The Walt Disney Company is about to break a record by being the only movie studio that has had seven billion dollar movies in 2019 that include, “Aladdin,” “Toy Story 4,” “Captain Marvel,” “Frozen II,” “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” “The Lion King” and the biggest movie of all time “Avengers: Endgame.”
They also split the profits from “Spider-Man: Far from Home” with Sony Pictures so you could technically say there will be eight of them. Part of the reason why people love Disney/Marvel/Pixar/LucasFilm movies is because they’re largely not preachy and don’t get bogged down in political pandering.
But “Frozen II” has one really bizarre, typical pandering and whitewashing message from Hollywood at its core.
“Frozen II” definitely does not live up to its predecessor but it’s still a quality addition to what looks to probably be a franchise over the next decade or so. Anna, Elsa, Kristoff, Sven and everybody’s favorite, Olaf the snowman, are all back for the sequel. This time they leave Arendelle to travel to an ancient forest of an enchanted land to discover the origin of Elsa’s powers in order to save the kingdom, Arendelle.
The sequel quickly dives deep into Elsa and Anna’s royal ancestry after the citizens of their kingdom are forced to evacuate due to a mysterious supernatural attack. Queen Elsa and Princess Anna venture into an enchanted forest where they discover their father, as a young boy, was part of the Northuldra tribe.
In the flashback, their father says that Elsa and Anna’s grandfather gifted the tribe a dam. Of course, you could probably see where this is going considering what Elsa’s powers are. But it turns out this dam wasn’t a “gift” per se, it was actually a sinister act of sabotage.
And then comes the twist where both Anna and Elsa uncover that they’re also half-Northuldran because their mother was a member of the tribe. Sounds like a familiar New World American story, right? Do John Smith and Pocahontas ring a bell? Or is it more comparable to John Rolfe and Pocahontas?
Either way, Elsa and Anna are from this indigenous tribe.
One of the weirdest criticisms of the first “Frozen” is that it was too white. But given the fact that it takes place in Norway, it’s accurate, right? Of course it’s a fictional fantasy world but it appears to take place sometime in the 19th century.
Disney felt the need to address the whitewashing criticism of the kingdom and that drives the plot of “Frozen 2” because in order to rectify the relationship between the Arendelle and the Northuldra tribe, Elsa and Anna decide to destroy the dam even though it means flooding their kingdom.
Basically this is some sort of bizarre reparations message that’s a direct parallel or allegory to early settlers and Native American relations in the 1600’s.
It’s bemoaning the colonization of America. This is just Disney’s way of being more progressive in messaging, especially when Disney has a long history of being controversial in diversification.
It’s also like Disney is overcompensating for its own past atrocities as well.