Little girls longing to be like Elsa

Moms who thought their 4-year-old daughters’ fascination with Elsa was cute are getting worried. At what point does cute become obsessed?

Disney’s 2013 animated feature Frozen is old by movie longevity standards, but miniature replicas of snow princesses Elsa and Anna continue to spawn faster than the ominous broom squad in Fantasia’s “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” scene. The highest grossing animated film of all time has generated parties for little girls that clear the shelves of Elsa merchandise, Elsa dolls that eclipse Barbies in demand, and the weary sigh of Tiffany’s Bakery manager in Philadelphia who told The Philadelphia Inquirer: “It gets a little much sometimes. … It’s like, ‘How many Frozen cakes can you have done today?” Even the recent blast of winter weather along the East Coast revealed how entrenched the film is in popular culture, with local law enforcement in several communities creating clever photo ops by arresting “Elsa” for causing all the snow and ice.

At the center of the center of the cult of Frozen is a single song from the soundtrack, “Let It Go.” Even director Jennifer Lee has begun apologizing for it: “A year ago, I’d meet people who, when they found out who I was, they’d say, ‘Oh, we love the songs! We sing them all the time. Now they’re like, ‘Yep, we’re still listening to those songs.’ I’ve gone from, ‘Thank you,’ to, “Sorry!’”

So I watched the movie and studied the lyrics of “Let it Go.” That may seem fanatical in itself, except that you have to realize these girls are hitting replay hundreds of times—just like enhanced interrogation techniques but willingly endured. The song is “getting” to them; just think of lyrical wormholes you have known, and the susceptibilities of your own pre-school mental landscape. So what is the message of the song?

Let it go! Let it go! Can’t hold it back anymore. Let it go! Let it go! Turn away and slam the door. I don’t care What they’re going to say. Let the storm rage on. The cold never bothered me anyway. …

No right, no wrong, no rules for me. I’m free! …

You’ll never see me cry. …

Let it go! Let it go! That perfect girl is gone.

Here I stand in the light of day. Let the storm rage on! The cold never bothered me anyway.

I have talked to myself like that sometimes, and it was always with bitterness, defiance, and self-deception, trying to convince myself of something. In other words, it is what the Apostle John would call “walking around in the darkness” (Proverbs 4:19; 1 John 1:6). It sounds more like the voice of C.S. Lewis’ anti-heroic dwarves than what a mature role model would say.

I do not at all debunk the longing to be a princess. When God told Abraham to give his wife Sarai a new name, He made it “Sarah,” which means “princess.” We are all distaff members of the prophets, priests, and kings of God’s true kingdom—all royalty of God. Perhaps this is the salvageable divine element in the Frozen appeal to young girls. Every little girl wants to be a princess, because in every little girl there is a faint and distant eternal call to dimly perceived destiny. Scripture says, “[T]est everything; hold fast to what is good. Abstain from every form of evil” (1 Thessalonians 5:21–22). Moms and dads would do well to listen to that verse as repeatedly as preschoolers do the verses of “Let It Go,” and let God’s truth soak in, like Hollywood soaks into kids.