Non-Romantic Disney Heroines
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| Image description: From left to right - Merida from Brave, Moana from Moana, and Elsa from Frozen, an elite club of Disney heroines who I'll be exploring into today's post |
I’ve been a Disney fan my entire life. Born in the middle of
what was called the “Disney renaissance,” I grew up at the time that classics
like The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The
Lion King, and others were in their heyday. Disney, like anything, isn’t
perfect, but over the years it has created some noteworthy heroines, and as a
child I was inspired by the adventure-seeking Belle, the brave nonconformist
Mulan, confident Princess Jasmine who refused to let others plan her life for
her, and others from this period. There were also “off-beat” Disney movies like
Atlantis: The Lost Empire to draw inspiration from as a child, and I deeply
admired characters like the tenacious Princess Kida. Even looking to the past,
where the temptation exists to write off the leading ladies like Snow White,
Cinderella, or Aurora, whose stories largely center on romance, there are so
many lessons to be learned, like endurance in the face of hardship.
Even after the “renaissance” ended and I got older, however,
I never grew out of my Disney-loving phase. And thank goodness for it too,
because loving Disney even into my twenties has allowed me to experience even
more amazing characters. For instance, recent characters like the hard-working
Tiana from The Princess and the Frog and optimistic dreamer Rapunzel
from Tangled have kept up this tradition of heroines who offer so much. But
for this post, I want to focus on a unique subsection of these Disney heroines,
ones I haven’t mentioned yet. Unsurprisingly, they are the ones who do not have
romantic relationships and who, as such, demonstrate a lot of AroAce
tendencies. Although I love the stories that do include romance, over the past
decade or so I have noticed an exciting trend in a lot of Disney (and Pixar)
films to not include romance, or to include it in the background. Three of
these in particular are the subject of today’s post – Brave, Moana,
and Frozen.
Brave, Moana, and Frozen (ending spoilers)
Brave
Right from the get-go, I was excited for Brave… but I
was also terrified. While the feisty Merida seemed like a perfect candidate for
an AroAce character (no pun intended), I had been burned many times already in
my life in the hopes for a character like me. About halfway through the movie,
in fact, I panicked. While it’s pretty clear that Merida isn’t going to choose
any of the suitors from the other clans, I nevertheless feared the movie would
come up with a way to give her a romance anyway. As it turned out, all my
worries were baseless, but I’m getting ahead of myself; more on that in a
second.
In my opinion, Merida has so many things I want in an ace character – she’s determined, resourceful, and emotional; she has flaws and makes
mistakes but still remains someone endearing and genuine; she knows who she is,
but she learns about the world and the people around her in ways that don’t take
away from the validity of her own beliefs. That last point in particular is not
only important, but this theme makes up the core of the movie. From her
childhood, Merida has always been someone who has been tempted to follow the
path that leads her towards purpose – something which the movie expresses through will-o’-the-wisps,
which are said to lead a person to their fate. As I said above, when it comes to
changing her fate by changing her mother, what Merida actually gets is a spell
from a witch that transforms her mother into a bear. The only way to undo the
spell? To “mend the bond torn by pride,” which we discover refers to the sundered
relationship between mother and daughter.
The danger of rampant pridefulness is a theme of the narrative.
But astonishingly, the movie doesn’t teach Merida about the dangers of
pridefulness by making her cast aside her identity, the way media so often
does. Instead, Merida and her mother learn about each other in ways that allow
them to grow, both separately and together, and to have a greater appreciation
of what makes them unique. At the end of the day, the movie is about the
strengthening of their relationship and the things that make both mother and
daughter special. I love that this is accomplished by having Merida understand
Elinor’s life and her methods without having to conform to them, and that
Elinor can come to respect and honor Merida’s personality as valid. All of this
is done through a poignant mother-daughter relationship, rather than a shoehorned
romance. In fact, the end of the movie features Merida and Elinor watching the
suitors depart, together and happy in their own newly restored bond, no romance
for Merida required.
I won’t lie to you – when I first saw this movie and got to
the ending without a romance plot, I dissolved into happy tears. I was seventeen
years old and was finally seeing a character that felt like me, who got to stay
like me, who got to be brave and respected and honored for it. Even now, as a twenty-five-year-old
who blogs about asexuality on the regular and has been identifying as asexual
for nearly half my life, Merida is still extremely special to me. To this day, I
still smile when I see little girls dressed as her, and when I go to Disney
World, I get excited to even take a picture with Merida.
The phrase “representation is important” might sound trite and
overused, but for me, Merida is the proof and embodiment of that saying. I’ve
never thought of myself as particularly brave – goodness knows I wouldn’t be
able to do even half of the things Merida does for fun in the film – but her
example reminds me that perhaps I’m a little braver than I think, that perhaps
changing your fate is one of the bravest things you can do. In the closing line
of the film, Merida sums it up perfectly: “There are those who say fate is
something beyond our command, that destiny is not our own. But I know better.
Our fate lives within us. You only have to be brave enough to see it.”
Moana
In Moana, however, romance is never discussed
or brought up as part of the narrative at all. Instead, the thing that
hangs over Moana’s head is the conflict between her responsibilities – to her
family, to the people of her island, to the concept of “the way things are” –
and her desire to follow her dream and venture farther. Ever since her childhood,
we see Moana is called to the sea; in fact, she isn’t just called to it, she is
chosen by it for a vital task: restoring the lost heart of the goddess, Te Fiti,
without which the islands are beginning to fall into blight. But her father
believes the ocean is too dangerous and tries to forbid Moana from striking
out.
Here's the thing I really love about that notion: he’s
right. The ocean chose Moana for the task, and at times it helps her, but not
always. In fact, when Moana first decides she wants to follow her dream and
sets out in her boat, she is nearly killed when it capsizes. I think this plot
point is not only vital for Moana’s development, but it’s a vital theme of the
movie, and part of what makes Moana feel like an excellent AroAce role model. “Follow
your dreams” is a very standard theme of coming-of-age movies, especially Disney
ones; but the fact that following her dream puts Moana through the ringer adds a
necessary addition to that formula: following your dreams is not always easy,
not everything immediately works out, and sometimes when you follow your
dreams, the world kicks you in the teeth. But you should follow them anyway.
When you look at this through an aspec or arospec lens, it becomes even more poignant,
and for that reason, so much of Moana’s journey through the ocean reminds me of
my own attempts to navigate the sometimes-murky waters of being different from
the rest of the world.
That is Moana’s personal quest too – knowing she is different
from the people around her and learning how to be herself anyway. This lesson
is also driven home by Moana’s grandmother, Tala, the one who encourages her to
follow her dreams. In the movie’s first song, Tala acknowledges her reputation
as the village fool, but remains unbothered by it, as demonstrated by her line “the
village may think I’m crazy/or say that I drift too far/but once you know what
you like/well, there you are.” In turn, she encourages Moana by saying “…you
may hear a voice inside/and if the voice starts to whisper to follow the
farthest star/Moana, that voice inside is who you are.” As such, the question
of who Moana is and what she can do becomes central to the story.
This theme is also explored through the film’s deuteragonist,
the demi-god Maui, who stole the Heart of Te Fiti in the first place. Although
Maui is boisterous and swaggering, we learn throughout the film that he
actually cares deeply and wants to be needed, especially because he was abandoned
by his human parents as a child. But even more astonishingly, this theme of “who
you are” becomes central to the film’s main antagonist, Te Ka, a terrifying
volcanic demon who is actually Te Fiti herself, corrupted without her heart.
This discovery leads to my favorite sequence in the whole movie and a brief
song from Moana as she crosses the parted ocean floor to restore the heart. “They
have stolen the heart from inside you,” she says to the corrupted Te Fiti. “But
this does not define you/This is not who you are/You know who you are.”
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| Image description: Moana's awesome "power walk" scene as she crosses the sea to restore Te Fiti's heart |
All of these things make me believe that, although Moana is a great kid’s movie, it really does feel like a Disney film that was made for people around my age or older. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that there are a lot of people, regardless of sexual orientation or background, who feel confused as to who they are and where they’re going, and watching the characters of Moana struggle with that is extremely poignant. Despite her setbacks and doubts, Moana eventually succeeds in her quest and not only saves her island, but inspires her people to resume their history of wayfaring, setting out to find new islands and see how far it’s possible to go.
Frozen
I have a confession to make about this next film. While Brave
and Moana have become two of my favorite Disney films of all time, the
2013 blockbuster hit, Frozen, is… not one of my favorites. But despite
that, the film offers a lot of very interesting things to analyze from an ace perspective,
especially because of its popularity. The movie follows the story of Elsa and
her younger sister Anna, princesses of a realm called Arendelle. Elsa has a very
unique and powerful kind of snow magic which, during their childhood, leads to
an accident that almost kills Anna. Although Anna is saved, the event leads to
Elsa living a life of fear and isolation, terrified of herself, her powers, and
what they could do to the people around her. However, when Elsa becomes Arendelle’s
queen following the death of her parents, her secret is revealed and she is
branded a monster. She flees, finally giving into her powers rather than hiding
them, and in doing so accidentally engulfs Arendelle in a devastating winter.
Naturally, it is up to Anna to find Elsa and try to put things right.
Now, I only saw Frozen once, and it was probably
about four years ago, so I admit that my recall of the plot is not crystal
clear. I do know a lot of things jumped out at me from an aspec perspective,
however. For a start, Elsa’s power – the thing that makes her unique – is
something other people teach her to see as a defect and instruct her to conceal
it. While it’s hard to watch Elsa struggle with this, it also feels very similar
to aspec people (and indeed anyone in a sexual minority) being treated in ways
that make their own uniqueness feel unwanted and shameful. In that way, Elsa’s
now-famous song “Let It Go” feels like even more of an anthem when analyzed
through an ace lens. Sung when Elsa flees to the wilderness, the song is about
her abandoning the years she spent concealing her true self and casting off the
expectations others had of her. This is done by isolating herself, however, and
so it is far more powerful when Elsa is able to return and find purpose later
on, something which I hear is explored more in the movie’s sequel.
Returning to the theme of Elsa’s isolation, however, it’s
very clear that Elsa running away is not the only way in which she is isolated –
in fact, a large part of the isolation Elsa feels is isolation from her own
sense of self, the outside world, and most importantly, from her own sister. Furthermore,
although romance is part of Anna’s story, it is not at all part of Elsa’s story,
and I really appreciate that the narrative shows it’s the loss of Elsa’s
relationship with her sister that causes the most strain. It’s so common that
stories about people who isolate themselves or who don’t fit into the world are
missing out on romance specifically, and the idea that not having romance in
your life is missing out on what is supposedly “the greatest thing in life” is
even more common. I discussed some of the problems with defining “love” in this
manner in my previous post, and so it is very refreshing that romance is a side-plot
in Frozen, while the larger narrative focuses instead on Elsa and Anna’s
relationship as sisters.
I also appreciate how an act of true love is defined in this
movie as Anna’s selfless sacrifice born out of love for her sister, rather than
some random romance. In fact, this movie does not shy away from showing that “true
love automatically equals romance” is actually a pretty absurd notion.
While Anna does eventually find a good and caring partner in Kristoff, her
initial relationship with Hans demonstrates that having an actual real love is
far deeper and more complicated than a lot of romances out there would have you
believe. So in some ways, not only does Frozen offer us some AroAce
friendly vibes, it also offers us some demisexual vibes too.
For those reasons, although I feel like there is a lot more
to unpack with Frozen than I can do in one paragraph of one essay, it’s
nevertheless interesting to consider the notion of Elsa having those AroAce vibes,
or at the very least having a story that I think a lot of aspec people could
find value in. The fact that she is such a popular character makes these things
especially noteworthy. Between Elsa, Moana, and Merida, I would like to believe
that the children of this generation have great and varied non-romantic role
models to look up to, and that perhaps a young person will have an experience
like I did watching Brave, and will finally see a story that reminds
them of their own.
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| Image description: Anna and Elsa are an excellent example of how to do a story where love is a thing, sure, but where the real love and meaning of the story comes from a non-romantic bond. |
As both a writer and a Disney fan, one of my favorite quotes
of all time comes from the movie Saving Mr. Banks, in which Walt Disney
himself is a main character. “That’s what we storytellers do,” he says during
the film’s climax, “We restore order with imagination. We instill hope again
and again and again.” For me, truer words have never been spoken, and when it
comes to some of the films I’ve mentioned here, it’s especially true. Seeing
movies and characters like this gives me hope for what the future of
representation might look like, both in Disney films and other media.
But over the years, mine has definitely become a cautious
hope – even when I find characters like me, I tend to worry that they’ll be
taken away from me, or hold onto them tightly in the belief that I won’t find
others like them again. So it is only with the most cautious of optimism that I
look ahead and wonder if maybe other Disney heroines will be added to this
unique club. For example, next month is the release of Raya and the Last Dragon, Disney’s latest animated film and one whose plot summary makes me
think perhaps romance won’t be a factor, so I find myself wondering if someday
soon, I can be analyzing Raya for this blog too. I won’t count on it, of
course, but it would be nice, and it is technically possible, thanks to characters
like Merida, Moana, and Elsa paving the way.
Honestly, I feel as though I’ve barely scratched the surface with this post – especially since I didn’t even get to explore other Disney films where romance takes a back seat (like in 2014’s Maleficent) or where the heroine ends up unattached (like in the 2010 live-action version of Alice in Wonderland). But even through so brief an analysis, I hope I’ve been able to demonstrate why these characters could be amazing AroAce representation and why I would like to see more of them, now and in the future. Disney prides itself on creating stories about magic and making people believe in the impossible; for me, they do that, but probably not in the way they’re expecting. Because for me, seeing myself represented is a magic all its own.
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