ABSTRACT
If you want to have a profound appreciation for the storytelling brilliance of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, take a close look at Disney Animation’s 2014 Oscar winner, Frozen. Walt told stories that reflected his personal view of life in order to entertain (mainly) Americans and to sell movie tickets; Disney Animation today makes movies to entertain (mainly) international audiences that reflect corporate-sponsored consumerism and that can be tent-poles for franchises. Big difference! The movie has given birth to everything from theme park exhibits and branded children’s underwear to a traveling Disney Frozen on Ice show. Random House has sold more than 8 million Frozen-related books, and more than 3 million Frozen Halloween costumes have been sold. The Frozen Broadway musical will open in 2017, and Frozen 2, the sequel movie, is coming out in 2018. Elsa’s song in the film, “Let It Go,” has earned an 8X rating from the Recording Industry Association of America, which means it has been played more than 8 million times. The point is that, if financial rewards are the question, Frozen is a shining part of the answer. In general, feature animation today is held to a lower standard of storytelling excellence than live-action films. Frozen’s construction is taken from a recipe book written 80 years ago by Walt Disney and has been through so many revisions that Walt’s original formulation – that the story reflect one person’s values – has been long lost. When considered strictly from a storytelling perspective, Frozen quickly falls apart, a point that is significant because, even with a sloppy script, the movie still won an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film and is, in fact, the highest-grossing animated feature film in history.
