The theme song screams that you should never consider any character as perfect - an absolute imagery is always a temporary illusion! In today's lesson, we've learnt not to take things at surface value, and instead have an open mind to be proven false.
In this post, I have crafted some questions on Frozen. Please do address the questions by considering both sides of the coin. The purpose of this activity is to practice developing a critical distance between ourselves and the text so that we can evaluate it objectively.
Pen your response in the Comment section below! Homework: Pen two responses (a total of 600-700 words) by Sunday midnight. If you hit the word limit through a single post, you don't have to craft another post. You may wish to reply to your peers' comments as well.
Elsa was born a sorceress who can create ice at will. Anna is a willful younger sister who troubles Elsa, and due to her carelessness, Elsa used her magic to save Anna's life - but it made Anna's hair partially white. Their parents decided to separate the two, and confined Elsa, banning her from using magic. Anna grows up alone, and when it is time for Elsa to be crowned, Anna caused Elsa to lose control of her emotions, thus unleashing the magic in the kingdom, freezing it. Elsa fled to the mountains and Anna naturally chased after her. Anna flirted along the way, of course. Eventually Elsa came back to the kingdom to save everyone from people who tried to take kingdom away, and Elsa realized that true love between sisters can be just as true and powerful as any other love.
This story was about poor parenting, of which Elsa was the victim. She was given a huge responsibility through her powers, and it was because of her parents' poor decision that Elsa could not learn to develop her gift. It is the duty of parents to develop children's gifts, and Elsa's parents failed that completely.
Elsa was the villain in this story - not because she accidentally froze the kingdom, but she completely neglected her sister's emotional development and her people by focusing only on herself. A princess must be interested in the people, and care for them. Yet, Elsa confined herself to the room and refused to interact much with anyone. She then fled to the mountains, abandoning her royal duties. Do we want our children to learn to run away from responsibilities, or to ignore anyone around them just because they think they may be slightly special?
Hans was the real hero of this story. He showed resilience, cleverness and patience at going for a goal. These are the values that we want our kids to have. He planned his proposal to Anna, and almost got the kingdom, had it not been for Anna's irrational act of protecting the villain. In fact, Anna put the entire kingdom at risk by saving someone who had thrown a winter spell at them. Do you think you should tell your kids to release a trapped crocodile - one that had eaten humans? Hans did the right thing by attempting to kill the witch. He was the rightful ruler of the kingdom, as he put the civilians' lives first.
Do you agree that Elsa is the villain and Hans is the hero? Why? Having discussed on these characters, do suggest the purpose of this story and the targeted audience.