I chose Elsa from Frozen because my sister likes her. When I saw the movie the first time, the movie impacted me because is a different from the rest of the Disney’s movies. Frozen did a significant worldwide impact. It earned over $400 million in the United States, and nearly $900 million elsewhere, leading to an estimated worldwide total approaching $1.3 billion. It therefore currently stands as the highest grossing animated film of all time and also this is the first Disney film in which a princess makes an egregious error that negatively affects everyone around her but is still able to receive forgiveness and respect by the end of the movie. The film won Oscars for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song and a Golden Globe for Best Animated Film.
Also Frozen could equally be viewed as a significant cultural phenomenon. It is unusual among Disney films, and has been praised by feminist critics, for having two main female protagonists: Elsa, and Anna, both present as basically good characters.
I searched about the characteristics of the movie and it shows that this movie easily meets the criteria of the so-called “Bechdel Rule,” the gold standard for female empowering cinema, requiring that:
- two women,
- talk to one another, about
- something other than men.
When talking with my sister about the movie, I asked her, what she like about Elsa? She answered that she is strong and she can change things and make things happen. And when I asked about Anna, she told me that she likes that her sister is kind, and lovely. We argue that the character of Anna, when examined through the lens of character strengths, is one of the strongest characters in recent film history.
It is important to say that Time magazine ranked Elsa the most influential fictional character of 2014. Elsa’s sparkly blue dress and blonde hair is their new Barbie. She also sings “Let it Go,” the show-stopping song of the movie, which won the 2013 Academy Award for best original song, and received widespread critical acclaim as “an incredible anthem of liberation”.
When I was searching for information about the Frozen movie and Elsa I found that unlike her sister Anna, Elsa has magical powers that cognitive anthropologists would call “minimally counter intuitive” —exotic enough to fascinate us, but familiar enough to be recognizably human.
I can say that as one critic put it: She’s a young woman in difficult circumstances, frightened, trying to understand her abilities and burdened by expectation and convention. It’s easy to sympathize with her and marvel at her ability.
But I believe that with this film, much more benefit can be gained by studying the character of Anna, not Elsa. One of the criteria used in the original compilation of psychological strengths was that the average person should be able to name people who embody humility, bravery, love or any of the other strengths. Furthermore, research shows that much of our learning comes from observing exemplars and these exemplars need not necessarily be living. Historical figures can act as exemplars, as can fictional characters in books and movies as Elsa is one. It is unfortunate that Elsa has cover Anna in the hype surrounding the movie Frozen.
Talking with my sister Jileana about the character of Ana in the film I had to say that something that surprised me was that she told me that Anna can make us think and change when we are failing. That we can do it better than the first time. We can see this when in the movie, Elsa dropped Anna playing and Anna keep in top of her sister to make her feel that it wasn’t her problems and she want to keep playing with her.
First off, it seems that one of the most evident character strengths that Anna displays in the movie is love. From the part when she was joyfully building snowmen with her sister, to her unflagging attempt to reconnect with Elsa throughout their childhood, and her unflinching belief in the goodness of her older sister, Anna demonstrates the ability to give and receive love.
Also I talked with my sister about Anna falling in love too deeply and too quickly with a character who later turns out to be untrustworthy. She told me that sometimes the people make mistake specially the girls thinking that the first person to come is the one. I think that every person need to make mistakes to know what they are doing wrong and it applies also in love. When some people thinks they find their love is not always the first one but is the one that they can feel good and that is their other half.
Anna is also a courageous character. Courage, like love, is a psychologically complex strength. It requires the ability to pursue a goal in spite of internal or external opposition. We can see courage as consisting of Anna leads while Elsa avoids managing fear. It takes many forms: physical bravery, honesty, passion and persistence.
Additionally, Elsa appears to be the first Disney Princess to acknowledge the issue of mental health as a reality for women. At Elsa’s coronation, her hands are shaking violently, prompted by the fight or flight’ response in the body in response to life threatening issues. Many people who suffer from anxiety disorders view innocuous occasions as life threatening and suffer from shaking limbs as a result. Also, when Anna and Elsa finally reunite, Elsa appears to be suffering from extreme guilt and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, haunted by the fact that she nearly killed her sister. This reaction is triggered by Anna herself, as is apparent from the Elsa’s flashback to this event and instinctual flight from the room. There are also symptoms of an uncontrolled panic attack present here. Elsa’s powers are beyond her control once she becomes agitated; her singing becomes more and more incoherent until it is nothing but a shout despite Anna’s evident sympathy and logical pleas.
Elsa has been celebrated by adult critics as a paragon of the courage to be oneself in spite of the consequences, that is, the courage of authenticity. But Anna is every bit as courageous as Elsa, if not more so. She demonstrates absolute perseverance in pursuing a relationship with her sister in spite of the obstacles that Elsa throws in her path. Her physical bravery is evident when, in the midst of Elsa’s magically generated snow storm, she races into the mountains by herself to find her sister and bring her home with little concern for her own safety. The personal bravery she musters in facing her own loneliness over years of sitting outside Elsa’s closed bedroom door shouldn’t be ignored, even if condensed into a 3-min montage in the film. Whereas Elsa’s courage involves the rejection of others, Anna somehow manages to be loving and courageous at the same time. When Elsa is crowned Queen of Arendelle, it is Anna who most clearly demonstrates the strength of leadership.
Queen Elsa, on the other hand, broods alone in her ice fortress, leading no one, doing everything in her power to avoid not only her loved ones and her community but her own fears. Perhaps the greatest irony of the film is that the signature song “Let It Go” is delivered by the one character who finds it most difficult to let things go, at least in terms of forgiving herself and others and letting the past go and moving on. Again it is Anna, not Elsa, who demonstrates strength in the area of forgiveness. She not only forgives Elsa for the years of neglect, but also persistently seeks reconciliation and repair of their relationship. Much of the good in the final scenes of the film, as Anna sacrifices herself for her sister, occurs because of Anna’s commitment to their relationship. In this sense she demonstrates all the empathy, acceptance and commitment that characterize acts of forgiveness.
Elsa is a Hero Antagonist; an ultimate heroic character that inadvertently provides obstacles the protagonist must overcome before the movie can end happily-ever-after. Elsa remains a hero because she chooses to make the difficult choice of continuing to lock herself away, even when her parents are no longer present, to protect the people she loves. Her redeeming quality is her unwavering desire to protect her loved ones even when it comes at the cost of her quality of life.
With all the attention centered upon Elsa, it is easy to forget that Frozen only has a happy ending because of Anna. Although Anna engages in serious and dramatic life-saving actions, she is also playful and light-hearted as she teases her love interests, and humble, always placing the interests of others before her own.
Creating a Disney princess who happens to have an anxiety disorder is a progressive step towards creating characters that accurately represent our world. Elsa is not portrayed as selfish or “crazy,” but as someone who is doing the best she can in her situation.
In conclusion, there is a lot we can learn from both characters, both of whom change for the better over the course of the film. But if we are looking for an exemplar of the good life, of how to build a positive relationship, or how to put our character strengths into action, we would be better served to look to the less popular of the duo. We believe it is Anna’s perseverance, bravery, love, zest, leadership, and forgiveness that are the true underlying ingredients of the film’s impact. These are the most substantive aspects of the film, and ultimately the qualities that put the warmth into Frozen.
