Recently, upon logging into Facebook, I saw that #GiveElsaAGirlfriend was trending. For those of you who have no idea who Elsa is and who are also living under a rock and don't know about "Frozen," Elsa is a fictional ice queen from Disney’s latest hit movie. The movie, which focuses on sisterly love rather than romantic love as the characters’ saving grace, leaves Elsa without a love interest even up until the movie's ending.
Predominantly a loner throughout the film, Elsa, according to the Internet, seems to be the perfect character to be Disney’s first openly gay princess, or, for that matter, first openly gay character ever. With "Frozen 2" being recently announced the people of the internet have decided to start the campaign known as #GiveElsaAGirlfriend, calling Disney to create their first lesbian princess.
The hashtag was born as many people drew connections between Elsa’s forced isolation and lack of a visible love life with how members of the LGBTQ community often must closet themselves and their identities. Elsa’s line “Don't let them in, don't let them see/Be the good girl you always have to be/Conceal, don't feel, don't let them know” from popular song “Let it Go” can be see as a cry to be allowed to come out and be who she really is.
Despite my better judgment, I ventured to the comments section and looked at what people think and boy did I get mad. One woman claimed that we should let kids be kids and not use this movie to push a political agenda.
Wait a minute. Hold the phone… political agenda? I don’t think so. I really do not think this has to do with politics at all. It is about representation. If you asked me right now to list as many openly gay animated characters from mainstream movies as I could right now, I really do not think I could list a single one. It is not about forcing politics on children, it is about creating a movie that is representative of real life. I cannot think of a single mainstream kid’s movie that has even a small depiction of blatant same-sex attraction.
Why are people so afraid of exposing their children to love? Really, it is preexisting bigotry that keeps parents and other people from wanting to expose kids to different types of healthy, consenting love. The Fine Bros did a sort of experiement with kids and their reaction to a same-sex proposal and the results were overwhelmingly positive and can be found here.
It seems to me the kids do not have a problem, parents do. This says a lot about our cultural attitudes as Americans. If little kids can see this as just another representation of love, then what is the issue?
By potentially giving Elsa a girlfriend all we are doing is allowing kids to see that love comes in all shapes and sizes.
More importantly, it would help normalize feelings that younger kids might be struggling with or not understand because of how pervasive heterosexuality is in the media. Giving Elsa a girlfriend might just help some kids understand more about themselves. Idina Menzel, who plays the ice queen, said she would back Elsa “No mater what,” according to DailyMail.
If anything, could I not argue that by not giving her a girlfriend, the media is forcing the heteronormative political agenda onto children? In fact, parents and others do this to kids every day. Little boys who laugh and play with little girls as young as a few months old are labeled “ladies' men” by gaggling relatives. Little girls who like to play with little boys are sexualized. Why is this okay, but it seems like pushing a political agenda if we ask Disney to be representative of real life?
Opponents of this movement honestly need to #letitgo and #GiveElsaAGirlfriend.
