#giveelsaagirlfriend

A few weeks ago, I was scrolling through Twitter when I saw that one of my favorite feminist accounts, @lexi4prez, had tweeted something interesting -- a hashtag #GiveElsaAGirlfriend.  Fast forward a couple of days later, and the social media movement had garnered massive amounts of support.  It appeared on news channels, news outlets, and had been trending on Twitter, with thousands of people discussing it -- Idina Menzel, the voice of Elsa herself, had even expressed her agreement with the idea.  I had never considered it before, but now that someone's said it, the notion makes such perfect sense, and I wholeheartedly believe that Disney should seriously consider making Frozen 2 a story of Elsa and a female love interest, instead of a male one, as had already been widely accepted.

If you think about it, Elsa's parallels to the LGBTQ+ community are incredibly strong, and quite a suspicious coincidence.  Throughout her childhood, she was forced into seclusion, in an attempt to hide a part of herself that society would perceive as alien and abnormal.  And, when she finally does reveal her secret to the world (spoiler: she has ice powers), she's ridiculed into fleeing from her town, where she knows she will never be truly accepted, and finds a home in the mountains, where she can finally be herself without the threat of judgement.  Elsa's received persecution for who she is and the insecurity she's made to experience is similar to the discrimination and contempt directed at LGBT+ individuals/their community as a whole.  Thus, it would be logical to #GiveElsaAGirlfriend in the upcoming film.

Aside from the fact that such a decision would be cool plot-wise, the societal impact it would have would be amazing.  Today, we see a greater representation of people of color in TV/modelling/film (although "greater" isn't saying much, and is not nearly enough -- i.e. #OscarsSoWhite), but the visibility of the LGBTQ+ community in this regard is still unbelievably low. There are some exceptions of course, like The Fosters (10/10 recommend y'all should watch this show); however, overall, when it comes to queerness in the media, its either a) non existent, b) simply reifying stereotypes, like gay relationships being dirty or scandalous,  or c) there's finally a queer character who is actually a well-rounded, fleshed out, unique human but then they die/meet some other tragic ending.  Because, obviously, queer people cannot have happy, fulfilled lives, and instead must fall victim to some sort of tortured existence!!

As a result of this, LGBTQ+ youth have little opportunity to see people like them portrayed in a positive light, which likely spurs insecurity, decreased self-confidence, shame, and a need to assimilate into heteronormative society.  Thus, it is so so important that the media increases representation of marginalized groups and posits queerness as something to celebrate, as something that can foster healthy, normal relationships instead of what LGBT+ are typically portrayed as -- toxic, dirty, tainting our youth, etc.  In fact, the major criticism of this movement is that while LGBTQ+ is fine, it's just simply not something that America's children should be exposed to so early, and in something as innocent as Disney.  Well, okay, why is queerness automatically not innocent?? Why are heteronormative couples seen as more pure, even though they likely engage in the same "scandalous" activities that society has arbitrarily deemed exclusive to queer couples?? There is zero good reason for any of this, and this mentality creates a vicious cycle -- queerness is dirty, so it's never featured in children's media, so the stereotype is never reversed, so children grow up to think queerness is still dirty, so they won't feature it in future media, etc etc. Such stereotypes must be combatted if we want to be conducive towards 100% acceptance, both society's acceptance of queer people, and queer people's acceptance of themselves.  Queer relationships should be normalized -- not normalized in the sense of assimilation, but in the sense that they are no longer bound by the aforementioned stigma.  LGBTQ+ children should be able to watch a movie and recognize themselves in the characters, making them feel more comfortable about who they are -- imagine how great it would be if a child who has been shamed for their sexual orientation, turned on the TV and saw that the beautiful, glorified princess from one of our decades' greatest hits, is just like them -- so empowering/validating!! And, what better place to start than Disney.

xoxo, elyse