2.3

The day of Elsa's coronation is an iconic moment for both sisters. Accompanied by the notes of "For the First Time in Forever", we see particularly touching images depicting the different reactions Anna and Elsa have in front of such an important day.
Anna is woken from what seems to be a deep and restful sleep, messy-haired and drooling, surrounded by the warm light of the morning. Excited like never before, she wanders around the castle, dancing and eating, with her usual clumsiness, dreaming of finally meeting the townspeople, the kingdom's trade partners, and, most importantly, the visiting princes. From the very beginning, the audience is prepared for a promising love story, a magical encounter, the typical Disney "love at first sight." After seeing Anna repeatedly rejected by her sister, losing her parents, and experiencing her loneliness and despair, one can’t help but feel empathy for this princess who, despite everything, shows an undying positivity and faith in fate. In this way, the audience not only expects a love story to unfold, but also a beautiful and meaningful one, one that could heal Anna's wounded heart and begin to present the story as a true fairy tale.

It is with this spirit that Anna inadvertently runs into Prince Hans. He is literally the first person Anna interacts with. The first words the princess speaks are an apology, and immediately after, she makes a very interesting comment: “If I had bumped into my sister Elsa, it would have been a disaster, but luckily it’s just me.” With this sentence, it becomes clear what kind of relationship Anna believes exists between her and her older sister. Naturally, it’s easy to attribute these thoughts to the challenges Anna faced during her childhood. With this meeting and the kind words they exchange, their destinies seem sealed.
 

Elsa, on the other hand, is shown already fully dressed, her hair styled in an elegant bun, not a detail out of place, bathed in particularly cold light. She spends most of her time locked in her room, staring outside anxiously, repeating the mantra that has accompanied her throughout her life: "conceal it, don’t let it show." Typical of individuals with anxiety disorders, Elsa, convinced that she could lose control at any moment, practices with objects similar to the scepter and other items she will need to hold during the coronation, testing them without wearing gloves, so she can see them freeze at their base and be forced to put them down immediately.

We can certainly hypothesize that this was the latest in an endless series of rehearsals Elsa has compulsively repeated in the past few days, if not weeks or months. This is the crucial moment Elsa has been preparing for years, and she probably had no idea she'd have to face it without her parents' support, making her feel absolutely vulnerable. If it weren’t for her strong sense of duty, she likely would have stayed locked in her room. In her expressions, we can clearly see the reflections of all the "what ifs" crowding her mind.

On one thing, the two sisters agree: the waiting is agonizing.
 

We now reach the moment of the coronation. The atmosphere is solemn. Elsa steps forward to perform the ceremony, and we see her try until the very last second to keep her gloves on, indicating that anxiety is still gripping her. Forced to confront her fears, Elsa turns to the crowd with the objects in hand. I particularly appreciate the animation in this scene, as the movements, though minimal, are perfectly rendered, along with the distinct facial expressions. Elsa holds her breath and tenses every muscle, taking an absolutely defensive posture. Stripped of all protection, she acts instinctively, trying to maintain total control over every part of her body, attempting to suppress an explosive energy boiling inside her. The base of the objects begins to freeze, and it seems as though time itself freezes around Elsa. Despite no change in the speed of actions or spoken words, we know for sure that the almost-Queen of Arendelle is suffering in every moment. Before we can even hear the conclusion of the ceremony, Elsa has already spun around and quickly put her gloves back on. She is now officially Queen.
 

We now move directly to the ball that follows the coronation.

At this moment, the difference between the two sisters is emphasized, especially regarding their relationship with each other and with society. Anna, staying true to her character, often seems out of place and particularly overexcited when it comes to social interactions. If we think back to her very first meeting with Hans, she trips over his horse, but not only that, we also see her stumble and fumble over her own words. Here, at the ball, she is extremely nervous when approaching and speaking to Elsa. With a background of almost total loneliness, Anna's awkwardness and uncertainty are entirely understandable.

Elsa, on the other hand, is perhaps for the first time in a good mood. The moment that had terrified her for months has finally passed, and nothing went wrong: she didn’t lose control in public, and no one got hurt. This definitely has a positive impact on her self-esteem, leading her to relax a bit and let herself go. We see her smile and, finally, interact with Anna. The younger sister is very scared and awkward when greeting her, but Elsa responds with elegance, trying to put her at ease.

It is Elsa who starts the conversation, and we can’t help but notice the excitement with which Anna is experiencing this moment, incredulous that she is "worthy" of her sister’s words. However, Anna, as we’ve already pointed out, doesn't have a clear understanding of boundaries in social interactions, and seeing even the smallest opening from Elsa, she immediately decides to push forward and open a door that has been closed for too long. In her excitement, she begins to ask Elsa why their days can’t always be like this, not realizing she’s dangerously turning "the knife in the wound". The Queen of Arendelle had seemed to forget her sad fate for a moment, but Anna brings it back to the surface, causing Elsa to grow grim and ending the conversation.
 

With a disappointed spirit, Anna is intercepted once again by Hans. Without hesitation, she confides completely in the prince, explaining the complicated situation between the two sisters and, most importantly, how she always feels shut out by Elsa, who suddenly excluded her from her life without ever offering an explanation. At this point, Hans cleverly responds, "I would never shut you out" triggering Anna's unconscious need: perhaps she will never have Elsa's approval, but she can always count on someone else's love to fill that void.

Thus begins the song "Love is an Open Door" which clearly highlights Anna’s impulsiveness and naivety, but at the same time, it leads the audience to trust Hans.¹³

This is the happy ending everyone wants for poor Anna, eager to love and be loved. The song centers on the compatibility between Anna and Hans but also gives us valuable hints. In the song, Hans sings "We finish each other's..." and the word that clearly follows is "...sentences," to form "We finish each other's sentences." But what Anna says instead is "sandwiches," creating the sentence "We finish each other's sandwiches" which is certainly not romantic, and makes little sense within the context. Hans, surprised by the dissonance, raises his eyebrows but continues with, "That's what I was gonna say!". This lack of sincerity immediately reveals the true intentions of the prince, who is doing everything he can to begin the relationship with Anna and to make the princess fall in love with him, thus forcing a sense of complicity between them. Disney, therefore, provides what is commonly called a red flag, a warning sign used to define the signals we can pick up early in a relationship to understand its potential dangers, toxicity, or bad intentions of the person we are interacting with. Unfortunately, red flags are often overlooked or, worse, ignored because the need of validation that guide us are stronger than anything. In Anna's specific case, we are fully aware of the emotional need she has to receive affection, so we can consider her feelings extremely intense compared to someone of the same age who hasn’t suffered the same emotional traumas. But one doesn’t have to be raised in uncertainty and loneliness like Anna to believe that the relationship between the two could work. The plot itself, the song, played and sang so close to "For the First Time in Forever" is built to make the audience, driven by strong empathy, believe that Hans is Anna’s soulmate, because they want so badly for it to be true. 
 

However, if you watch the sequence multiple times, you’ll notice that even the character’s acting reflects moments of his villainous nature, such as when Hans seems to sneak up behind Anna to grab her suddenly.¹⁴ At the end of the song, Hans asks Anna to marry him, and the girl, despite understanding the absurdity of the situation, happily responds with "Yes!" The desire to rush things in a relationship is never a good sign, and it is clearly a red flag. However, the "Disney filter" prevents the audience from standing up and realizing the senseless and dangerous behavior, because this is how we are used to seeing love stories unfold between princes and princesses: a whirlwind romance followed by "happily ever after."
 

The confirmation of what I’m saying comes when Anna, rushing to Elsa to ask for her approval, is rejected, and from the reaction we, as the audience, have at that moment. This scene was considered a true revolution in the Disney world, which finally stops normalizing such behaviors. When Elsa says, "You can't marry a guy you just met!" there is a sense of breaking the fourth wall. We are no longer inside a Disney movie, where this is allowed, but rather in real life, where it would be absurd. The surprise felt when seeing Elsa refuse to give her approval is the same feeling one would have in real life when seeing someone actually decide to marry after just one date. This is the first time Disney challenges its own "love-at-first-sight" trope and conceives a different kind of relationship, much closer to real life.

In the context of animated films primarily targeted at children, who form and shape their idea of "healthy love" based on the examples presented to them, including the first audiovisual products they come into contact with, I find the step taken by Disney in this direction to be extremely necessary. The main reason I emphasize the importance of such changes is not just a mere praise of a movie, it is necessary to consider the particular audiovisual product we are talking about as making significant changes but failing to distribute the product to a large audience obviously makes the impact of the change less powerful and less evident. But the key force that drives me to praise Frozen is how Disney decided to inject revolutionary notions of extreme importance for today’s and future society into a film destined to become a worldwide success.

Frozen enjoys unparalleled fame and appeal in the world of animated films. The popularity it has gained makes it, in effect, a cult classic. It has undoubtedly conquered the market with its merchandise and amassed numerous items, memes, and references. All of this has allowed the film and its protagonists to enter every cinema and, consequently, every home and into the eyes of a massive portion of the world’s child population.
 

Films possess enormous informative power. In fact, as media scholar Douglas Kellner argues:

"Images from the media help shape our worldview and our deepest values: what we consider good or bad, positive or negative, moral or immoral. Media stories provide the symbols, myths, and resources with which we constitute a common culture and, through appropriation, insert ourselves into this culture. Media products show us who has power and who is powerless, who is authorized to exercise force and violence and who is not. [...] Media are a profound and often misunderstood source of cultural pedagogy: they contribute to our education, teaching us how to behave and what to think, feel, believe, fear, and desire, and, of course, what not to do. Media are forms of pedagogy that teach us how to be men and women. They show us how to dress, look, and consume; how to react to members of different social groups; how to be popular and successful and how to avoid failure; and how to conform to the dominant system of norms, values, practices, and institutions."¹⁵

With this in mind, I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that globally important and popular products like Frozen, primarily aimed at future adults, when they portray values, characters, and situations that are revolutionary within the Disney world but completely relevant to the real world, perform a crucial social function. Talking about relationships between people in such depth, putting a gray area between black and white, good and bad, destroying the association between "happiness" and "goodness," between "love at first sight" and "healthy love" is a mission of utmost importance that Frozen has successfully carried out.