Please, Disney — make it stop. Vinay Menon,
Disney’s ice princess franchise returns for more, taking a small piece of your soul with it
Some moments in life are so horrifying they stay with us forever.
On Thursday, at 1:59 p.m., I was slouched at my desk when a future flashbulb memory arrived via email. One of my editors, Ariel Teplitsky, had forwarded breaking news: “Disney announces Frozen sequel.”
This must be a sick joke, I thought. There’s no way the Walt Disney Company would inflict more pain on parents, not right before March Break, not after conspiring with the pint-sized captors in our homes who’ve already forced us to watch the original movie like 1,839 times.
You know how some people can recall exactly where they were and what they were doing when John F. Kennedy was assassinated? Years from now, I’ll be able to do the same thing if asked, “Do you remember when Frozen 2 was announced?”
The year was 2015. It was Thursday, March 12. There was a construction crew outside my window. Then the sound of machinery gave way to the sound of a pounding heart, my own, as I read about the Disney annual meeting in San Francisco. Plans for a sequel were unveiled to rapturous shareholders, who no doubt texted their money managers to impulse-buy new yachts and mansions in Miami.
People, I don’t know if there’s a heaven or a hell. But if Satan has a dance hall, I guarantee you “Let It Go” is playing on a loop. I can also tell you this: when a father of two young daughters is blindsided by news that he hasn’t escaped Frozen, as he stupidly believed, the trauma can trigger an out-of-body experience, similar to when that man first tasted a Zima,
I don’t know if there’s a heaven or a hell. But if Satan has a dance hall, I guarantee you “Let It Go” is playing on a loop
say, or gazed upon Renée Zellweger’s new face.
There are no white tunnels in this metaphysical journey. As the man’s soul hovers near the ceiling, staring down at his body that’s now trembling on the floor in the fetal position, he is flanked by an ice castle, a spry snowman, a laconic reindeer and the threat of more jangled nerves.
How can we let it go, Disney, when you refuse to make it stop?
Frozen wasn’t just a juggernaut that grossed about $1.3 billion worldwide, or roughly the GDP of Antigua and Barbuda. It was a Trojan Horse that skidded into our lives on a sleigh. And when that equine head cranked open, releasing Anna and Elsa, Olaf and Kristoff, parents were entombed inside Arendelle, a Nordic kingdom facing an eternal winter, a good metaphor for how we soon felt.
At peak lunacy, when Frozen was in heavy rotation inside my unlivable living room, the movie swallowed our minds. I recall glancing at my wife one evening. She was perched on the couch, staring at the walls with dead eyes, robotically humming that “Reindeer(s) are Better Than People” interlude.
She looked like a prisoner of war. Disney had broken her.
Another time, during dinner, Elsa possessed our twin daughters. Pretending they too had Snow Queen powers, they dipped their tiny fists into their water glasses to pluck out the ice cubes. Before I could say, “The cold never bothered me anyway,” those cubes were airborne, with one catching me square in the face.
I should have sued Disney. Or at least realized what I now see so clearly: Frozen was a cunning experiment, the fused apex of every lesson the company learned with previous films aimed at young girls, including The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Pocahontas, Mulan, The Princess and the Frog and Tangled.
Catchy songs? Check. Fairytale setting? Check. Princess philosophy? Check. A range of merchandise that may force a father to knock over a convenience store in his Duke of Weselton disguise? Check. Marketing so pervasive that news of Frozen could reach any kid, anywhere, by sheer osmosis? Check. A franchise that could float the company share price over $100 for years to come? Cheque.
I’ve never seen someone do crack cocaine. But I’m guessing the ensuing expression is similar to how my daughters looked five minutes into Frozen. This wasn’t an animated film. It was mass addiction, a hit of pop culture so powerful, Disney knows it can lure families into theatres this weekend for the release of Cinderella by including a new Frozen short. And now a sequel is in the works. As I stared down at my body, which was curled up like one of those mossy trolls, I heard a disembodied voice say, “Do you wanna build a snowman?”
“For the first time in forever,” I replied. “Can’t you leave me alone?” vmenon@thestar.ca