Our worship team sang select verses from “Let it Go” from the Disney movie Frozen during worship on Sunday. I couldn’t help smiling as I imagined what some of my clergy colleagues would think. I have friends who are worship snobs (of both the liturgical and contemporary varieties) who would be horrified. But as I reflected on the message of the song and of the movie, I thought it was entirely appropriate as we enter more fully into this Lenten season, especially with a congregation of people who have been hurt or burned by churches in the past.
I’ll share that I’m someone who is highly critical of the Disneyfication of culture, but I also really appreciate Walt’s original vision and, doggone it, Disney just does so many things so well. For me, knowing and appreciating Disney is part of cultural literacy, and for us homeschooling parents, visiting Disney World is just as important as visiting Washington, D.C.
So I was amused to see a news article about a pastor who got his nose out of joint about the movie. (Although I also wonder, How hard is it to find a right-wing pastor somewhere in America who isn’t foaming at the mouth about something? This is news?) The big issue, of course, are the casual ways the movie refers to a gay relationship and, he argues, bestiality.
(Regarding bestiality, Rev. Swanson is apparently seeing something I’m not—either that, or it’s just another way to casually link consensual gay relationships to something nonconsensual and abusive).
I’m not the only one who sees that Frozen may be the most Christian-themed movie Disney has released since Pinocchio. I’m impressed that Disney had the courage to poke fun at past Disney tropes of falling in love, marrying, and living happily ever after. Someone on their creative team obviously paid attention to feminist critiques of the role Disney plays in the social education of girls (and boys) over the last several decades. (This movie definitely passes the Bechdel test). The overarching message of the movie is that “true love” isn’t about the hormonal rush of finding your sexual mate, but the self-sacrificial agape love that one sister has for the other. Both heroines overcome their separation and shame through the power of love. I think it’s a great illustration of the Good News.
As for the song “Let it Go,” I don’t agree with Garbarino’s assertion that it represents Elsa’s “fall.” I believe her “fall” was the years she spent locked in her room with her parents’ well-meaning but wrong-headed teaching that her feelings and her power were meant to be closeted. Her answer—self-imposed exile—was not freedom either, but when she sings, “no right, no wrong, no rules for me” she’s not denying the existence of morality. She’s celebrating the fact that her gift is no longer subject to the moral judgment of others. She’s a woman claiming power that she has been told to hide her whole life. I can see why that would make Rev. Swanson uncomfortable. It’s too much like Tamar in Genesis 38 turning the tables on her slut-shaming father-in-law and the double standards of his culture.
More than any other Disney movie, this is one where we see both the light and dark side of community and social life. Community can be judgmental and censorious, but it can also draw us into life-giving relationships. Even when Elsa thinks she has run away, her actions continue to have an impact on the community. There’s probably a great sermon in there, too.
Finally, the conventional Disney hero, Prince Charming, becomes the villain. The movie shows us the way some people use social and political power and ginned-up moral outrage to gain advantage for themselves at the expense of others. I’m sure this message wasn’t lost on Rev. Swanson, either. The moral and spiritual messages of this movie do not look like the Christianity he believes.
But they look like what I believe.
Dave Barnhart 