Elsa and Anna's enduring popularity.
Just last week, a friend at work broke into Idina Menzel’s now iconic, ‘Let it Go’ song and naturally I started to hum along with him and like I always do I asked him why the song is still so popular ? To put it into perspective the work mate is a body builder/gym instructor around 6ft 5 with 10k Instagram followers. His answer was simple. My daughters love it and now I love it. No fragile masculinity here.
Well, the timing couldn’t be better and Frozen now celebrates its 5 year anniversary as the highest grossing animated film of all time. So to the drawing board, why is it so popular ?
Two protagonists? Well, it worked for Pixar’s Toy Story that started it all so that could always work. ( Frozen was developed by Walt Disney Animation Studious not Pixar - they’re both owned by Disney though ).
Social media at its very heights in 2013 with Memes. All right fair enough.
What about having a iconic song a bit like your ‘bare necessities’ , ‘whole new world’ and ‘circle of life’. Check.
Breaking traditional tropes like love at first sight. I hear ya.
Beloved side kicks like Olaf ? Well most movies have that but sure.
Don’t get me wrong, in this last decade I could name you Disney animated movies at the top of my head that I enjoyed more than Frozen ( big hero 6, incredible 2, zootoopia and Coco - absolute favorites , list goes on ....inside out). Ever since the turn of the century there has been a need for nuanced characters. We want sympathetic villains. We want people who we thought were good ‘breaking bad’ (literally in the case of Walter White). We want characters who we thought were evil having redemptive arcs. Things have changed, we don’t want black and white anymore ( Ben Solo is working tirelessly as we speak to create ‘shades of gray side’) and Elsa who is the focus of ‘Frozen’ fits this mould.
It’s great that little girls and boys of course are empowered to embrace their imperfections. ‘Let it go’. I believe it’s a combination of all these things that have helped ‘Frozen’ endure a lasting legacy since its release in 2013.
Well, the timing couldn’t be better and Frozen now celebrates its 5 year anniversary as the highest grossing animated film of all time. So to the drawing board, why is it so popular ?
Two protagonists? Well, it worked for Pixar’s Toy Story that started it all so that could always work. ( Frozen was developed by Walt Disney Animation Studious not Pixar - they’re both owned by Disney though ).
Social media at its very heights in 2013 with Memes. All right fair enough.
What about having a iconic song a bit like your ‘bare necessities’ , ‘whole new world’ and ‘circle of life’. Check.
Breaking traditional tropes like love at first sight. I hear ya.
Beloved side kicks like Olaf ? Well most movies have that but sure.
Don’t get me wrong, in this last decade I could name you Disney animated movies at the top of my head that I enjoyed more than Frozen ( big hero 6, incredible 2, zootoopia and Coco - absolute favorites , list goes on ....inside out). Ever since the turn of the century there has been a need for nuanced characters. We want sympathetic villains. We want people who we thought were good ‘breaking bad’ (literally in the case of Walter White). We want characters who we thought were evil having redemptive arcs. Things have changed, we don’t want black and white anymore ( Ben Solo is working tirelessly as we speak to create ‘shades of gray side’) and Elsa who is the focus of ‘Frozen’ fits this mould.
It’s great that little girls and boys of course are empowered to embrace their imperfections. ‘Let it go’. I believe it’s a combination of all these things that have helped ‘Frozen’ endure a lasting legacy since its release in 2013.
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