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 However, many people have challenged Propp's theory and labelled it as outdated.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.