How Frozen Redefines True Love

It is undeniable that Disney has contributed in how I perceived true love when I was a kid. It was always about a charming guy or in most cases, a prince, came, married the girl and they lived happily ever after. For decades that was how Disney portrayed true love to children. Even in the movie The Lion King, Simba who is technically a prince finds Nala, his childhood sweetheart as his true love, and they are lions! The “romantic true love” is pretty much inseparable from most of the Disney’s classics.

 It has always been like that until Frozen was released in 2013. The story tricks us into thinking that Anna has to find a guy as her true love. And that’s pretty much what happens to Anna. She is so desperate for love from a guy which leads her to fall prey on prince Hans, the bad guy in the movie pretending to be a rich prince. But that’s not the point of the story. I was personally shocked when the movie revealed that Anna’s true love is her sister, Elsa. The idea of romantic true love was so ingrained in my mind that I didn’t see that coming. Even hours after I left the cinema, I was left in awe and I kept talking about it to my friends. “Guys, Anna’s true love is Elsa!” to the point where my friends were probably getting so annoyed.

A thing so simple yet so revolutionary. Yes, true love comes with different forms and ways. The director said it pretty clearly in one of his interviews with indianexpress.com: “I was just pitching an idea. Trying to show that the act of true love was not only a kiss from the prince. We have done that, and we have done it very well. The question was what can we do differently. There are many forms of true love, and one of those is familial love. The family has strength. And we wanted to explore the love between family members, especially two sisters. The studio was thrilled about that. We knew that it was going to be the act of true love. It is going to be just between these two sisters.”

The family love is shown clearly from the beginning of the movie. Starting with the scene where they played together when they were little, to Elsa runs to the mountains because she doesn’t want to hurt Anna with her magical power, to the climax of the story where Anna sacrifices herself for her sister. Everything revolves around how these sisters love and protect each other.

For the first time, true love has nothing to do with men. In fact, unlike any other movies, men in Frozen don’t have big and powerful role to show their domination. Even in movies of female heroine like Mulan, a romantic true love is a prominent aspect of her achievement. In Frozen, Anna turns away from Kristoff to protect Elsa. Jennifer Lee, one of the directors of Frozen concluded it in a perfect way in her interviews with indianexpress.com: “We talked a lot about relationships. We were able to differentiate between what we see, what we feel and what turns out to be the reality. Like the guy who walks in and looks like perfection isn’t (perfect) nine times out of 10. It’s not how it works. With family, the power is deeper and overwhelming. Fairy-tales help to feel without taking on that journey.”