Critical Analysis on “Frozen”

Frozen is an animated musical produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and released by

Walt Disney Pictures in November 2013. Inspired by the well-known fairy tale “The Snow

Queen” from Anderson, the story is set at the Kingdom of Arendelle, focusing on the journey

of the Princess Anna to find her sister, Queen Elsa, who has secret magic power and frozen

the whole country by accident. Two Academy Awards went to this movie, which respectively

are Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song for “Let It Go”. In terms of commercial

success, it has earned the highest-grossing among all animated movies in history.

This critical analysis will principally focus on one of the two main characters, Anna, to

problematize the contradiction of feminism and patriarchy in this movie. First, from the view

of dominant reading position, I will analyze how Frozen advocates “girl power” by

portraying a heroine and changing the traditional storyline of princess movies. Then, from

another point of view, I will pay more attention to male characters around Anna, investigating

the implicit ideology of patriarchy underlying different images and roles of genders. And

finally the contradiction between them will be pointed out. To focus, I will choose two

segments, “Meet Hans” and “Ask for Kristoff’s Help” to analyze in terms of narrative,

language features and multimodal features. Some examples from other parts of the movie

may be included as well for reinforcement.

To begin with, the ideology of feminism is embedded in this movie and primarily reflected by

the character Anna. In terms of the portrayal of Anna, feminism is demonstrated by her “girl

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power”. Added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2001 (BBC News, 2001), the term “girl

power” is defined as”Power exercised girls; spec. a self-reliant attitude among girls and

young women manifested in ambition, assertiveness, and individualism.” (OED Online,

2014), which is often linked to third-wave feminism. In this movie, it is mainly shown

through Anna’s journey to find her sister, in which she plays a leading role with a determined

goal and a clear approach to it. For example, in the segment “Ask Kristoff for Help”, Anna

buys tools and carrots Kristoff needs in exchange for his guide to the North Mountain,

establishing a rather equal relationship with him and thus taking the position as a leader in

this team. When making the request, she rephrases it to a more powerful imperative sentence

with a tone of both order and manner, which shows her assertiveness. Low camera angle and

march-like music help shape her image as a confident and independent young woman even

more. All of these discourses emphasize on Anna’s masculine qualities, which are

traditionally shown by the hero in Disney movies (Stover, 2013). The feature appears in some

other segments as well, especially in “Fight with wolves” and “Save Elsa”, in both of which

Anna is literally heroic as she acts as a rescuer and saves the day (Stover, 2013). In this way,

Frozen seems incongruent with the prediction that male role will be more masculine while

female role will be more feminine in Disney princess movie (England, Descartes & Collier-

Meek, 2011).

Regarding to the overall storyline, feminism is presented by the setting of character and their

roles as rescue receiver or rescue performer. A study conducted by England et al. in 2011

examined nine Disney princess movies from three eras, in all of which characters are

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structured by a central female role and a male romantically linked with her. However, in

Frozen, two crucial characters, Elsa and Anna, are both female. Elsa has no romantic

relationship with any male character and one of whom having such relationship with Anna is

the villain, which is quite a novel setting because a marriage is not regarded as the only happy

ending for princesses (Stover, 2013). In this sense, Frozen tries to break the male-dominant

tradition on purpose, which is somewhat shown in one of trailers as the picture below. Last

but not the least, the climax rescue highlights the ideal of feminism by assigning the role of

an independent and intentional rescuer to Anna, the female character, which is unprecedented

according to a study (England et al., 2011) discovering that most rescues are performed by

princes on their own while no princess finishes a rescue without any help from a man.

However, despite the effort to set a counter-stereotypical gender role in terms of gender’s

behavior, Frozen tends to conserve a traditional one in the respect of gender’s social role

(Durkin, 1985), which manifests the acceptance of patriarchy. As there are only one main

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male character and one female (except the horse) in the scene “Meet Hans” in stark contrast, I

choose it to demonstrate the implicit normalization of male dominance in this movie. From

the beginning of this segment, the positions of Hans and Anna are binarily different: Hans

rides on the horse, looking down at Anna while Anna lies down and looks up at him, which

are emphasized by a low camera angle to Hans and a high one to Anna. Their images are

shaped even more contrastingly afterwards. Hans is always calm and courteous, behaving

well although it’s an embarrassing moment for both of them. In opposition, Anna is

completely obsessed with the “Prince Charming”, behaving and wording clumsily through

the conversation, which is almost dominated by Hans’s polite apology. All of these portrayals

are quite consistent with the gender role stereotype that men are strong, capable and well-

educated while women are “affectionate, emotional, weak and home-oriented” (Seem &

Clark, 2008), admitting men are superior to women. Besides, the unrealistic body shape of

Anna is especially evident in the scene below, in which her eyes are even larger than her wrist

while Hans’s figure is healthy and normal (Cohen, 2013). Disney has been criticized often for

“promoting harmful, unrealistic body shapes” (Stover, 2013), such as extremely big eyeballs

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and slim wrist, neck, arms and legs (Cohen, 2013). As characters often represent gender

expectation of present-day society, it’s reasonable to consider the phenomenon as reflection

of unequal social pressure and requirements on women (Stover, 2013), which shows the

privilege of male in patriarchy.

Also, we can spot the ideology of male superiority in other male characters. For example, in

one of scenes during the journey, Kristoff asks Anna if she is raised in a barn only because

she puts her feet on the sled, while he self spits on it immediately. Two supporting male

characters, the King and the troll wizard, enjoys moral authority of the society, inheriting and

conveying the value that magic power is dangerous and evil as well as imposing measures to

hide it. And even the villain Hans appears helpful and heroic when he is in charge of

Arendelle, which cannot be denied despite his evil quality shown later.

It’s interesting that a movie with a deliberate discourse for feminism includes hidden

ideology of patriarchy and male supremacy, which causes the inconsistence that the heroine’s

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magnificent feat portrayed with feminism in the second half happens in a society of

patriarchy constructed in the first half. The reasons behind the consistence will not be

discussed here, one of which may be the film company’s deliberate approach to “consumer

preference” (Stover, 2013). But it is clear that both of the ideologies of feminism and male

dominance may influence audience’s opinions and values on gender and relevant social norm

(Gerbner et al. 1980, 1994; Graves 1999; Martin et al. 2002).

Given the analysis above, I will change some elements which implicitly emphasize on male

dominance and modify Anna’s and Hans’s lines in the segment “Meet Hans” to dilute male

superiority as the section below.

Flip-the-script Recreation: “Meet Anna”

Criticizing the male’s control of moral authority in this movie, I will break it by changing

some powerful male role to female. One of them will be the troll wizard, who can be turned

to a witch instead and guides Elsa to make use of her magic power rather than warn her that

it’s dangerous and terrified. Also, Anna and Elsa’s mother will stop the King to separate Anna

and Elsa and put the gloves on Elsa. Elsa may still want to hide her power in a less radical

after their parents pass away, but that will purely due to her responsibility for her country and

her desire to protect Anna, rather than her father’s instruction.

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As for male’s privilege in society, I will reshape Anna and Elsa’s body into a normal type by

reducing the size of their eyes and adjusting their arms, legs and necks to a healthy

proportion. And the superiority of male’s image will be changed as follows:

[Hans’s horse hits Anna]

Hans: “Watch out! It’s a royal horse!”

Anna: “I don’t mean to blame but I suppose human should be given priority to

instead.”[Stands up by herself, serious and dignified]

Hans: “Hey it’s you who… [Sees Anna’s face] Er, I mean I’m sorry.”

Anna: “It’s the coronation day of the Queen of Elsa so I don’t want to cause any displeasure

to our guests. But it may be the etiquette that a gentleman should introduce himself first to a

lady.”

Hans: “[Salutes, embarrassed] Prince Hans of the Southern Isles.”

Anna: “[Returns a salute] Princess Anna of Arendelle.”

Hans: “[Surprised and panic] Princess? [Do a formal courtesy] My lady! ”

[His horse follows him. Anna and Hans fall down together as a result.]

Hans: “Oh my boy! it’s so sorry and I’m so awkward… well I mean I’m so sorry…Actually

what I want to say is that I really didn’t mean it…I apologize for every moment before…”

Anna: “[Nods and accepts his apology, feeling funny about the situation] Your horse is well-

trained really, isn’t he?”

Hans: “[Embarrassedly laugh] Er, ha ha, but unfortunately we didn’t behave very well when

meeting such a princess like you, did we? Wait, what am I talking about?”

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[Anna begins to smile at Hans, thinking he is a little different. The bell goes off at the

moment]

Hans: “Oh gosh, the coronation! I’d better leave. I have to go now. Er, nice to meet you,

Princess Arendelle! [Turn and rush away]”

Anna: “[Stares at his back, suddenly realizing she should be there, too] Wait a minute!”

References

Cohen, Philip. “Help, My Eyeball is Bigger than My Wrist!: Gender Dimorphism in Frozen.”

Sociological Images. The Society Pages, 17 December 2013. Web. 10 April

2014.<http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2013/12/17/help-my-eyeball-is-bigger-

than-my-wrist-gender-dimorphism-in-frozen/>

Durkin, Kevin. "Television and sex‐role acquisition 1: Content." British Journal of Social

Psychology 24.2 (1985): 101-113.

England, Dawn Elizabeth, Lara Descartes, and Melissa A. Collier-Meek. "Gender role

portrayal and the Disney princesses." Sex roles 64.7-8 (2011): 555-567.

Gerbner, George, et al. Growing up with television: The cultivation perspective. Lawrence

Erlbaum Associates, Inc, 1994.

Gerbner, George, et al. "The “mainstreaming” of America: Violence profile no. 11." Journal

of communication 30.3 (1980): 10-29.

“Girl power goes mainstream.” BBC News. BBC, 17 January 2002. Web. 18 April 2014.

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1765706.stm>

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"girl power, n." OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2014. Web. 19 April 2014.<

http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/248934?redirectedFrom=girl+power#eid>

Martin, Carol Lynn, Diane N. Ruble, and Joel Szkrybalo. "Cognitive theories of early gender

development." Psychological bulletin 128.6 (2002): 903.

Seem, Susan Rachael, and M. Diane Clark. "Healthy women, healthy men, and healthy

adults: An evaluation of gender role stereotypes in the twenty-first century." Sex

Roles 55.3-4 (2006): 247-258.

Stover, Cassandra. "Damsels and Heroines: The Conundrum of the Post-Feminist Disney

Princess." LUX: A Journal of Transdisciplinary Writing and Research from Claremont

Graduate University 2.1 (2013): 29.

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Appendix I: Critical Analysis Table

Sociocultural Context:

(1)Produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures in November 2013

(2)The story is inspired by Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tale “The Snow Queen” , of which the design is based on Norway and the time is

about 1840s.*

(4)Feminism and Sexism

Genre:

(1)3D Computer Animation

(2)Musical

(3)Fantasy-comedy Film

Durati Segme The Narrative Key Language Multimodal Reflections

on nts Features Features

00:17: Meet Identification: Anna, Hans, Hans: “I’m so sorry. Major Camera Although it’s Hans who causes this “little

02- Hans and Hans’s horse Are you hurt?” Angles: Low angle accident”, he always appears calm and

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00:18: Activity: Anna leaves the (Hans), high angle elegant, showing he is well educated. In
33 Hans: “Princess? My
castle for the first time on the (Anna), Eye-level contrast, Anna is clumsy on both behavior
lady.”
coronation day. However she Angle (both of them and words, completely obsessed with

is hit by Prince Hans’s horse Anna: “This is together) handsome Prince Hans.

and nearly falls into the river. awkward. Not you’re

Hans apologizes to her and awkward. But just
they introduce themselves to because we’re…I’m
each other. When knowing awkward. You’re
Anna is the princess, Hans gorgeous. Wait, what?”
does knelt ritual and his horse
Hans: “I’d like to Hans gaze at each
follows him to do so, making
formally apologize for other
Hans and Anna get very close
hitting the Princess of
awkwardly. Hans apologizes
Arendelle with my
again and Anna says it doesn’t
horse and for every
Major Camera The music along Hans’s lines is slow and
Shots: Most mid- soft. When Anna is speaking, the music
shots during turns to brisk and funny.
conversation, close-
Camera angles to Hans are often low,
up when Anna and
showing he is strong and capable, while
camera angles to Anna are always high,
making her look weak and passive.
Major Camera
Besides, Hans has a good and normal
Motion: Steady
figure, while Anna’s body shape is

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matter. Then Anna goes back moment after.” unrealistic with extremely big eyes and
Color: warm and
to the castle because the slim arms and neck. In the scene below,
Anna: “I…I…I better colorful
coronation ceremony is about the size of her eye is even larger than her
go. I have to…I better
to begin, with Hans staring at Music: Romantic wrist:
go. Er, bye.”
her. and warm music

Emotions: Anna is angry at

first but attracted by Hans

immediately when she sees

(http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/
him. Hans is refined and
2013/12/17/help-my-eyeball-is-bigger-than-
courteous during the
my-wrist-gender-dimorphism-in-frozen/)
conversation and seems to

like Anna as well. Although All these features show that male are still

both of them are awkward, portrayed as superior and female are less

Anna appears more nervous capable with much more social

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 and lost. requirements for them (e.g. an beautiful

Attributes: Anna wears a but unrealistic body)

traditional evening dress for

the coronation day. Hans

wears formal suit, too.

Laws: Hans dominants the

conversation all the time

when Anna loses her head.

00:39: Ask for Identification: Anna, Kristoff Anna: “Let me Major Camera From this scene, Anna’s clothes change

25- Kristof and Sven rephrase that. Take me Angles: Low angle from delicate princess dress to useful and

00:40: f’s help Activity: Anna meets Kristoff up the North Mountain, to Anna and high durable winter outfit, which is actually

13 at a post and hears from him please.” angle to Hans very similar to the queen Elsa’s outfit on

that the storm is from the her coronation. It implies that Anna
Anna: “Look, I know Major Camera
North Mountain. Kristoff is becomes more mature and responsible.
how to stop this

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thrown out by the shopkeeper winter.” Shots: Medium She has a clear goal now (to save the

because he doesn’t have country as well as her sister rather than

Anna: “Oops, sorry, Major Camera
enough money to buy what he find true love) and catches key
sorry. I’m sorry. I Motion: Steady
wants. Anna buys them for information from a man she comes
didn’t… (cough) We
him goes to his shelter and Color: Color of across. She observes his need and asks for
leave now. Right now.”
asks him to guide her to the Anna is the brightest help by meeting his need.

North Mountain. in the generally dark

On the other hand, Kristoff’s first
Emotions: Anna is background
appearance in this movie is not gorgeous
determined, insistent and
Music: Music turns at all. As an ice man, he is unfortunate on
tough, although she is
powerful and his business and meets difficulty in
reluctant and exhausted to
majestic when Anna making living. His relationship with Anna
“pretend” to do so. Kristoff is
says “Let me at first is more like a trade, which is
indifferent at first but turns to
rephrase that”. equally exchanged.
surprised but doubtful when

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Anna throws him the tools he What Anna says changes a lot as well.

wants to buy. Then he is a Her tone shows her determination. Her

little annoyed when hit by words are brief, clear and powerful.

carrots Anna buys for him, Interestingly, the natural apology for her

but also impressed and carelessness and the sigh of relief when

touched by Anna’s she goes out show she is still fumble and

determination. Anna is humble as before. But she is pushing

relieved after going out of herself to be mature and strong.

Kristoff’s shelter.
In contrast with her first scene with Hans,
Attributes: Anna wears a
the camera angle to her here becomes
purple cloak, a deep green
low, showing Anna’s positivity. The
and blue winter dress and a
manly music accompanied shows she is
pair of boots. Kristoff wears
strong, too.
winter outfit in a style of

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countryside.

Laws: Anna dominants the

conversation by asking for

help positively (rather than

begging or waiting) with

something as exchange.

Kristoff is attracted by the

deal to give help because he is

poverty-stricken. The

relationship between them is

quite equal.

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Appendix II—Clips Mentioned in Critical Analysis

1. Frozen Disney Official Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbQm5doF_Uc

2. “Take me up to the North Mountain”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBJurjjrrn0

3. Wolf Chase

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qF7AfwMzrpc

4. Ending Scene (Climax Rescue)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2NNIAC0BJg

5. Anna meets Hans

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HV1blh5H_aI

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