Until recently, my four-year-old daughter wasn’t remotely interested in a talking snowman, an ice queen or a rugged mountain man and his reindeer steed. She preferred binge-watching the 25 million episodes of Thomas The Tank Engine on Netflix and if she fancied a series shake-up, she’d opt for a session with Peppa and her weirdly plausible piggy family. As one does. Despite being a bit slow on the toy trend uptake, she isn’t a complete social cretin. She knew about Frozen. She went to four Frozen-themed parties in three months. She even tried to watch the film when a friend lent me her daughter’s copy. She sat for 20 minutes and then started trimming her toenails with her teeth. It was after she’d hauled out her toy box and lined up all her Thomas trains to "tour through Sodor" that I eventually turned it off. I returned the DVD. She simply wasn’t interested. And that was fine by me.
All this changed when she was given an Elsa dress for her birthday – complete with sequined bodice, hoop skirt and white cape. She unwrapped this unassuming little gift, drew in a deep breath and her soul literally swooned. It was as if in that moment she realised that she'd been granted legitimate access to a bold and exciting new world. A world of princesses and castles, curses and ice crystals. She batted her big blue eyes at her father who relented to purchasing her Frozen on iTunes as an early Christmas gift. Since then she has voraciously consumed the film on every device in our home. For three weeks straight. The gift that keeps on giving. Over and over again. We’ve lost her. To the Arendelle in her mind.
On roughly her sixteenth viewing when she’d started lip-syncing the script, I finally watched it. I knew the basic plot from the party circuit, but I’d never actually sat through the entire feature length version. I’m not going to say it changed my life in the way that it has my daughter’s. But I did chuckle. And I confess that I did choke up. I’m human. I have a heart. So I’m not entirely immune to the Disney film formula. And the magic it evokes. Epic sagas where an unlikely hero or heroine emerges from a cast of witty, funny, damaged but always likeable characters and discovers the true meaning of love, friendship, or *insert life lesson here* set to the soundtrack of scene-sweeping orchestra music and catchy lyrics. This film however created a slightly deconstructed version of the tried and trusted Disney recipe for success. And going off-piste with the plot paid off. The box-office rake-in certainly reflects this.
The cursed ice queen isn’t a power-hungry psychopath. She’s a demure young lass with some icy superpower that she can’t really control. And we all know that with great power, comes great responsibility. She knows it too. And it terrifies her. Her younger sister, the princess with a mega-watt personality is the story’s real heroine. And she’s the one sans special powers or shiny snow wand. The strength of the bond between sisters and an unconditional sibling love ultimately saves the day - no man is required for the job. In fact, prince charming reveals himself to be less dapper don and more douchebag. The shaggy self-effacing mountain man who was raised by trolls, isn’t himself a troll at all. He’s the unlikely love interest. Comic relief comes in the form of a slightly camp, very climate-confused snowman. It’s a refreshing change. Disney did good.
One question though continues to baffle me. Why do my daughter and scores of other little girls want to be Elsa? Elsa is hardly in the story. She spends a helluva lot of time holed up in her room or hiding in her ice palace. She’s anxious and rather aloof. Anna is fun-loving, feisty and fearless. Open and warm, she embodies all the attributes that I’d love for my little girl to aspire to. Heck I aspire to them now. I asked my daughter what the Elsa attraction is, assuming of course that it would be the queen thing, the power she wields with her snow wand. Nope. Nothing like that. It’s the “pointy heel ice shoes that she wears in her ice palace”. And her blue dress. I asked my son what character he’d like to be. Sven, the reindeer was his instant reply. "Why?", I asked. “I’d actually love to be a dog Mum. In real life. But there is no dog in Frozen. So I’ll be the reindeer. It’s the closest thing.”
So with my son the reindeer and my daughter the ice queen, I’m going to channel my inner Anna and soldier on until the next Disney fixation grips our family. In the meantime though, my daughter can have her Elsa fantasy. Four year olds need all the magic they can get. We all do. Who I am to judge anyway? I spent years dreaming of being Frances "Baby" Houseman pulled from the self-confidence-challenged corner into the limelight by an adoring adonis in Dirty Dancing. Or perfecting a jaw-dropping transformation from geek to goddess like Sandy and her leather-clad sexy self in Grease. So I've been there.
This week as we were getting ready to leave the house for school, my little girl emphatically declared: “I don’t need to wear a jumper for school anymore.” When I asked why, she didn’t miss a beat in her response, “Because I’m Elsa, Mummy don’t you know? The cold never bothered me anyway.”
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| Elsa - in all her blue-gowned glory. Who doesn't need a jumper for a school anymore. |
