Stupid Mormon tricks - Frozen edition

There are some spoilers in here.

First off, I need to acknowledge that saying that the Disney movie Frozen pushes a gay agenda is not only a stupid Mormon trick, because this has also been said by a pastor and radio host and an NCR film critic. However, I think the well-behaved Mormon woman came first, and that was making the rounds, so as far as I know, they got the idea from her.

My second point is that reading that entire blog was really annoying, and since I had just written in the main blog about other overly long annoying posts (though in that case by celebrities who felt abused), I would like to make a plea that if you must be an idiot at least be brief. Since clearly not a single one of them recognizes the issues with what they are writing, this is an impossible dream, but it's nice to think about.

And here is where I am going to give some credit to the various people. Those of us who are not against treating homosexuals like people will often joke about the "Gay Agenda", because it sounds like there are secret meetings and conspiracies and their cabals would have the best catering (stereotype there, I know). However, there are people who conscientiously work for more positive depictions. Therefore, it is completely possible that the sauna scene was put in there specifically as a positive depiction of a gay family, to increase acceptance of various kinds of families. If you do not want your children to accept that some of their friends and classmates may not come from a traditional nuclear family, and for them to stay properly judgmental, okay, there is indeed an insidious influence there. Good eye.

The other complaints are more central to the movie however, and more ridiculous, so I would like to focus there. Also, they get it wrong in different ways, which is kind of interesting, though I guess in both cases it is kind of due to their focus being too narrow.

One complaint I read is that Anna and Hans, with their whirlwind engagement (and I presume his duplicity), trivialize heterosexual marriage. That's not how I interpreted that.

From centuries of fairy tales as literature, and decades of fairy tales as films, we have this idea of love at first sight, and true love's kiss being the answer to everything, and while I am as romantic as the next person, it has some flaws. Frozen turned that on it's head.

It is, generally speaking, a bad idea to get engaged without getting to know each other first. Hans presented himself as something he wasn't, which Anna was not able to see, but even if he was completely sincere, there could have been plenty of incompatibilities they hadn't had time to discover. That takes time.

Even with Kristoff and Anna, who seemed to be developing feelings for each other as they overcame obstacles together, and who seemed to believe that they could be each others' true loves once Hans left Anna to die, they were taking their time afterwards, and that seemed healthy.

Also, it would be wrong to ignore that Anna's isolated childhood left her particularly susceptible to the first scheming young guy. Letting girls build strong relationships of different types throughout their life prepares them to have better romantic relationships later.

I was confused to see some commentary that Elsa's rejection of suitors encouraged lesbianism. The only way that makes sense is that if you decide that Anna's true love for Elsa saving both of their lives indicates that they are the romantic pairing. You know, because incest would be the most logical explanation of true love between sisters.

Perhaps there is a misunderstanding of the "princess" backlash here. That is not so much about the rejection of monarchy as it is about the rejection of making girls objects of beauty whose lives will reach their acme once the right guy rescues them, which is pretty limiting. That's really more of a feminist agenda than a gay agenda, though there may be some overlap.

Some of this is that you see a film through your own perspective. I thought of Elsa's big number, "Let It Go" in terms of empowerment, including but not limited to female empowerment, because that is something I have been thinking about a lot. (And that is probably something I will write about on the main blog in time.)

So one way of getting it wrong is that the critics missed the very logical reasons why the film did not focus on romantic pairings, heterosexual or otherwise. Apparently they do this because they are overly focused on homosexuality, which would be their other mistake.

And this is where it really gets interesting. Especially for the one, whose blog name appears to be set in opposition to the saying that "Well-behaved women rarely make history", yes, the line "Be the good girl you always have to be" might resonate. Again, a pretty big point is missing from that interpretation.

Elsa's issue was that she was powerful, and she needed to learn to control it. Somehow that was taken as learning how to stifle it completely, even though she can do good things with it. And that let to secrecy and isolation when really what she needed was connection and love and acceptance. This totally makes sense for empowerment. It makes sense for non-conformity. Because it is so focused on power, however, it makes kind of a poor analogy for sexuality.

It's not completely horrible, because often there is that feeling that it needs to be hidden, but ultimately I feel that the only way you can see that song as being specifically about being gay, and that everything wonderful happens when you come out of the closet, is if you are closeted. If you think that is the only thing to conceal and not feel, if it is taking up that much of your mind, well, there's a reason that homophobia correlates so strongly to homosexuality.

If that is actually what the songwriters intended, I apologize, but until they say that I am going with this only looking like a "gay agenda" film if you are struggling with your own homosexuality. And I'm sorry, because that's hard.

This really isn't a mocking thing. Only damage comes from not facing yourself. If you find that there are things inside you that you don't want there, that's hard, but not nearly as hard as trying to pretend they are not out there until you can't anymore.

And let's say these four people (at current count) are all gay. If they are married, they don't have to get divorced and start clubbing, but what if there are other things they could have that they are shutting off? It's not uncommon for boys to shy away from artistic pursuits because of a fear of being seen as effeminate.

So, thinking about what a grandmother might be shutting out, well, it's hard to think outside of stereotypes. Maybe she would like a cute short haircut, or to do woodworking, and refrains. And that sounds stupid, but that's the whole problem with gender stereotyping and combining it all with sexuality. There are a lot of things that don't even need to relate, and it is all based on fear. Let that go.