What this is all about

(Accessed online: http://www.broadway.com/buzz/174011/dreams-do-come-true-disney-confirms-broadway-plans-for-hit-movie-frozen/) 

In 2013 Disney released its 53rd animated feature and its overall 496th Disney film. Frozen is a hit film which created an incredibly popular soundtrack with "Let It go" reaching the iTunes top 20 (Cerasaro 2014).

Frozen is somewhat unconventional in that it is not a typical fairytale. It is about the unconditional love between two sisters and it also challenges contemporary issues such as an inclusion of a homosexual family. 

There are hundreds, possibly thousands of parodies to do with Frozen and this ranges from recreations of scenes, to lip syncing, to mockery and a 24 million-hit video on YouTube of the song 'Let it go' sung in 25 different languages.

The characters in Frozen are also relatable, especially for the stereotype-breaking Anna who conveys a personality of a typical teenager but breaks this when she takes on a hero's role to bring back her sister.

An iPhone application 'Free Fall' was released based on Frozen. The game is similar to the crazed 'Candy Crush Saga' but is thematic instead. 

This shows that the popularity of Frozen has caused it to be cross platform like many other contemporary media texts and I'm keen to explore the certain aspects of Frozen's nature and why the Disney film was incredibly popular.

Let it go

(Accessed online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moSFlvxnbgk)

'Let it go' was the most famous song to come out of the film Frozen. Particularly performed by Idina Menzel the soulful song is about being yourself and not holding back- a popular message, especially for young children.
Although a musical animation, the film spread across platforms as the soundtrack could be bought separately and various music videos were uploaded to YouTube (see above).

Countless amounts of parodies and memes were produced on account of the films' release. For example:

(Accessed online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gavEC5aWAzM)

This is an average couple whose lip-syncing video went viral over the internet. It is enjoyable and feel-good and spreads the message that Frozen is not just for children, and the children in the back of the car were probably the reason why the parents watched the film in the first place. This couple had taken a media text, and reproduced their own version.

This definitely changes how the audience interacts with cinema and films nowadays and this changes the whole concept of the 'consumer'. I would like to identify the difference I see between 'user' and 'audience'. To me, audiences are simply the consumer whereas a 'user' is more likely to interact with that particular form of media, as I believe a 'user' is more of a 'fan'. 'Interactivity' does challenge the way the classic audience member is viewed and this could inspire certain ways a film is produced.

"We are moving away from a world in which some produce and many consume media, toward one in which everyone has a more active stake in the culture that is produced." (Jenkins 2006).

Jenkins defines in his blog that participatory culture are these things:

"1) With relatively low barriers to expression and engagement
2) Strong support for creating and sharing
3) Informal mentorship
4) A belief that contributors matter
5) Social connection with one another.

Not every member must contribute by all must believe they are free to contribute when ready and that what they contribute will be appropriately valued." (Jenkins 2006)

Participatory culture I believe is one of the main differences between old and new media as users are able to interact with the media they are interested in. In relation to Frozen we have several types of fan groups (in my opinion) who take on Frozen in different matters. There are people who would buy anything with a Frozen logo on, those who recreate their favourite scenes and publish them on YouTube, meme creators and then what simply are the 'consumers' (those who simply enjoy). For example:

The Recreations:

(Accessed online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PGrtdcvlVE)

By making these parodies with no profitable outcome highlights the extent that the audience goes to get more involved with their favourite film. Jenkins' challenges that whatever level the consumer goes to, to create these parodies, that it is not important, but the consumer must believe that it is in order for it to matter. Participatory culture is a massive importance to Web 2.0 as the audience is now "active". Bringing it to a cross-platform level shows the advance in technology as anyone whose anyone can publish their creations online and within days it can become viral (if it's interesting or good enough). Having the ability to perform creations on a cross-platform level is important as it has completely changed the audiences ability to interact with media.

However, according to Nielsen, who devised participation inequality, only 1% of the audience are 'heavy contributors', 9% intermittent contributors and 90% are 'lurkers'. In other words only 1% of the audience are "active".

(Accessed online: http://www.nngroup.com/articles/participation-inequality/)

He says,

"User participation often more or less follows a 90-9-1 rule:

• 90% of users are lurkers (i.e., read or observe, but don't contribute)
• 9% of users contribute from time to time, but other priorities dominate their time.
• 1% of users participate a lot and account for most contributions: it can seem as if they don't have lives because they often post just minutes after whatever event they're commenting on occurs."

Personally I would put myself in the 90% as I rarely interact with medias I enjoy, but I do like to consumer other products made by the 1%.

This suggests that although it may seem it, not all audiences are necessarily 'active'. This emphasises that while the majority of the audience population have access to the technologies to produce cross platform entertainment, a lot choose not to. Most likely due to the reason that somebody already had. 

"The fact that fans are "active" consumers does not automatically mean that their practices and submissive or progressive. Theory fans do indeed put a lot of effort into producing interpretations- often quite radical and surprising- of their favoured texts. " (Gray 2006)

Gray often discussed how 'fandom' is chosen by the audience and is not forced upon by the producer. It is somewhat of a passion or hobby to take enjoyment of a text to the next level and producing other cross-platform features for other less-committed fans.

Big Summer Blowout!

The unusual conventions seen in Frozen tend to be that of contemporary society. What I mean is there are points in Frozen, which wouldn’t have been thought of within the 1940/50 classics. For example there is an inclusion of a homosexual family within the film (the owner of the shop). He spoke the famous phrase ‘YooHoo, big summer blowout!’ in a rather feminine voice.

(Accessed online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_w105aWPNY)

The camera then panned to view another male and four children in sauna waving back. Unless you’re a film vulture like myself I doubt many people would have noticed this- especially the target audience of children.

(Accessed online: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/steven-greydanus/so-how-gay-is-disneys-frozen)

This brings me to consider whether Disney is ready to fully agree with the on-going controversial opinion that is of homosexuals and their families. Whether or not this particular clip 'challenges' the conventions of a typical fairytale or is simply updating them to contemporary society. It is not usual to see a homosexual family included in a Disney feature so this is why I brought this up. It may not be challenging the typical conventions of a fairytale, but it is challenging contemporary issues and showing that a massive corporation like Disney is in support for gay marriage and their adoption.

There are various people out there who believe that is was wrong to include this element how ever this is an unpopular opinion. According to Jess Denham of The Independent  right-wing pastor Kevin Swanson claimed that Disney as "one of the most pro-homosexual organisations in the country" and that the film was "very evil" (Denham 2014). Swanson said this on his Christian radio show and caused a huge online debate about the scene with only the rare few who disagreed with the concept. One blog stated "It seems plausible the filmmakers have thrown this moment in to allow sharp-eyed homophile viewers to draw their own conclusions about just what sort of “family” this is." (Greydanus 2014) This brings about Stuart Hall's theory of encoding/decoding. Greydanus claims that it is up to the audience to decide what kind of 'family' this is. He gives example such as:

"The adult male in the sauna, with his slim jaw and lack of facial hair, looks markedly younger than the mountain-sized, hirsute Oaken, and could be his oldest son. Next to him is a young woman who, given the conventions of animation, could be could be Oaken’s daughter or his wife — or, heck, the wife of the other guy, who could also be Oaken’s younger brother). It’s even possible that the family isn’t Oaken’s family at all; “Hoo hoo! Hi family!” could mean “Hi, random visiting family of customers.” (Greydanus 2014) 


He suggests that it is up to the audience to interpret the meaning of the family. Clearly arguable, he makes some sensible suggestions and these have probably been interpreted by different audiences. This also shows how easy it is to post opinions on the internet bringing Frozen once again to a cross platform level. Before Web 2.0 there would have been minimal ways to provide opinions or explanations for acts in certain films. 

Disney are recently renowned for including adult humour in their films for example in Frozen there is a bestiality reference in the Troll's song:

"On another side note, there’s a double entendre about another type of relationship that is said to be “outside of nature’s laws”: The trolls, singing about Kristoff in the the “Fixer-Upper” song, suggest that he has an unnatural relationship with his reindeer Sven:

So he’s a bit of a fixer-upper

So he’s got a few flaws.Like his peculiar brain, dearHis thing with the reindeerThat’s a little outside of nature’s laws!" (Greydanus 2014)

This, like the homosexual family, is very undetectable unless picked up on the second time round or studied. While 'bromance' is a popular fashion at the moment, could one between man and mammal exist too? According to Disney, yes it can. However more than a little is insinuated and this would arise another argument for the against-Frozen community to slight the film once more.

Directing back to the character himself, Oaken, often referred to simply as ‘yoohoo guy’ he himself has spread across platforms, often participating in various memes found on the internet as so:

(Accessed online: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/24066179233143114/)

This highlights how the simplicity of a humorous phrase can go viral over the platform of the Internet, emphasising the power of new media and transition. This definitely changes how the audience interacts with cinema and films nowadays and this changes the whole concept of the 'consumer'. 

Free fall

(Accessed online: http://appadvice.com/appnn/2013/11/candy-crush-saga-on-ice-disney-launches-frozen-free-fall-match-3-game-on-ios)

Disney has taken on the world of applications with apps to guide audiences around their theme parks, and also various games to play such as 'A royal christmas' based on the disney princess Ariel (http://www.disneymovieslist.com/games/apps/) and now they have released 'Free fall' which is basically the notorious 'Candy Crush Saga' but instead of candies, it is icy crystals and gems (Calimlim 2013). By taking on a strategy game means that the game is nothing really to with the story of Frozen, just more the theme. This suggests that the audience of Frozen enjoy interacting with anything to do with Frozen even simply the theme, highlighting the influence and power of the film.

According to Eddie Makuch, around 93 million people play Candy Crush Saga everyday (Makuch 2014).

"In 2013, King Digital Entertainment enjoyed a year of massive financial success, pulling in a profit of $568 million, an increase of more than 7,000 percent from $7.845 million in 2012. A plan to sustain that growth is what investors will no doubt look to, and it's exactly what King delivered." (Makuch 2014)

No wonder that Disney were keen to release a similar themed game. However Free Fall did not take off as well as Candy Crush however was still downloaded- proving the point that the influence of a popular media will cause people to interact with the products. 

Breaking conventions

Vladmir Propp, the father of Narrative theory and tells us the clichè points of a 'folktale' structure. However, many people have challenged Propp's theory and labelled it as outdated. Often criticising that he was focused on form rather than semantics (Martin 1986).

"Propp and his successors have been accused of disregarding content in their search for form (hence the pejorative use of the world 'formalist' by Levi-Strauss but that criticism is not entering just. Propp's functions and actants (harm, villain) do have semantic content; having emphasised form in his early writing…When analysing realistic narratives rather than oral tales and myths, theorists find than conventional patterns of social behaviour provide a pattern of meaning that organises the temporal progress of plots."(Martin 1986)

When discussing form within Frozen, there is a clear structure, yet is not stereotypical. For example:

(Accessed online: http://rebloggy.com/post/jerk-frozen-hans-frozen-fandom-frozen-spoilers/68333669222)

 

The (tricky) Villain. Prince Hans' character appears to take on the role of the hero/prince with his good looks and charming nature however the conclusion of the film shows that he was only after the throne.

(Accessed online: http://mwp4.me/cartoons/elsa-frozen-3514/)

 

The Princess: Elsa get into trouble by freezing her whole kingdom by accident from the curse which she was born with. Her powers indicated she could have taken the role of a villain as the classic The Snow Queen which was first published in 1844 by Hans Christian Anderson (NOTE: Could he have inspired Hans' name?) In 1995 the film The Snow Queen was released and became a childhood favourite- not released by Disney though. This snow queen has inspired characters such as the Ice Queen from The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, however Elsa definitely challenge this stereotype as she is rescued by her sister after being captured and realises her powers can be tamed with love. This highlights how the media of fairytales is changing its own classics.

(Accessed online: http://the-mystery-case-files.wikia.com/wiki/Anna_(Frozen) )

The Hero: Anna, a typical princess and girly girl looking for true love rides out on a horse to help her strayed sister Elsa. Anna is not your clichè hero yet pulls through and even is the one to punish the villain (Hans) at the end. She is quirky and relatable to an older (teenage) audience.

(Accessed online: http://blogs.disney.com/oh-my-disney/2014/02/18/see-kristoff-and-anna-in-a-deleted-scene-from-frozen/)

 

(Accessed online: http://dgnews.sduhsd.net/reviews/2014/02/05/heartwarming-movie-frozen/)

 

The Sidekick: Both Olaf and Christophe tend to take on more of sidekick role and are the ones helping Anna on her mission. Christophe does however stereotypically heroically ride through the storm to find Anna to stop her heart from freezing, however it was Anna's act of unconditional love for her sister that saved her life, which is unconventional of a fairytale.

Propp's Narrative Theory could be valued as outdated however it is still valid. Even though "Morphology of a folktale" was published in 1928 in Russia, it can still be applied to fairytales, even the unconventional ones such as Frozen. This shows that even though fairytales progress with time like Frozen has, chichès can still be applied even though they do sometime break the conventions. This could suggest a reflection on society as Disney takes on educating younger generations about 'real life' (Prince Charming isn't who you think he is and true romantic love isn't the only thing important etc). Although it is a goal in the majority of society to find true love, nowadays 'true love' relationships are so vast and often unsuccessful that this film seems to promote real life importance. 

Within media, identity is always challenged and it is also a theme within Frozen as Elsa struggles to come to terms with who she really is. Giddens offers the term 'reflexivity'.

"Modernity's reflexivity referes to the susceptibility of most aspects of social activity, and material relations with nature, to chronic revision in the light of new information or knowledge." (Giddens 1991)

This suggests that Elsa was able to find who she was when she came into the information that love could control her powers- up until then she misunderstood herself and thought she was dangerous, so she 'revised' herself. 

Stuart Hall devised the encoding/decoding theory in 1980. 

"Meaning is a social production, a practice. The world has to be made to mean. Language and symbolization is the means by which meaning is produced. This approach dethroned the refereential notion of language, which had sustained previous content analysis, where the meaning of a particular term or sentence could be validated simply by looking at what, in the real world, it referenced." (Hall 1980)

Semiotics are everywhere in films and TV and Frozen is no exception. For example Christophe could be seen as the hero in Frozen as he rides through the blizzard to rescue Anna. Also, referring back the homosexual family other people have interpreted the family in various ways. In Frozen there are so many meanings which are encoded and to be decoded by the audience. One of my own favourite interpretations of a possible encoded message is that Elsa's powers became stronger because she was not shown love and was told to 'conceal' herself. This could suggest that the worst way to deal with a rebellious child is to conceal them when they should be shown more love, although Elsa was not a rebellious child. However after the years of locking herself away she was shown love which enabled her to control her powers. This 'love' however is not conventional fairytale love, but unconditional through family.