The Elsanna ship, ten years later...
When I think about the golden days of the Elsanna ship (circa 2013-2015), two images come to mind – this one…
Both pieces of fanart were created to celebrate the legalization of gay marriage nationwide in the US in June 2015 – and both encapsulate the youthful energy, the innocence, the idealism of Elsanna shippers at the time. They might seem silly now to some people, but only because they are so earnest. There is an achingly earnest sincerity here because the Elsanna-shipping community was made up of a bunch of young, queer Disney fans.
The ship wasn’t created by a bunch of creeps who wanted to “disregard or misunderstand the message of the film.”
The ship was created by a group of young wlw, young lesbians, young queer folks, who were drawn to the film because of its themes of self-acceptance and self-understanding (because they UNDERSTOOD the message of the film.) And they were drawn to the sisters’ bond because, in some way, it resonated with them – a connection between two people that was based on coming to an understanding of shared trauma and pain, a connection rooted in compassion for someone othered by society.
Frozen came out in 2013. Korrasami wouldn’t be canon for a while yet, things like Lumity and Catradora weren’t even a dream, and these naive, earnest, heartfelt kids wanted to see something that reflected themselves so much that they built a ship from the ground up.
I have seen people in recent years express bewilderment about why the Elsanna ship came into being, saying things like, “Why does this ship exist? Elsa and Anna aren’t in love; they’re sisters.” Which… duh. Obviously, they are not in love. Obviously, they are sisters. Such an attempt to say, “Checkmate, creeps!” ignores why ships come into existence in the first place. Non-canon ships emerge because there are aspects of two particular characters that the audience can relate to or project a part of themselves upon/see themselves in; and because there are elements of these characters’ dynamic/interactions that the audience can project upon/see themselves in.
And with Elsa and Anna’s dynamic together and connection throughout the film? There was A LOT that a young queer audience latched onto - NOT because these shippers felt the film was secretly espousing incest subtext, but because the characters were created to be broadly relatable to anyone with a difficult home life, anyone who felt isolated and ostracized from society, and so their narrative together lent itself to a queer reading.
Consider: on the one hand, there is Elsa – a character who exploded across the popular consciousness because so many people related to her individual story, many of them queer young people. Isolated for who she was, taught to repress her identity and her emotions, forced to conform to a society that could harm her. There hardly needs to be any more ink spilled on why Elsa struck such a chord with queer viewers – and the queer viewers who helped to shape the Elsanna ship were among the people who fell in love with her as much as anyone.
On the other hand, there is Anna. Anna’s story is different from Elsa’s, but bears many of the same marks of trauma. Anna is forced to live in a world where the rules feels arbitrary and uncaring, where nothing makes sense but no one will tell her why. Not her sister, who has been taught that she must shut Anna out. Not her parents, the authorities of the society she lives in who put the rules in place. Like many queer young people, Anna is forced to navigate a world where the rules are arbitrary and cruel. And, like her sister, she begins to internalize that pain. “What did I ever do to you?” she cries to Elsa at the coronation because, without the full context, she can’t rule out that this might be her fault – or at least, that societal forces around her tell her that this is her fault even when she did nothing.
There was so much in each character individually that queer young people resonated with.
When you factor in that their connection is something that the powers that be within the film attempt to forbid, that their connection is something that is at first treated as something that needs to be suppressed but that ultimately proves to be a positive force for both of them, then… yeah, it becomes clearer why so many queer young people aching to connect with something would see themselves in that relationship.
I know of several prominent artists on this site who got their start in the Elsanna fandom, or who were happy to take part in the ship because they saw the way other queer young people connected with it (signatures blotted out to prevent potential harassment of artists over decade-old art):
People don’t like to remember it, but ten years ago, there were wlw fandom blogs on here that would casually make or reblog Elsanna art – not because they had some secret insidious agenda – but because the ship connected with them on an emotional level or because they understood why it did with others:
And there were shippers of other queer ships reaching out:
The Elsanna fandom of 2013-15 was a reflection of a group of queer young people (primarily wlw) – a reflection of their passion, their dedication, their craftsmanship, their creativity, and their longing to be seen. It was a group of queer young people using the pieces that a film they loved gave them to create something of their own, from their hearts, for themselves.
Create something of their own with their own spirit and hopes, reflecting their own aspirations and fears and dreams for the future.
And sure, people now can say, “That’s disgusting! How could anyone do that?” In 2020, someone called out a lovely person on here because she shipped Elsanna nearly a decade ago (even though she HAD LONG SINCE DELETED ALL EA CONTENT FROM HER BLOG, even!):
This callout is dishonest. It claims that the individual “thinks shipping them is cute” even though, when this was written, the person had not shipped Elsanna in years. It also claims Elsanna is p/*do/ph/ilic when it is not. (It is incest, obviously, and that is inherently problematic.) It also tries to make a connection between the person wanting queer rep and shipping an inherently problematic ship, when those things do not correlate at all. You can ship something and never want it to be canon. You can ship something and not want it to be “representation” – and that’s what being in the Elsanna fandom of 2013-15 was like.
People didn’t want it to be canon. They didn’t want it to be “representation.” Everyone already knows that incest is wrong. People don’t have to ship something as a crusade for representation. But people DID ship it because they saw something of themselves in the ship – and they saw the opportunity to project something of themselves (their queerness, their sense of being othered and isolated by their families, etc.) onto characters that they loved. The ship provided the opportunity for these young people to explore their senses of self and explore their identities.
And sure, as I’ve said in the past, perhaps that wasn’t ideal – the fact that these young folks were starving for anything that was like them and so had to make a feast from whatever they had available. But I find something BEAUTIFUL in the fact that so many people were able to come together and create such beautiful things because Elsanna inspired them. I know people who met their partners, met their wives, through this ship. I’ve seen firsthand the positive influence it has had.
Like Elsa on the North Mountain, we felt isolated, we were figuring ourselves out. And we built wonders with what was inside of us. The beauty of some of the art in this ship is akin to the beauty of Elsa’s ice palace. The writing I have seen in this ship can be as elegant as any elegantly-sculpted spire Elsa fashioned through her own magic and her own will.
This ship was ours, is ours.
We made it for ourselves, to reflect ourselves and our identities and share aspects of those identities with others, the same way people came to ship Elsamaren when F2 came out. It may have been new faces and a new ship, but it was part of the same idea, just for a different time.
And when you look at the thousands of pieces of Elsanna fanfiction that has been written, and the thousands of pieces of fanart (especially the beautifully diverse styles of early Elsanna fanart) – you don’t get so many people expounding their passion and creativity on something unless it means something to them, and Elsanna meant something to so many people. Mattered to them. Look at the excitement and joy in people’s words in the early days of the fandom if you don’t believe me.
And I think that’s beautiful.
