My review of Frozen II is live on JPGB:
As I first began to understand what the original Frozen was up to, what really impressed me was not just the sheer audacity of it – making a Disney movie that would permanently destroy the influence of Walt Disney’s poisonous romantic individualism in American cinema – but the absolute ruthlessness of the filmmakers in pursuit of their goal. Comparing Frozen to Enchanted, an earlier Disney film (and a princess film to boot) that had also taken liberties with traditional Disney romanticism, I summarized the difference Frozen would make: “Frozen is not subverting the Disney view…for fun. Frozen is playing to win.”
Frozen II is also playing to win, but against a different opponent. Like the first Frozen, it succeeds by making you really feel why the opponent that it is setting out to destroy is so attractive – making you commit yourself emotionally to the target – and then pulling out the rug. Your spirit soars with Elsa as she casts off the bonds of her oppression, repudiating her painful abuse at the hands of an unjust culture, and sings a paean to the liberation of unlimited individuality. (If your spirit does not soar, I regret to inform you that you are spiritually dead.) When Frozen has made you leap for joy that Elsa has embraced unlimited individuality, then – and only then – does it force you to see why unlimited individuality does not work, even on its own terms, and is in the long run an agent of death.
That is what I meant when I said “Frozen is playing to win.”
The target in Frozen II is not romantic individualism but romantic collectivism – traditionalism and nationalism as organizing principles of human life.
Let me know what you think!
