Shortly after seeing Frozen in the theaters, I began noticing mirthful comments in social media about how some conservatives believe that the Disney movie is secretly promoting a “gay agenda”. Like most sensible people, I ignored these at first, assuming that it was all just an internet meme that would pass as quickly as the earworm that is Let It Go.
But that tune is still playing in my head, and these comments keep popping up. I responded to one or two posts with “What gay agenda? What are these people talking about?”
Here’s what these people are talking about.
Disney Studios has created a film that appeals to viewers of many ages, but particularly children and parents of young children. Frozen has become a popular cultural touchstone (no pun intended) and it is expected that many people feel ownership of the film and, in the process, overlay their own experiences on top of it. Equally unsurprising is that a subset of “traditional marriage” advocates, aware that they are losing the fight, start looking for signs everywhere of assaults against their firmly held convictions. They believe that they are in a cultural war and their enemies are multitude.
But I’ve seen Frozen and I didn’t walk out any gayer than I was when I went into it, so what’s the deal?
The first inkling I saw of this was an oft-shared post from A Well-Behaved Mormon Woman, penning a 3000+ word article claiming that watching Frozen (three times!) was like “like being in two places, experiencing two vastly different movies, that were visually identical”, so subtle was the gay agenda. However, the details she so meticulously spells out must only make sense if you are already looking at it with gay-agenda glasses, because they were completely lost on me. At the very top of her argument, she insists that the movie was really written for Broadway, and of course we all know what that means: show tunes!
I needed to look a little further to determine how I was being secretly inducted into gay society, and finally came across an article in the National Catholic Register by one Steven D. Greydanus, a film critic and author. At last, here was someone who actually knew how to write and form an argument, even one laced with some pretty substantial leaps of reasoning. He breaks down his hypothesis into three points:
Elsa was born different. She has a secret that she must keep closeted. She inadvertently outs herself at her coronation, escapes away from normal society to build a fabulous castle, and eventually learns to accept and celebrate her true nature.
Yes, that is a very powerful argument. It also describes pretty much every teen angst movie ever made, not to mention such obvious gay-promoting films as Star Wars, Spider-Man, and E.T. (We may as well rename those Star War on Marriage, Spider-Gayman, and E.H: the Extra-Homosexual.)
Let’s move on.
Greydanus’ (lord, how he must have been teased about that name in middle school) second point is about the seemingly unnatural relationship between Kristoff the iceman and Sven, his reindeer. As we all know, bestiality and homosexuality are exactly the same thing! Despite what you hear about gay people just wanting to lead normal domestic lives, the actual gay agenda is promoting every opportunity to have sex with anyone and anything, be it man-on-man, man-on-reindeer, or man-on-pizza. Again, this makes sense only if you are obsessed with sex, much like Mr. Gay-anus.
The final nail in the coffin is so subtle that, if you’re not paying rapt attention, the gayness will shoot directly into your subconscious. Apparently, during the brief scene at Wandering Oaken’s Trading Post and Sauna, Oaken says “Hello, family” to — are you ready for this? — a young man and four children waving from the sauna.
Isn’t it obvious?!? That is clearly Oaken’s young lover and their adopted kids, because there’s no woman Oaken’s age visible in that brief shot. In that subliminal, if-you-blink-you-will-miss-it moment, the folks at Disney have completely torn apart the image of the traditional family and replaced it with the true homosexual vision: buff men and healthy children dressed only in towels.
It is easy to dismiss people like A Well-Behaved Mormon Woman (Kathryn Skaggs, a self-described “54-year-old grandmother who married at age 18 and never went to college”) and Stephen Gayness, but their erudite arguments (Mr. Greatanus uses words like “heteronormative establishment”) belie a yawning chasm between perception and the practice of genuine, progressive open-mindedness. I raised my children to be accepting of difference, to honor diversity, and to champion justice. Ms. Skaggs writes of “a liberal culture tenacious at normalizing immorality, stripping those of faith from their ability to speak out in opposition.” Following the lead of the Fox “news” bogus War on Xmas, these pundits are building a new front on their cultural battlefield in a war that only they are fighting, but which nonetheless will leave casualties across our society.