Frozen sexuality

If you’ve been anywhere on the internet today, you know that Disney released a video of the big number from the new movie Frozen. If you missed it, here. I’ll wait

Now, I haven’t seen the movie yet. We’re waiting for Winter Break, so we can all go together. But I’m VERY interested in this movie. Not only is this Disney’s first stab at feminism (and, from what I’ve heard, they do it very well. What took you so long, Disney?), but Elsa (voiced by Idina Menzel) is being heralded as Disney’s first queer heroine.* Granted, it’s all subtext. But if this video is any indication, that is some really durned loud subtext.

Now, I’m not going to comment on that. I haven’t seen the movie, and I’m basing this all on a three-and-a-half-minute showstopping song. What I noticed in that 3:38 is Elsa’s sexual awakening. When we first see her, she is completely covered from neck to toes (minus the one glove). Her hair is bound up tight, and she reads as being very young (and isn’t it something that you can get pixels to project body language?) She’s completely repressed, and admits it: “Be the good girl you always have to be. Conceal, don’t feel.”

Be the good girl.

Remember. Good girls don’t do that.

Then she turns her back on what she’s been taught, turns away from everything she’s been lead to be afraid of, and accepts herself without worrying about anyone else : “I don’t care what they’re going to say.”

And then the cloak goes. That first layer of repression is gone, and she blossoms, casting off her old world for the one that she creates.

Then she lets her hair down. And we go from little girl to siren in one swell foop. Cleavage and dress slit up her thigh, possibly barefoot (hard to tell in the clip). And that swagger! This is a woman who has claimed her sexuality, and isn’t afraid of herself any more.

Honestly, if I can get that out of three and a half minutes, I wonder what I’ll get out of the rest of the movie???

*(We’re not counting what they’ve done with Once Upon a Time here. OUaT is for adults. They have a lot more leeway with what they’ll do with sex and sexual innuendo after 8PM)