Okay so I just watched the first Frozen movie with my youngest sister because we’re both home sick? And. We STAN this whole thing being a mental health allegory???
Like, this movie is deeply relatable and like, resonant? To me. Specifically. Both of my younger sisters can attest to how scary and mean I was before I got help, and the sister closest to me in age (actually, the sister who has the same age gap with me that Anna has with Elsa) DEEPLY relates to Anna’s struggle to reach her older sister.
But what I actually want to talk about is the symbolism. Below the cut. This will literally destroy your dash, be warned.
Elsa’s ice powers represent something about herself - about her MIND - she feels the need to repress. That could be any number of things. Neurodivergence, emotion in general, maybe a personality disorder. Elsa doesn’t necessarily HAVE any of these things. The point is that the viewers might, and whatever this unnamed thing is, it can be both beautiful and harmful.
Her parents don’t understand, and unwittingly teach Elsa to be afraid of herself.
As a result, Elsa starts to LOSE CONTROL OF HER POWERS. By teaching Elsa that this thing about her is something to be repressed, she becomes less and less able to ACTUALLY control them.
This increases her sense of isolation from other people, and she develops MAJOR anxiety and depression as a result. I mean, just look at the separation anxiety she felt when her parents had to leave.
“Do you have to go?”
Elsa is 18 here - terrified of herself and completely reliant on her parents to protect her and everyone around her from her powers.
ALRIGHT let’s skip the boring stuff
Blah blah blah, Anna’s lonely too, she needs love, falls in love too quickly, is desparate to marry Hans because she thinks this is the only day she’ll be able to form actual connections with other people...
All that stuff is really important, but what I want to talk about is the frozen kingdom that Elsa creates.
Overcome by feelings of freedom and joy, Elsa finally begins to regain control of the creative part of her powers, and one of the first things she creates is Olaf.
For everyone’s annoyance at Let It Go, it’s actually an amazing sequence and I relate to it a lot.
But what I find to be a BETTER reflection of the journey through Elsa’s psyche is Anna and Kristoff’s journey up the North Mountain.
I say “Journey,” but there’s really only three environments I want to talk about.
This is where Kristoff and Anna meet Olaf - a frozen wonderland of weeping willows. As they walk through it, Anna says “I never knew that Winter could be so beautiful.”
That line got me. Anna doesn’t actually know her sister. She likes a version of Elsa that exists in her head - a 13-year-old altered memory of a perfect older sister. But Elsa isn’t the warm fuzzy friend that Anna idealizes - she’s always been dignified, composed, and wonderfully creative - loving, yes, but in a cool kind of way. Anna expects Elsa to be a goofy playmate, and writes off the “wintery” parts of her as something bad, just like Elsa does. But walking through this wonderland, she sees a different aspect of the same Elsa - the good parts of the REAL Elsa. And THIS, fittingly, is where she meets Olaf.
Now something I noticed this time around is that during this scene, Olaf consistently looks towards Anna.
“I like warm hugs,” he says, turning to her, and he asks her for her name first.
He then relies on ANNA to tell him the names of Kristoff and Sven.
Elsa made Olaf for Anna. And because of this, Olaf is the EMBODIMENT of Elsa’s childhood love for her sister.
This is why he always goes back to Anna. This is why it didn’t count as an act of true love when Olaf was willing to melt for her, and why he is able to tell Anna what love is. Olaf’s love for Anna is Elsa’s love for Anna. Olaf IS love.
“Some people are worth melting for.”
Olaf loves summer. Thawing. Melting things. And it’s because, as we learn later in the movie, LOVE is the secret to melting Elsa’s ice, and breaking down her barriers.
Right okay back to environments.
The NEXT icy place they come across is THIS bitch
A hillside full of icy spikes that point towards whoever approaches. Another wall between Elsa and the people trying to reach her. Elsa consistently uses outward-pointing spikes to keep other people away.
Finally, they reach the CENTER of Elsa’s psyche: a palace made of ice.
Elsa’s ice palace is the culmination of Elsa’s creative powers, a reflection of her own mind.
But what’s really, REALLY interesting, is that like ice, it’s reflective. And after her conversation with Anna, the castle starts to change.
Immediately after hurting Anna, darkness spreads rapidly down the castle walls. The darkness is reminiscent of the fragile “dark ice” like the kind you would find on a fragile frozen pond. The ice is becoming less stable.
And later, when we see Elsa trying to regain control of herself, the color of the walls has changed completely to reflect her fear.
The spikes reappear, this time pointing inward - towards HERSELF.
Elsa’s mind is no longer a safe place for Elsa herself to be - and holy SHIT do I relate.
The last thing I want to talk about is the blizzard at the end of the movie.
Elsa is back in Arendelle, the very place she’s been trying to avoid the whole movie - the place she’s afraid of destroying with her powers. The whiteout is Elsa’s terror, furious and opaque. It’s BLINDING, not only to herself, but to everyone around her.
But the second Hans tells Elsa that Anna is dead
Everything Stops.
The wind stops, the storm receeds, snowflakes freeze in thin air. The world stops moving. Elsa stops feeling.
Hans drew his sword pretty loudly. But Elsa doesn’t care. She believes herself to be a monster, and no longer cares if she lives or dies.
This is basically the end of what I want to talk about, but I can’t exactly leave it here, so.
Anna saves Elsa, sacrificing herself in the truest form of love.
She does the Big Freezy thing and turns into an epic ice sculpture, which Elsa then wraps in what is likely the world’s most uncomfortable hug.
And then, starting from the heart first, Anna unfreezes.
The secret to Elsa’s powers is revealed to be love, not fear. And, sealing my love for Elsa with a fucking kiss, Elsa IMMEDIATELY latches on. She’s been searching for an answer for this for her entire life, and is able to apply the one she finds INSTANTLY. She lets her love for Arendelle and everyone around her reshape her mind into a place of safety and wonder.
Everyone lives happily ever after, my sister cries, I nod stoically because I’m almost incapable of genuine emotion, Elsa is the most relatable Disney Princess and I adore her forever.
I know that none of this is a hot take but I really wanted to ramble about it anyway. This is a really good movie. Friendly reminder that just because something is mainstream doesn’t mean that it sucks. One time I was talking about how much I related to Elsa and Dad said that I was “a demographic.” Like. Okay? What’s the fucking issue with that? So Disney created a story that can resonate with a wide group of people, what’s the shame in being one of the people it touches? The real issue here is that so many young people can relate to repression and mental illness, like, what the fuck?
Anyway, thank you for coming to my Ted Talk. Join me next time (never) while I talk about the equally relatable Frozen Two’s arc of delving deeper into the knowledge of what you’ve repressed, Elsa’s obvious aromanticism, and the fact that the Trolls are evil masterminds who have deeply wronged both of the first movie’s male protagonists.
