FILM

Taking "Frozen 2" Too Seriously: Race, Reparations, and Revisionist History

Disney comes close to transcending the Happily Ever After pitfall–and then fails.

Idina Menzel and Kristen Bell Receive Frozen-Inspired Dolls

Photo by Jordan Strauss-Invision-AP-Shutterstock

If you've seen Frozen, then you know that being a person of color these days is sort of like having magic powers—if you live in a society (like Arendelle) where people with magic powers are vilified and run out of many towns out of fear and misunderstanding of the foreign and unknown.

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The holidays aren't for everybody.

Known in the media world as the "Christmas Creep," Christmas advertisements emerge quietly in October and are sometimes in full force by the time Halloween costumes are tucked away. The music industry is no different. "The straight answer is the physical market," RCA Records co-president John Fleckenstein told Billboard. "Christmas albums tend to be multigenerational, and thus, they skew very heavily on the physical side." If big market stores like Target and Walmart want the albums to take off in time for the Holidays, October is the month to stock up.

But thanks to streaming, the demand for Christmas music has exploded even more, breeding some shuddering renditions as a result. It began this year with John Legend and Kelly Clarkson's gauche attempt to revitalize "Baby, It's Cold Outside" for the MeToo era. "It's your body and your choice," Legend sings.

While Christmas music may be well-intentioned, the era of streaming has produced some uncomfortable and unnecessary Christmas music. Here are the strangest holiday albums to emerge so far in 2019.

Rob Halford, Celestial

"And when I look up to the sky and let my soul release," Halford croons passionately over synth and acoustic guitar. "A warm embrace comes gently down and fills this heart with peace." Who knew Christmas could rock so hard! The British "Metal God" released Celestial this October, and its gravitas is abrasive. But maybe that's the point? Maybe some people just wanna break sh*t on Christmas instead of sipping sissy eggnog.

FILM

Homophobia in Animation: Queer-Coded Disney Characters

Disney has almost no outwardly queer characters, and the queer-coded characters it does have are almost always villains.


Let's be honest: Disney hasn't given us a lot to work with in terms of LGBTQ+ representation.

Troublingly, many of the Disney characters that display queer characteristics are also portrayed as villains. While this isn't a positive thing overall, many queer folks have combed through Disney movies, triumphantly reclaiming the franchise's many glittering, flamboyant, queer-coded characters.

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Anyone who's seen Frozen and who is part of the LGBTQ+ community understands why the idea that Elsa might be gay is so tantalizingly appealing.

There's never been a queer Disney princess or even an overtly queer animated Disney character, after all, and since Elsa wasn't immediately paired with a male love interest (and since "Let It Go" has a very coming-out-of-the-closet kind of feeling), it became almost inevitable that people began to speculate about her sexuality.

To the great disappointment of many, Elsa definitely won't have a gay love interest (or any love interest at all, for that matter) in the sequel. Frozen II songwriter Kristen Anderson-Lopez confirmed this when she explained, "Like the first movie, Elsa is not just defined by a romantic interest. There's so many movies that define a woman by her romantic interest. That's not a story that we wanted to tell at this point in time. What we really wanted to tell was if you have these powers, how do you grow and change and find your place in the world and find answers that haven't been found before?"

Still hasn't stopped viewers of the Frozen II trailer from falling in love with our favorite ice queen. Speculation about Elsa's queerness has thrown Twitter users into a frenzy, mostly because in the preview, we see Elsa with her hair down for the first time.

Though Disney was given an F rating for LGBTQ+ representation by GLAAD, there's a long history of queer-coded Disney characters who have ignited speculation among the company's many gay fans and their allies.

Because of this and Disney's history of queer-baiting, having Elsa's queerness explicitly highlighted and celebrated would certainly be a victory for the gay community, and it would definitely be vitally important to all the little kids struggling to figure out their sexuality while watching the film, as well as for their families (and really, for queer people of any and all ages).

It's also possible that Elsa could be asexual or some variant of that. No matter what, Disney would be remiss to refrain from using their massive platform to create representation that honors LGBTQ+ people and their stories, which are too often kept buried within secret codes and silence.

As great as it would be for Disney to openly discuss Elsa's sexuality, none of this is to say that she must have a romantic relationship. Getting to watch her come into her own independently is extremely powerful proof that we are never defined by love affairs, by our partners, or by our sexualities.