Tuesday, November 26, 2019

"Frozen II": "Wokeness" sucks the joy out of childhood

The Radical Politics of Frozen II; "Disney typically contents itself with selling a sort of mushy be-nice liberalism, but Frozen II may presage a turn to storylines that celebrate extremism." ("Woke Disney" , following the path of the "woke" ‘Charlie’s Angels’ ") 


. . . "Worse, it draws attention to a major gap in the script, which is that Kristoff is singing this song to kill time because the writers have forgotten to give him something to do. When the sisters go off to dig into the family’s hidden past, they not only abandon Kristoff, they do so without even thinking about it. (The witty move would have been for the girls to break out Taylor Swift’s “I Forgot That You Existed.”) I can hear a dozen Jezebel writers high-fiving each other: “Yes! At last, a male character is reduced to window dressing!” That’s two-wrongs-make-a-right reasoning. The first movie painstakingly forged a bond between Anna and Kristoff; the second wastes all that effort and makes Kristoff irrelevant.
"I’ll avoid spoiling the third act, which involves a rip-off of Superman’s Fortress of Solitude for Elsa, a bit of borrowing from the old Frosty the Snowman TV special, and an extremely questionable decision by Anna. But it appears the writing staff are a gang of eager progressives who are so blinded by guilt about America’s past that they didn’t see the huge problem they created for themselves. Sometimes the Left’s enthusiasm for making amends for ancient iniquity looks like random punishment directed at innocent living people. Disney typically contents itself with selling a sort of mushy be-nice liberalism, but Frozen II may presage a turn to storylines that celebrate extremism. Are you ready for Woke Disney?"

The Radical Politics of Frozen II 
Every so often someone tells me, “Cool it, man, you’re reading waaaay too much into this kiddie cartoon.” Or superhero movie. Or whatever. Frozen II pretty obviously is breathtakingly radical. (And also a bad movie; the two don’t necessarily go together.) I didn’t include any spoilers in my review, but I see Slate has published a spoiler-laden essay in contemplation of the cartoon’s (utterly bizarre) storyline and how it brings in themes of colonialism and reparations. I largely agree with Slate‘s writer, who seems somewhat taken aback by how breathtakingly far-left the movie is. A Disney movie that’s to the left of a Slate essayist is . . . something.  
I mention the Slate piece in case anyone thought my piece was unsupported by the content of the film.

Frozen 2’s Bizarre Storyline About Reparations, Explained

"This post contains spoilers for Frozen 2including the ending."
"When Frozen debuted in 2013, it threw audiences for a loop by having a damsel-saving “act of true love” take place between two sisters. Given the franchise’s history—and Disney’s recent trend of subverting its own princess tradition—savvy viewers would be right to go into Frozen 2 expecting another curveball. But the wildest of guesses couldn’t have predicted that directors Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee, the creative duo behind the first film, would make their sequel about … reparations?! As my postcolonial studies professors loved to say, let’s unpack this." . . .

No comments:

George Floyd Revisited: Derek Chauvin Was Wrongfully Convicted

  The American Spectator | USA News and Politics Derek Chauvin and his colleagues did not murder George Floyd. Chauvin’s prosecution and tri...

https://spectator.org/