davis argues
that whereas most social justice theories including feminism, gender studies,
critical race theory, and queer theory seek to advocate for specific groups by
focusing on their differences, "the dismodern era ushers in the concept that
difference is what all of us have in common" (Davis 26). Whereas Shakespeare
argues that "the goal of disability politics should be to make impairment and
disability irrelevant wherever possible" (110), for Davis, it is disability's inclusivity
that makes it the ideal identity since it emphasizes our similarities and works
towards a cosmopolitan world view. Ideally, when people come together under the
realization that disability is the one identity all of us will experience at one time or
another, they will become more invested in the welfare of their fellow man and will
work to ensure that everyone has access to education, the workforce, healthcare,
and other fundamental institutions.

Not Always "the Fairest": The Limitations of Disney's Disability

Rhetoric

Throughout this paper, I have focused on the benefits of Disney's branding of

disabled identity; however, I would be remiss if I did not point out the very real
dangers that this marketing move creates. Characters like Elsa, whose disabilities
are encoded as fantasy, work to make the normate viewer comfortable so that a
serious conversation about the way PWDs are treated in our society can begin.
However, Elsa has little in common with the real people with actual impairments
that she represents beyond the abusive treatment she receives. Disney's
representation of disability in Frozen, which aligns with the social model in viewing
disability as the result of discrimination alone, is limited. As Shakespeare argues,
"disabled people are experiencing both the intrinsic limitation of impairment,"

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something that able-bodied people know comparatively little about, as well as the
"externally imposed social discrimination" that likewise maps on to experiences
with sexism, racism, and homophobia (31). As such, there is always a risk that
when normate viewers are exposed to the reality, they will balk at acceptance and
return to their former belief that PWDs are misfortunate or monstrous rather than
like themselves. In addition to eliding the physical and intellectual difficulties that
can arise from impairment, and therefore creating unrealistic expectations for
PWDs to live up to, the cute aesthetic risks turning the feeling subject with disability
into an unfeeling object for public consumption. As Merish argues, "Cuteness
entails the fundamental ambivalence of the child in a liberal-capitalist order: at once
as consenting 'subject' and property 'object." (187). Similarly, by marketing Elsa
through doll, clothing, and other merchandise lines, Disney encourages consumers
to think of her—and by extension real PWDs—as consumable objects incapable of
feeling anything but gratitude towards the patron who generously receives them.

Despite its limitations, Disney's Frozen has the potential to open up a dialog about
the way we perceive disability. Over the past 75 years, the studio's influence has
spread worldwide. Few animated characters are better known or loved than the
Disney princess. By placing Elsa in the role of princess, and later queen, Disney is
drawing on the cultural capital they have built up through a long line of princess
movies. Children play with the princesses' dolls, dress in their clothes, sing their
songs, and in effect become Disney princesses themselves. The identity of the
Disney princess is a universal one, and by making the princess disabled, Disney is
able to universalize that identity as well. I do believe we should be cautious about
supporting an over-expansion of the definition of disability. This is due in part to the
fact that disability remains a relative new-comer to identity politics, and the people
represented have been colonized by the able-bodied community in the past. In
addition, disability, unlike sex, gender, race, or sexual orientation, has real physical
and intellectual consequences that make it unlike other socially constructed
identities14. Despite these limitations, I believe we can read Disney's move to
represent disability as universal as an extension of disability activists' own motto,
"We'll all be disabled if we live long enough," which is frequently uttered in order to
create awareness and political action on behalf of PWDs by emphasizing disability
as a shared experience. As Davis has pointed out, PWDs have rapidly been losing
ground in the work world due to the overturning of the ADA in 95% of recent
Supreme Court cases. If people do not start rethinking their own positions in
relation to disability, and therefore responding with empathy instead of sympathy, or
worse prejudicial judgement, this situation is only going to worsen. Giroux and
Pollock argue that Disney infiltrates every aspect of children's—and many adults'—
lives, from what we watch, what we wear, and what we buy, to how our children are
educated and even the social behaviors they learn to enact, so if their choice to
advocate for disability by making it "adorable," and yes, desirable has the potential
to change lives for the better, then I say by all means we should "let it go."

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Endnotes

1. In this essay, I am defining Elsa and Anna as Disney princesses because

audiences readily recognize them as such. They come from royalty, are
designed with the princess aesthetic in mind, and meet all of the criteria
necessary for an official coronation ceremony. I am aware that Frozen has its
own product line separate from the Disney Princess brand to which all other
princesses now subscribe and that they have not yet had their official
"coronation ceremony" and product roll out at Walt Disney World. However,
this is due to financial reasons—the Frozen line earns more money as a
separate entity—rather than creative ones. It does not impact their identity as
princesses within their own film—or in audiences' minds—and as such they
wield all the rhetorical power of their princess predecessors.
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2. Reference articles in Works Cited by Alexander M. Bruce, Dorothy L. Hurley,
Patricia A. Matthew and Jonathan Greenberg, Chyng Feng Sun and Erica
Sharrer, and Karen E. Wohlwend for more information on the impact of
Disney movies on students from Kindergarten through college age.
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3. In addition to Vanellope and Elsa, Disney also recently released a Marvel

animated feature, Big Hero 6, that follows the story of Baymax, a nurse-bot
who works to help his "patient," Hiro Hamada, cope with depression resulting
from his brother's sudden death in a fire. Although Disney rarely ever
releases sequels (the last one was The Rescuers Down Under in 1990),
Wreck It Ralph, Frozen, and Big Hero 6 will all be seeing sequels by 2020,
reinforcing the popularity of all three of Disney's new disability
representations.
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4. Johnson Cheu's edited collection, Diversity in Disney Films: Essays on Race,

Ethnicity, Gender, Sexuality and Disability offers several compelling essays
on Disney's complicated relationship with race representation including those
by Sara E. Turner and Prajna Parasher.
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5. I use the term "normate" throughout the essay to refer to the able-bodied
community. The word was coined by Rosemary Garland-Thomson in her
foundational work Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in
American Culture and Literature and is meant to draw attention to the social
construction of the term "normal" as well as the underlying prejudices the
word implies.
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6. Although Finding Nemo (2003) and Finding Dory (2016) are both realistic
representations of disability as a shared experience, these films are a product
of Disney's subsidiary, Pixar, which has always done more to push the
envelope than the Disney corporation's main branch. My intention in this
paper is to focus on Walt Disney studios themselves, so I intentionally omitted
these films.
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7. Madeline Boardman reported in the Huffington Post that the film grossed
$49.1 million on its opening weekend, making it "the highest weekend
opening for any Disney Animated Studios film.
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8. Ralph's age and storyline (He's going through a mid-life crisis after spending
the last 30 years as the villain of his game) both speak to an older audience
similar to that of Pixar's The Incredibles. In addition, there are numerous
references to video games from the 80s and 90s meant to appeal to an older,
primarily male audience.
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9. Most of Disney's attempts to encode race have, unfortunately, failed due to

the latent (or blatent) racism these characters represent. The lead crow in
Dumbo, named Jim (a distasteful reference to the Jim Crow laws of the
South), embodies stereotypes of black men as lazy, out of work, and also
associated with mysticism when they give Dumbo a "magic" feather. Song of
the South employs similar stereotypes through the characters of Br'er Rabbit,
Br'er Fox, and Br'er Bear.
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10. Elsa's use of this term in particular is ironic, considering how crazy has been
used as a derogatory term for the mentally disabled, as Margaret Price has
noted. Price has, at the same time, made a compelling argument as to why
the community needs to take back the term; however that does not appear to
be what is happening in this scene.
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11. All of Disney's princesses have a "want song" that articulates their heart's
most secret desire. Although most early princesses sing about finding a
prince to marry later princesses express a desire to explore or to be who they
really are.
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12. Lori Merish argues in her essay "Cuteness and Commodity Aesthetics: Tom
Thumb and Shirley Temple," that the cute aesthetic as modern audiences
recognize it actually began with the "kid shows" of the mid-1800's where
audiences would flock to gawk at Little People performing in an aggrandized
style as generals, counts, and princesses. In particular, the wedding of Tom
Thumb to Lavinia Warren was marketed as both adorable and innocent (190-
5).
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13. It was Fred Moore, one of the supervising animators on Disney's first feature-
length production, Snow White, who first introduced the cute aesthetic to the
Disney team. According to his colleagues, Moore himself had "proportions
[that] were cute, like his drawings, and it kind of tickled you to watch him
moving around" (Thomas and Johnston 120).
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14. As Tom Shakespeare argues, "Disabled people often experience major

disadvantages as a result of their genetic endowment, whereas members of
other historically oppressed communities experience either minimal or non-
existent biological disadvantages" (31).
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