Elsa and Anna go to therapy
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The movie Frozen has been a part of my life since 4th grade when my teacher Jack Swartz showed it to the class. The following year, I sang “Love is an Open Door” with my best friend Mara at the school talent show and we won third place. As time went on Frozen became one of my favorite movies. I’ve watched it countless times, as well as the sequel Frozen 2. Apparently a lot of other people watched it too, because Frozen is the fifth most profitable movie of all time. Little did I or other viewers know, we were also getting lessons in psychology. Now, as a college student in Psychology class, I was working on a presentation and a paper arguing that Frozen can actually be viewed as an educational movie. The paper would turn out to be six pages and the presentation 23 slides. The project would demonstrate some of the concepts learned in Psychology class.
Frozen is based upon Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tale The Snow Queen. From a psychological perspective, fairy tales can play an important role in the emotional development of children. Some psychologists believe children explore their internal self through fairy tales, helping them understand their external world. Psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim wrote that fairy tales encourage development of the “budding ego.” Research shows Frozen appeals to boys just as much as it does to girls despite the main characters being female. The movie also touches upon adolescent development themes of repression, isolation, splitting, projecting and acting out.
There are several key concepts we learned in the class that I was able to link to research on psychological perspectives of this movie. I also was able to make the case for validity of the media as an educational film rather than merely entertainment. The psychological aspects of Frozen have been studied by many scholars. If you do a search on Google Scholar for “Frozen movie psychology,” you will find a large number of references to psychology papers and analyses.
For my purposes, I examined the Big Five personality traits which are: Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. In addition to demonstrating these in Frozen characters, I also had to relate how they applied to my own personality. I also explored concepts of Self-Serving Bias and Fundamental Attribution Error, as well as key behaviors of adolescent development. Finally, I also questioned whether certain characters might have a disability, and maybe even mental illness.
For example, Elsa would have scored low on Extraversion, which means to be outgoing, because she went into isolation after she found out she had powers. In Frozen 2, she was more outgoing and friendly because she had learned to control her powers. Anna on the other hand was always outgoing. She wanted to marry a man she just met.
I also examined Prince Hans exhibiting Self Serving Bias, which is the tendency to attribute successful outcomes of one’s own behavior to internal causes. And I made the case for Anna exhibiting Fundamental Attribution Error, which is the tendency to attribute the behavior of others to internal, personal characteristics, while ignoring or underestimating the effects of external, situational factors.
Adolescent Development Concepts also are very apparent in Frozen. For example, the song “Let it Go” is about repression, the holding in of unconscious feelings that are struggling to surface. In addition, Elsa puts herself into isolation, singing about “going to the Kingdom of Isolation,” which is like locking yourself in your bedroom or closet. Another classic behavior in teen development that Elsa displays is splitting, which is the division of the self (and others) into purely “good” or “bad.” There are lots of examples of acting out, which is the expulsion of feelings either mentally or physically, inwardly or outwardly. One of them is Anna yelling “What did I ever do to you? Then Elsa violently makes icicles appear everywhere. Projection is often placing blame on others for your own issues or actions. Elsa projects by creating a snow monster “from her own bad qualities” to forcibly remove Anna from the ice palace.
I can personally relate to all of these. I have hidden in the closet, split my own personality into good and bad, projected by blaming others for my actions, and acted out. I can accept these things as part of growing into an adult and also things I need to work on.
Another interesting thing I found was the question of disabilities in Frozen. One scholar makes the case that with Elsa, Disney has introduced the first disabled princess. One researcher argues that Elsa’s disability is encoded in her magical ice power, but matches up to the experiences of people with physical, mental, and intellectual disabilities. The author says that Disney has created a universal identity for people with disabilities without the usual labeling. So instead of making her blind or autistic or mentally ill, they characterized her as someone who can’t control her actions. For example, when she turns things to ice, then accidentally freezes Anna’s heart. I can relate to this personally as I often have difficulty controlling my reactions to situations.
There is also a question of mental illness in Frozen. While working on my class project we had an additional class assignment that required us to choose someone we know with psychological issues and discuss them with the class. I chose a neighbor I had known since I was a child who suddenly displayed symptoms of mental illness in her late 20s. She was given several diagnoses as her condition progressed. Before all this she led a typical life, graduating from high school and college, and being very creative. She wound up homeless before ultimately being admitted to an assisted living situation.
For my paper and presentation I theorized that the Frozen character Hans might have Narcissistic Personality Disorder. This disorder is characterized by grandiose sense of self-importance, exaggerated abilities and accomplishments, excessive need for attention, boastful, pretentious and lacking in empathy. Likewise, Elsa exhibits some signs of mental illness including fear, anxiety, wild mood swings, and isolation. One theory is that she has generalized anxiety disorder — or maybe she is bipolar since she can freeze things just like the earth’s poles. (That’s a joke!)
When I was nine years old, Frozen was an animated children’s fantasy movie. Now that I am more mature, I can appreciate that there’s much more going on than just a kid’s fairy tale. The movie is very complex and the psychological concepts are not clearly labeled. Frozen could even be considered as an educational film on psychological dynamics. I explained some of these concepts in my essay, but there are many more. In the final analysis my presentation received applause from the class.
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